Does anyone send their kids to public school?

[local school by a local]

the teaching scene in local schools having been changing for the past few years. most teachers are not spoon/force feeding the kids. i have came across teachers who are very creative in their methods of teaching. my kid's chinese tutor who teaches in a neighbourhood school is one who did such wonders for my girl (really no interest in mandarin).

my kid was in a local school for 5 years. yes most parents send their kids to tuition centres for nearly all subjects yet quite a handful do not.

i sent mine for tuition (english, mandarin) but i DON"T COMPARE the results of the girls in her class(which i find is very important and less stress for all of us). as long as she understand the concept and her grades do not fall under 80, we are happy. she was very happy in school, participated in after school clubs, competition etc. homeworkwise, it depends on the teachers but since primary 1, we have a study schedule mapped out, so somehow or other, she always managed to complete her projects, homework and still have time to play.

now we are in london, she is definitely doing so much better than her classmates. and i am surprised that lots of kids go for tuition over here too.

my girl was in Methodist Girls' School (primary) which has quite a few foreigners. go personally to the school and check out the details with the principal. put her name on waiting list if possible.

[kiwi teacher]

while i agree that the top-tier Signapore schools are rote-learning, highly competitive pressure cookers ... i disagree that Singaporeans do not do well when they go abroad.

in fact, it is common in many Western university faculties to find most Asians (Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, HK, China, SE-Asians, Indians) from the pressure cooker countries who are the majority which constitue the honor roll in high schools and who are the A-scorers in foreign universities.

UK, USA, Canada, Australia.

even those in the 'below average range' in Singapore manage to do ok in average universities abroad. often in universities abroad the average C student in Singapore manages to shine with a couple of ego-boostintg As.

what does this say?

skeptics can try the reverse situation -  vice-versa. returning public-school student. compare and see if they can thrive in the Singapore system. (same grade level).

even returning Singaporeans with kids educated abroad know their kids rank 2-3 grades behind.
i have heard an expat IB mom complain before that her daughter, already from one of top tier IB programme back home, seemed behind when she joined the local system.

(for that matter, any returning Asian to their homelands - education remains one of their top fears - that their Western-educated kids cannot catch up. neither are they disciplined enough).

i am comparing public schools with public schools.
and yes, i'd say Singapore public schools still come out better.


American homeschoolers are now even using the Singapore Math and Science books as their official texts - SG Math and Science now ranks among the top globally.

now if you're talking *private* schooling abroad, ok.
that's a different matter altogether.

 

Oh yes, the ol' chestnut about other countries using local textbooks... Was wondering if you'd try that one as well.  

Look, I understand that you have been told all the nonsense that you are spouting, and think that you have to defend your school system out of some warped sense of patriotism, but we both know that you are glossing over a huge amount.

Parents in local schools lament the fact that their Hong Kong counterparts have the option of putting their children into international schools. I had more than a few parents ask me (each year) if I would help them get their kid out of the local school system as they felt their children were cramming in facts instead of actually learning - these are two very different things.

OP, some of the schools that I would put my own child (we live on the West side of Singapore, so not sure about anything on the east side) include:

- Bukit View
- Zhenghua
- St Anthony's
- St Margaret's
- Most of the catholic/methodist schools would be fine
- Henry Park*
- Princess Elizabeth*

* These schools are still a bit more pressured than the others, but may be ok. Still a few foreign families are seen here.

Note that they are some of the few 'pioneer' schools who are implementing support in schools for students with learning differences - a radical concept in SIngapore not so very long ago.

I will say that for girls the options are much better as the girls-only church based schools are often very good...

[Not Sherlock]

"local school by a local" and "thumbs up" have got to be the same poster. It's far too much of a coincidence that two posters singing the praises of Singapore's education system both cannot use capital letters! 

[to pp]

sorry to disappoint you    but i dont know who "thumbs up" is. what's wrong with not using caps? so the rest of the posts typed in the same manner were from the same poster? 

well, what can i say, my kid just happen to have good teachers in her 5 years in a local school. God's blessing.

not everyone thinks the local system sucks, okay?

 

[just -my-opinion]

Just my opinion and like everyone else I am entitled to it - but seriously the one thing that would make me go home is if I could not send my kid to international school. I'll compromise on almost anything and I do compromise on a lot of things to have the international and asia experience but the schooling of my child - err no.

