The Singapore Education System is Quite Beyond Repair

In response to an article about a former school teacher's dark revelations where carrying out actual teaching is frowned upon, renowned H2 chemistry tutor (and also former MOE teacher) who goes by the online moniker BedokFunland JC aka UltimaOnline delivers a dispassionate discourse about the current state of affairs:

"For better or for worse (depending on where you stand, but mostly for the worse), nothing will change in MOE or the government civil service in general. In fact, the situation on the ground (including all the problems as described in the article has been steadily getting worse through the decades, probably moreso for MOE than for the other government ministries.


And since there's nothing that can be done to stop the deterioration as it stands (the entire system is quite beyond repair), the tuition industry actually serves an important, necessary and helpful function : it allow teachers/tutors to actually teach, and it allow students to actually learn. Its a fact that more quality learning takes place in tuition than in schools.


And if those who (for whatever misguided reasons, even if well intentioned) wish to see tuition banned outright, it will be moreso the millions of parents, rather than the tutors themselves, who will yell bloody murder and cost the ruling party a lot of votes.


And as for those who lobby for tuition industry legislation and regulation, MOE will (quite rightly) deem it a waste of tax payers' money to legislate and regulate what MOE has already formally declared as "an unncessary industry".


Moreso than in other service industries, the tuition industry is successfully self-regulating, in that if the students/parents (increasingly demanding these days) do not quickly see satisfactory improvement in results, they will simply drop the tutor / tuition center, and move on to the next one, until they are satisfied with results.


As every student and tutor is unique, different students with different learning styles will respond differently to different tutors with different teaching styles. Student A might find tutor B much better, while student B might find tutor A much better.


I actually have had students who used to receive tuition from some other very famous and reputable tutors (in separate, unrelated cases, involving different famous and reputable tutors, not just for H2 Chemistry, but for other H2 subjects as well), but the students told me (initially to my surprise, before I better understood that different-students-need-different-tutors) that they found these tutors to be 'sucky' or 'cannot teach' or 'waste of money', etc.


THANK YOU ULTIMAONLINE FOR ALLOWING US TO REPRODUCE YOUR POST.


The Czar (Site Founder)

Dated 25 September 2013


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