Not a maths grad either...

[Temperament]

It's a nature versus nurture issue, I don't push my kid too hard.

But I do emphasize proper grammar!

God makes all kinds of people.
If God only makes one kind, then we are all the same like ROBOTS; doing the same thing.
But we can never understand why you are made so much more gifted while i am made so much ordinary or some even worse, spastics or half-past-sick.
So when my son was born, i prayed that he can bring happiness to this World and that not only he is favoured by GOD but also by man.
Amen.

[hyom]

Paid 15K ... really really kiasu. Think they are more angry being outsmart.

I can't imagine paying $15,000 in fees for just one year. I think that's insane!

I have always wondered whether the tuition industry has impoverished parents more than enrich our children. I wonder if it is possible to create an objective test to measure their value-add.

Some may say parents have a choice. Problem comes when the husband doesn't believe in spending huge sums of money on enrichment but the wife thinks otherwise. To avoid quarrels, the husband just go along.

Anyone falls into this category (besides me)?

[WolfT]

Paid 15K ... really really kiasu. Think they are more angry being outsmart.

I can't imagine paying $15,000 in fees for just one year. I think that's insane!

I have always wondered whether the tuition industry has impoverished parents more than enrich our children. I wonder if it is possible to create an objective test to measure their value-add.

Some may say parents have a choice. Problem comes when the husband doesn't believe in spending huge sums of money on enrichment but the wife thinks otherwise. To avoid quarrels, the husband just go along.

Anyone falls into this category (besides me)?

Ha... me two.
My wife already plan which district to buy which sch to enter when my boy is 3 yrs old.I guess i have to try harder to brainwash her.

[Musicwhiz]

Hi hyom,

My girl is still young (3) but I am glad my wife sees eye to eye with me on this. Too much tuition is just a pain in the a** for the kid - I remember I used to enjoy my childhood a lot, with marbles, cycling and what-nots. Catching spiders too haha. Now kids as young as 4-5 don't have a life. I've heard of friends putting their 18-month old kids in enrichment classes (MindChamps, Shichida). It's quite horrifying (to me).

There's no objective test, actually. Impossible to say if the child will be just as smart without the classes. It's like the movie "Sliding Doors".

[yeokiwi]

It's more fun to see my kid cracking his head trying to understand the concepts than to let the tuition teachers do the guidance.
At the end of the day, I will come in to help when necessary but as minimal as possible.

To me, it's ok to answer wrongly and not being able to answer all questions. That's life.

[KopiKat]

For those with only pre-schoolers, let me share my own experience for a neighbourhood school (should apply to those schools that have HDB flats within 1km radius also)....

What Happens at Primary 1?

You get kids from both extremes of the spectrum.

At one extreme, you have the little 'Einsteins' who'd already gone for 101 courses + 'branded' kindergartens. These kids already know lots on the main subjects - English, MT (Mother Tongue) and Math, on top of Music, Art, Dance, Swimming,...etc.

At the other extreme, you have kids from the poorer families. Some have never attended kindergarten. They don't even know their Alphabets and Numbers, plus English....

Most kids lie between these 2 extremes.

So, what really happens at Primary 1?
A great levelling exercise begins.....

The weaker ones are identified and put on extra remedial classes by the school. At the same time, all the kids starts on a rather slow pace of learning. Your little 'Einsteins' can get bored easily and some may get labelled as 'trouble-makers' (they don't pay attention and may distract others with their antics, as they already know their stuff).

At mid-year (if the school still have exams), your little 'Einstein' would have done very very well (pace and scope is still very relaxed - for the weaker ones to catch up). BUT, the pace picks up from the 2nd half. If you'd been lulled into complacency, this is usually where your little 'Einstein' becomes the Hare and allow the Tortoise to overtake...

For me, I don't believe in sending my kids for extra classes to give them a headstart. If they're weak in any subject and I'm unable to help, then yes, I may consider sending them for tuitions. But, I'd rather teach them to be resourceful and learn how to overcome their own weaknesses by themselves - I can guide and push them where necessary.. But, of course easier said than done...

As for CCAs, I'm only insistent that they learn music at a young age as they'd have the advantage of dexterity if they start from young. But, if they'd tried for a while and they don't like it, they can quit if they want to. For others, they can join any of their own choice when they enter P1. Let them learn how to make and live with their own decisions...

---

Part II - What Happens at Upper Primary

By now, your kid would have been streamed at P3, ie. Best Class to Worst Class based on results. Some schools don't have a Worst Class - they have a Best Class, Next Best, Normal where those with similar results are spread out over a few classes.