I've told my husband that I am happy to stay here for how ever long, even forever but the moment I cannot afford or cannot get my kid into a really decent int school then we are gone and I really mean that. For me this is the most important thing in their lives.

I've had friends of mine slag me off for getting my son into a top international school. Those friends tell me that they cannot afford to send their kids there. I'm confused by this because one of these friends owns 8 apartments around the world and the other earns loads of money. I mean - is it that some people just don't take their kids education seriously?

[Asians dominate uni]

thumbs up,

Perhaps you could provide some published facts? From personal experience and by others it seems, this is not the case.

Also, you seem to be turning this thread into an us versus them. Would you happen to be local?

Get a rankings list of top universities in the world.  Check out the science, math, and engineering faculty of these universities.  Check out the country of origin of their PhD students.  I think you'll find the overwhelming majority are from these "rote-learning" Asian countries that you criticize so much.

I doubt these Asian students would have made it that far if they got a Western education.

[$Pripps]

thumbs up,

Perhaps you could provide some published facts? From personal experience and by others it seems, this is not the case.

Also, you seem to be turning this thread into an us versus them. Would you happen to be local?

Get a rankings list of top universities in the world.  Check out the science, math, and engineering faculty of these universities.  Check out the country of origin of their PhD students.  I think you'll find the overwhelming majority are from these "rote-learning" Asian countries that you criticize so much.

I doubt these Asian students would have made it that far if they got a Western education.

So why do they go to Western universities? Shouldn't the Asian ones be better then according to the same logic?

[Asians at uni]

thumbs up,

Perhaps you could provide some published facts? From personal experience and by others it seems, this is not the case.

Also, you seem to be turning this thread into an us versus them. Would you happen to be local?

Get a rankings list of top universities in the world.  Check out the science, math, and engineering faculty of these universities.  Check out the country of origin of their PhD students.  I think you'll find the overwhelming majority are from these "rote-learning" Asian countries that you criticize so much.

I doubt these Asian students would have made it that far if they got a Western education.

So why do they go to Western universities? Shouldn't the Asian ones be better then according to the same logic?

Better funding, better facilities to do research.  Professors at Asian universities tend to not get paid very well. 

I'm not talking about undergraduate students, I'm stating that Professors and PhD candidates who are experts in scientific fields overwhelmingly come from "rote-learning" Asian countries.

If the same person went through the Western educational system, their scientific abilities would probably not be fully developed.  Western schools are simply not rigorous enough to produce large amounts of people who will excel at hard sciences.

[scorn]

The Wall Street Journal had a story a year or so ago on the schools which give kids the best chance of getting into an Ivy League school.

The most successful prep school in the world?

Raffles here in Singapore.

And as someone who knows many Singaporean professionals, they find NUS a lot tougher than most overseas colleges.

[thumbs up - away fr SG]

"local school by a local" and "thumbs up" have got to be the same poster. It's far too much of a coincidence that two posters singing the praises of Singapore's education system both cannot use capital letters! 

We're NOT the same person, sorry to dissapoint.
Perhaps just two posters who have had the change to compare local vs western yes ... and finding the Western experience somewhat wanting.

I am a product of the local SG system, from one the top tier girls schools back then. All the way in foreign university, it was an easy route. I don't think NUS would have been as breezy an experience for me - it would have been way more challenging to get those same grades.

Ditto for all my cohorts who left, and those I met here.

Unfortunately my kids are not. One regret is staying too long here, to have them Western educated. They are not bilingual either. Nevermind trilingual or knowing any dialect on top of those. Just hopelessly monolingual, with a half- baked knowledge of French, as with most of their Western and local Asian classmates.

The huge holes in their loosey-goosey education, without any firm structure or syllabus is apparent. Fortunately for them they're both very early readers, and willingly read a varied range of topics which help a little to cover shortfalls in school.


Back when I was in (foreign)university - yes Asians were dominating all the sought after faculties - medicine, sciences, engineering, business,  Heck, some of even the fine arts.
They still are doing that today.

The kids who are really soaring in high schools here these days, and grabbing the few government scholarships seem mostly Asians too.
Granted, some of these folk were not educated or born or bred here, and are actually newer (4-5 yr young) immigrants who were largely educated in their home countries.

