Education
After taking a huge long break from blogging, perhaps it would be a good time to restart and share the various snippets happening in my life with everyone. Because I also started a corporate blog for the company which is still under construction, waiting for the new version of the website to be completed, I had to find an avenue to release personal stories someplace else rather than fuse it together with the corporate blog. It would be inappropriate otherwise.
Many events have occurred, perhaps the first time in my life I travelled out of the country via plane 2 times in 2 consecutive months, albeit one for holiday, but not just events change the way I have perceive life, but also people and experiences.
I recently met up with one of my ex teachers and had the strongest urge to share my experiences in doing business, customer handling, personal life issues, and how I spent my time in NS and related stuff. It was a great sharing session where she also shared with me the pictures painted for the education industry and how bleak it looked because of the new innovations that had sprung up too fast too furiously, and caused many unhappiness throughout the teachers.
I do admit every time I watch the news and a report comes in about changes in the education sector, be it lowering the importance of chinese language, new methods of teaching, removal of peer stigma by enhancing pupil cohesiveness, etc. I always stop to think about these changes, and if they are taken in the right direction at the right time. However, I would have to say not all the moves embarked upon sparked me to agree with them. Not enough research had been taken to ensure that these moves were right, and some were just outrageous.
As the world turns its focus on the emerging China and India markets, the recent move by the education ministry to lower the importance of the Chinese language would be equivalent to hitting another nail into the coffin, sealing the death of the Chinese language. It is harsh to describe it this way, but folks, the truth hurts.
I am a product of the education ministry, and I dare say my grasp of the Chinese language is lousy. I had tons of tuition to help, tried the funny innovative methods which didn’t work, but I generally did well, scoring a B in the O Levels and also a B in the A Levels. When I was preparing for the O Levels, the education ministry released that a mere pass in Chinese language would be sufficient as entry criteria into a local university, and as such, roars of cheers and happiness could be heard nation wide. But we all know it was for that particular someone to enter university, though his grandfather applauded the idea by saying we were not meant to master 2 languages and it was a mistake from the start.
I now struggle to communicate smoothly with my Chinese suppliers on details for product line specifications and other related dealings, and strongly urge the education ministry to wake up their idea, and put their foot back on the right direction. We have an advantage of being bilingual with a strong foundation built from the start to have children well versed in both languages. Do not take that away from the children, for when they grow up to be versed in a single language, heck, advantages will be taken off them.
Looking at myself at being the product of a 2 language system, and the efforts of the ministry to lower the importance of Chinese language, I dare not foresee what would happen to the future generations, which would probably spiral into a deep mistake which cannot be undone.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
No Responses Yet to “Education”