There's also the Foundation stream but I won't confuse all with that.

There's also 1 additional subject (Science) and some may have been offered HMT (Higher Mother Tongue).

So, is your little 'Einstein' now a bigger 'Einstein'?

My observation of the Best Class....

Many are FT kids - predominantly Chinese plus a few from India, SE Asia, Korea,... My take is these kids are hungrier and works harder - our kids are getting soft... Another advantage is their MT - for the Chinese, it's 2nd nature to them and theirs is usually already at a higher standard.

Many are also from wealthier background. Their parents actively sign them up for 'Quality' tuitions and other extras like 'Creative Writing', Advanced Math,...etc. They continue to pour in money to give their kids a competitive advantage...

The rest are the more resourceful kids - but rare to find one from poor family...

So, ya, many of the little 'Einsteins' never caught up with the Tortoise... Many in fact gets over-burdened with yet more tuitions and CCAs but somehow it's not giving them that extra advantage anymore...

IMO, you need to focus. At the Upper Primary, your kid is already over-burdened with lots of school work + school related CCAs. Some have extra supplementary classes to prep them for PSLE (it starts long before P6). So, if your kid is unable to handle, better focus on what's important and necessary....

[investor101]

Tuition is here to stay and grow.

The newspaper is helping MOE show only one side of the story; the side of the kiasu parents. This allows MOE to look good, while pushing all the blame to kiasu parents for Singapore becoming a tuition nation.

I have friends who are teachers. They all say the same thing. They are overworked, not with teaching, but with CCAs and school committees. If they spend too much time on their teaching, they will get penalized for their annual work review. Simple math lah...if you give 1 hour to teaching and marking, it means 1 hour less for your project work and committee.

The more my teacher friends do their project work, the better their work review. The schools they teach at also set the work environment in such a way that tells teachers that teaching is 2nd priority. Many of my teacher friends have no time to mark homework or prepare lessons in the afternoon. Afternoon is always reserved for meetings and CCAs, which drag on into the late evening. School expect teachers to bring marking and lesson prep home to do, and not to do them during working hours.

Since the teachers are too tired and too distracted to teach properly, then of course someone else will have to step in and do their job for them. Private tuition lor!

You really believe the newspapers and think that the overwhelming majority of parents want tuition just because they are that kiasu? There are even more kids who genuninely can't cope with the fast pace of the syllabus and are not that fast in learning.

Your kids will need tuition because their teachers are too tired and too busy and too worried about their annual work performance to bother about teaching well. The schools really expect my teacher friends to do 1001 things and still teach with 100% quality. It will be good if you spend some time to talk to your children's teachers and ask them in greater detail about their teaching jobs.

[KopiKat]

Tuition is here to stay and grow.

The newspaper is helping MOE show only one side of the story; the side of the kiasu parents. This allows MOE to look good, while pushing all the blame to kiasu parents for Singapore becoming a tuition nation.

I have friends who are teachers. They all say the same thing. They are overworked, not with teaching, but with CCAs and school committees. If they spend too much time on their teaching, they will get penalized for their annual work review. Simple math lah...if you give 1 hour to teaching and marking, it means 1 hour less for your project work and committee.

The more my teacher friends do their project work, the better their work review. The schools they teach at also set the work environment in such a way that tells teachers that teaching is 2nd priority. Many of my teacher friends have no time to mark homework or prepare lessons in the afternoon. Afternoon is always reserved for meetings and CCAs, which drag on into the late evening. School expect teachers to bring marking and lesson prep home to do, and not to do them during working hours.

Since the teachers are too tired and too distracted to teach properly, then of course someone else will have to step in and do their job for them. Private tuition lor!

You really believe the newspapers and think that the overwhelming majority of parents want tuition just because they are that kiasu? There are even more kids who genuninely can't cope with the fast pace of the syllabus and are not that fast in learning.

Your kids will need tuition because their teachers are too tired and too busy and too worried about their annual work performance to bother about teaching well. The schools really expect my teacher friends to do 1001 things and still teach with 100% quality. It will be good if you spend some time to talk to your children's teachers and ask them in greater detail about their teaching jobs.

Very interesting post from someone with teacher friends.
I happen to talk to my kids' teachers often, as a parent volunteer for their class activities like field trips, annual parent-teacher meeting and even casually outside of schools if I bump into them. Doesn't seem like the same kind of world you'd described. Perhaps, mine are from neighbourhood school and yours are in the top demand schools. Some points to clarify,

Simple math lah...if you give 1 hour to teaching and marking, it means 1 hour less for your project work and committee.