It speaks a lot for their systems back home too, when they can come in and beat the locally-educated locals after merely a few years stay, for these awards and scholarships.

These are kids whose first language is sometimes not even English!
And here in a Western country; these new immigrants are writing exams for all their subjects in English, and yet ironically still beating the locals to those awards and scholarships .. or getting interviews for Harvard and Yale.

IB programmes - largely Asian dominated too, where I live.

Says a lot doesn't it?

======

Henry Park - it is not easy to get in (if your'e out of district boundary), and it's supposedly highly competitive - they're one of those with very good grades. i know someone who spent a year or many months volunteering just to get a spot ofr her 1st child in there ... and pulled all her kids out after all that trouble. it was very stressful - both for her, and her kids.


 

[kiwi teacher]

This is such a chicken and egg argument. Maths and science tend to be rote-learning typed subjects (not always, but it cannot be argued that there is a certain amount of memorisation involved). So yes, it stands to reason that countries who do well in these areas have a system that is geared towards this type of teaching and learning.

But since when is school or education just about being really good at maths and science? What about the myriad of other things that a child needs to learn and become proficient at?

My wife is a Singaporean. When she was at school, she learned four subjects: English, maths, science, mother tongue. That's it. When she left school, there were options to carry on to a Junior College (more maths and science etc) or polytech (where there are subjects for those who are less academic - like social sciences) and lowest on the list are the technical colleges where people learn trades (which are not regarded highly here - a student at technical college would not have made his parents very proud at all)... When I first learned about these rankings, it made me extremely sad. A tradesman (like a painter, a mechanic, a chef or an engineer are all perfectly respectable careers in many countries!) As another example: PE is not usually a school subject, but students have compulsory sports/activities - the goal is always to win and achieve awards (as these will help you on your next school application), not to enjoy the sport or to lead a balanced lifestyle.

So yes, Singaporean students who go overseas are excellent in maths and science and probably do very well at their PhD's etc in these subjects. It is not necessarily because the school system here is excellent but more likely because these areas are preferred and are drummed into students at a young age and rapid rate. Raffles is a highly selective secondary school, so students who enter it have already been very successful students (at, you guessed it: their ECA's and English, Maths, Science and Mother tongue).

The local system can be excellent for some students (and there is change coming, as I've said) but to say that it is automatically better is ridiculous. It is completely different: different approach, different goals, different expectations, different methods. In contract, my kids are at an international school. Here they take TEN subjects: English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, Art, Music, PE, Computer technology, Mandarin, Drama. This is completely normal in many international schools, and in many Western countries.

At the end of the day, choose what works for your family, and be grateful that you can choose. Many Singaporean families cannot.

[scorn]

Kiwi

I think it's strange that you think an education focused on math and science is somehow limited. The first is the language of the universe and the second is how we understand the universe. They are fundamental to understanding almost every other subject that you go on to mention.

As to suggesting that one education (Asian vs Western) isn't superior to another, surely the facts are apparent to all. Western universities -- grad and undergrad -- are hugely overrepresented by Asians, in the sciences and arts. (More than half of the science and engineering PHDs in the US this year will be foreign-born).

And how is this reflected in the real world? Western countries are becoming severely indebted (an inability to count perhaps) while Asia is booming (China will take over the US in R&D spending by 2020).

The trends are pretty clear. As the West drifts into a less demanding education of its young, Asian parents are raising children who are becoming the world's next leaders, in science, business and elsewhere.

And the irony is of course, that the so called Asia education with its emphasis on hard work and academics is really just what we in the West used to do, and what made us so successful.

[Pragmatist]

Can only speak for the UK, but one reason they're full of non-UK students is because they pay international fees and so are very valuable to the universities.

I used to teach at a UK university. We had droves of Asian (mainly Malaysian) students failing (accountancy) and were bascally told to make sure they passed as the university wanted more foreign students not less.

[locals]

with big chips on their shoulders are quickly taking over this thread.

It hard for them to hear the truth when their media tells them how good they are and how they will be at the forefront of Asians taking over the world.

[IB]

genuine question coming up-how do you explain the high success rate of a local( ACS) in the IB exam?Isn't that the whole point of an international school-that it eventually leads to IB which is not focussed on rote learning but is more well rounded?