Towards a more understanding and appreciative education system

Streaming has always been part and parcel of our education system. Those whom are in the know of secondary education in Singapore would understand the terms “Special”, “Express” and “Normal”, which describes the academic abilities of students from “best” to “worst” as determined by our National Examination, the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). For the crème de la crème who did well, their paths are open to entry into prestigious academic programmes locally or overseas, and government scholarships. And unfortunately for those who didn’t perform as well, they are staring down at the abyss in what is popularised as “It’s The End” (ITE an acronym for the Institute of Technical Education) in Jack Neo’s movies.

Students who eventually enter Junior Colleges will take pre-university courses and subjects and many will eventually enrol in a university, locally or overseas. For those who eventually enrol at ITE, they would take technical-based courses which will prepare them for a vocational career. However, it is not really the end of the road for some, who will eventually do well in ITE to secure a place in the polytechnic, and subsequently earn their diplomas that will qualify them for entry into the universities in a process that will take a longer time, but nonetheless, earn the same qualifications as their special or express peers (those who eventually earned their degrees).

One of the damaging effects of streaming is that it would obviously lead to segregation of students according to academic performance, and subsequently, a lack of understanding and empathy among different segments of the student population, such as that between the Integrated Programme and the Normal Technical stream students. Indeed, there were teachers who have raised their concerns that the students from the Gifted Education Programme rarely mixed around with the rest of their peers.

I had an enjoyable exchange recently with a top executive who currently works in the educational industry and the latter remarked that engineers at MIT and other top schools were good in terms of theoretical knowledge and hands-on work. Hands-on work in the context of this article refers to the performing of technician-related tasks such as soldering or operation and/or repair equipments used in our daily lives. This executive later went to lament that our engineering graduates aren’t up to par with their top school counterparts in terms of technical skills.

How can we move towards an education system that breeds greater understanding and appreciation between various segments of the student population? An obvious approach would be to promote student exchange hailing from different categories of institutions. It works according to the same principle of student exchange programmes in our universities where students typically spend a semester (or two in some cases) overseas so that they can expand their horizons.

How will such an exchange programme work? Students from ITE, especially the School of Applied and Health Sciences cluster can spend part of their curriculum in the polytechnics or even junior colleges if they desire to understand more about the theoretical aspects behind a technical subject. Students from Junior Colleges can be made to undergo technical courses at ITE so that they will be able to learn technical-related subjects and understand the technical applications of the theoretical knowledge that they have picked up previously.

The end result will be a win-win situation for all. The ITE students will pick up theoretical knowledge from their exchange programmes and combined with their technical knowledge will make them better in their field. The Junior College students will supplement their theoretical knowledge with technical skills that will come in useful even in their later lives, e.g. when they need to do soldering or repair equipment. Above all, such exchange programmes promote inter-mingling of students from different categories, and this will lead to greater empathy and understanding among them, which bridges the ‘academic divide’.