You mean your friends skip classes? They don't mark their homeworks? My kids' teachers even arrange for extra classes for them (supplementary classes). Homeworks are always marked and returned, even need parent's signature (for critical ones) to make sure we parents are also involved. So different!

Many of my teacher friends have no time to mark homework or prepare lessons in the afternoon.

I have not been a teacher before but I'd taught things before to new staff and conducted 3-days seminars when I was working. After the first few times when I was new to it, I don't need a lot of time to prepare. Not unless you have a new syllables every year...

Further, previously, as a professional who'd had to juggle meetings (many I see as useless and waste of time), attending seminars/conferences, staff assessments, overseas biz trips,... on top of my regular duties, I don't think it's any different for any other jobs. The real working world is like that... You don't get to choose to do only things that you like.. You have to learn how to juggle and manage.. no compromise.. Guess I must have been a workaholic cum slave driver back then as compared to current Gen..

IMO, one of the reasons why some kids are unable to cope is related to the Text Books. Go take a look, it's now so thin and have little contents. The kids are supposed to 'fill in the blanks' by paying attention in class (teachers will impart additional stuff), take notes, ask Qs and from their homework (many answers not found in text books), do extra research to find the answers. I think MOE meant it to teach our kids to become more resourceful.

But, kids nowadays are not as 'hungry' as my time. Got time, rather play. Don't know how to do homework, don't really care...

Parents are also too busy / tired to help / guide their kids after a hard day's work.

So, easy way out for most parents - send their kids for tuition, on top of buying books (from my fav stock, Popular Hldgs) - these have lots more contents and resembles the kind of text books I'm used to in my childhood. Guess what? Most are written by ex-teachers..

So yes, Tuition is here to stay but I think the blame gets shared equally between Teachers/MOE/Schools, Parents and Kids...

PS. I'm most touched that your 1st post in an investing forum is for your teacher friends...

[investor101]

Tuition is here to stay and grow.

The newspaper is helping MOE show only one side of the story; the side of the kiasu parents. This allows MOE to look good, while pushing all the blame to kiasu parents for Singapore becoming a tuition nation.

I have friends who are teachers. They all say the same thing. They are overworked, not with teaching, but with CCAs and school committees. If they spend too much time on their teaching, they will get penalized for their annual work review. Simple math lah...if you give 1 hour to teaching and marking, it means 1 hour less for your project work and committee.

The more my teacher friends do their project work, the better their work review. The schools they teach at also set the work environment in such a way that tells teachers that teaching is 2nd priority. Many of my teacher friends have no time to mark homework or prepare lessons in the afternoon. Afternoon is always reserved for meetings and CCAs, which drag on into the late evening. School expect teachers to bring marking and lesson prep home to do, and not to do them during working hours.

Since the teachers are too tired and too distracted to teach properly, then of course someone else will have to step in and do their job for them. Private tuition lor!

You really believe the newspapers and think that the overwhelming majority of parents want tuition just because they are that kiasu? There are even more kids who genuninely can't cope with the fast pace of the syllabus and are not that fast in learning.

Your kids will need tuition because their teachers are too tired and too busy and too worried about their annual work performance to bother about teaching well. The schools really expect my teacher friends to do 1001 things and still teach with 100% quality. It will be good if you spend some time to talk to your children's teachers and ask them in greater detail about their teaching jobs.

Very interesting post from someone with teacher friends.
I happen to talk to my kids' teachers often, as a parent volunteer for their class activities like field trips, annual parent-teacher meeting and even casually outside of schools if I bump into them. Doesn't seem like the same kind of world you'd described. Perhaps, mine are from neighbourhood school and yours are in the top demand schools. Some points to clarify,

Top demand and neighbhourhood schools all the same. Moving in the same direction.

The difference is that top schools already have a name, so the name acts as a magnet to draw in top students, while not so good schools have to make do with that they have.

What the neighbhourhood schools do is to find ways to improve bit by bit every year. And with each passing year, slowly raise the cut off points and kick the lousy students to other schools and let them go be someone else's problem. Schools like RI and ACS don't take in Normal Tech students, while your average neighbhourhood schools have to. And good neighbhourhood schools take in a smaller cohort of NA and NT students, while the schools in the poorer bands take in more problematic kids.

All the schools are adopting the same common grand strategy - improve gradually, raise the cut off, reduce the intake in poor quality students. Do it repeatedly and it becomes like a wheel. In a good wheel like RI or ACS or Chinese High, the academically weak students don't even need to bother to apply. Only the top students can try.

Simple math lah...if you give 1 hour to teaching and marking, it means 1 hour less for your project work and committee.

You mean your friends skip classes? They don't mark their homeworks?

I mean, they cut corner somewhere. Either school work suffers, or their project work suffers. If my friends cheong both, then their health and family suffers. Most teachers are overweight and unhealthy, same as many working adults.

My kids' teachers even arrange for extra classes for them (supplementary classes). Homeworks are always marked and returned, even need parent's signature (for critical ones) to make sure we parents are also involved. So different!

Most of my friends teach in secondary school and junior college.

Many of my teacher friends have no time to mark homework or prepare lessons in the afternoon.

I have not been a teacher before but I'd taught things before to new staff and conducted 3-days seminars when I was working. After the first few times when I was new to it, I don't need a lot of time to prepare. Not unless you have a new syllables every year...

Further, previously, as a professional who'd had to juggle meetings (many I see as useless and waste of time), attending seminars/conferences, staff assessments, overseas biz trips,... on top of my regular duties, I don't think it's any different for any other jobs.
The real working world is like that...

I don't understand the term 'real working world'. Is there such thing as a 'fake working world'? Maybe you should explain it.

You don't get to choose to do only things that you like.. You have to learn how to juggle and manage.. no compromise.. Guess I must have been a workaholic cum slave driver back then as compared to current Gen..

Nobody gets to choose to do what they like. If we all did, vast majority of us wouldn't be working.

IMO, one of the reasons why some kids are unable to cope is related to the Text Books. Go take a look, it's now so thin and have little contents. The kids are supposed to 'fill in the blanks' by paying attention in class (teachers will impart additional stuff), take notes, ask Qs and from their homework (many answers not found in text books), do extra research to find the answers. I think MOE meant it to teach our kids to become more resourceful.

Glad you feel this way instead. Then, you can blissfully continue to pay more for tuition, instead of putting pressure on MOE to get teachers to spend more time teaching and less time on their wayang projects. The boom in tuition corresponds directly with the increasing of teachers' non-teaching portfolios. Too bad I only have one friend who teaches in primary school. The rest of my friends who teach in secondary and JC all feel the same way. Too much content to cover in too few periods, too much non-teaching duties to handle. Teachers are also human. Not much point to brag about which of us work 15 hours a day. Some folks may take pride in their workaholism, but some of us prefer to live lives that are a little less stressful and have more time to do other things.

But, kids nowadays are not as 'hungry' as my time. Got time, rather play. Don't know how to do homework, don't really care...

Parents are also too busy / tired to help / guide their kids after a hard day's work.

In secondary school and jc, that doesn't happen. Many students have a lot of cca and student leadership demands. CCA training also is much longer. While there are slackers, there are also many students who go for tuition after CCA finishes in the evening.

[Musicwhiz]

Yes, please sue his a** off. Such unethical behaviour should not be tolerated!

*For full article, please visit the website.

The Straits Times
www.straitstimes.com
Published on Aug 08, 2012
Case speaks out against private tutor
Tutor who lied about credentials breached law and customers can seek legal recourse

By kezia toh & stacey chia

A CONSUMER watchdog has come out against the private tutor who was exposed in the news last week for lying about his academic credentials.

In a letter sent to The Straits Times' Forum page, the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) said that in its view, Mr Kelvin Ong Wee Loong, 36, had breached a clause in the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act.

The letter, published today, was written by Case president Lim Biow Chuan. He wrote: "His behaviour is clearly unacceptable and has tarnished the image of the tuition industry."

Mr Lim added that the customers of Mr Ong's tuition centre, AristoCare, can seek legal recourse for such a breach.

According to Case, the watchdog received two complaints about private tutors for the first half of this year and 10 last year.

Asked to comment about the case, Mr Lim said Mr Ong's behaviour required attention because "if society does not express its dismay at such conduct, then it may send the wrong signal that this kind of behaviour is tolerated".

Mr Ong, in touting his tuition services, had claimed he was a former pupil in the Education Ministry's gifted programme and later became one of its teachers.

For four lessons at the primary-school level, he charged his pupils' parents $1,000.

The ministry refuted his purported academic credentials last week. It said Mr Ong was never a pupil or teacher in the programme.

The tuition centre has been closed since last Tuesday.When contacted, Mr Ong declined to comment on Case's letter but wondered how the consumer watchdog would be helping his pupils' parents pursue the case.

Case executive director Seah Seng Choon said that apart from mediation, parents may file a claim at the Small Claims Tribunal or seek legal advice, or both.

Madam Anu S., 36, who paid $15,000 for her nine-year-old child to attend Mr Ong's classes, echoed other parents' calls for stricter rules and a regulatory body for the private tuition industry.
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