I refer to the news "Come on, Singapore, loosen up!" dated 14th of October 1999. As a student for the past 20 years who had only joined the work force only for a short while before starting my university education, I would wish to express my opinion on this issue.
As the country develops into a knowledge-based, intellectual country and economy blooms under the policies that emphasise knowledge and talent, post-secondary study, especially a degree, is seen to be the essence of life. Although there are stories of successful businessmen who are not highly-educated, for the majority of people, university degree is only way to improve quality of living. Unfortunately the only gateway to gain entrance into universities is a good A-level results. The definition of good depends on the course that you would like to pursue. Although extra-curriculum activities, leadership training and other non-academic abilities are of some assistance, one cannot get into the desirable course without a minimum pre-requisite based totally on academic achievement.
Since I am in the medical field, I would like to take medicine as an example. Medicine is one of the most competitive courses to get into. A doctor should not only be equiped with sufficient scientific knowledge to diagnosis and the draw up management plan for the patients, he/she should also be good at communication with a caring attitude. However, the entrance requirement for medicine, although often include an interview, is totally based on academic performance. Without certain number of "A"s, medicine is your dream and will remain so for the rest of your life! What is the assessments based on? Exams!
Because of the way that the system operates, it is understandable that both parents and children are stressed about exams. Parents are worried that their children cannot achieve enough "A" and children are forced to perform well. In my opinion, one of the ways to relieve the level of stress among students and hence parents is to change the assessments. I would like to take Australia's matriculation course as an example. The matriculation course serves as the selection criteria to get into universities. At least half of the assessments of matriculation course, however, are based on group projects, individual assignments and presentations. The final examination counts for the other half of the score. Furthermore, in the examination, problem solving skills, reasoning and explanations are all taken into account. Hence, full mark will only be awarded if one plan the answers carefully, illustrate how the answers are derived with clear reasoning and high level of problem solving skills are shown. A wrong answer with proper reasoning will achieve quite a high mark ( in the 80-90% range). Bonus marks will be given if some creative and reasonable comments are included in the answer. This is in contrast to multiple choice question or long answers (especially calculations) in A-level at which a wrong answer will only be awarded 40-50% if one is lucky. In the later system, students are forced to try the best to obtain the right answer in the examination even without proper understanding of the topic. We have no time to think and we have not been encouraged to do so. To some extend, we are afraid that we will fail our examination if we spend to much timing thinking rather than doing some more exercise and memorising textbooks.
I must emphasise that I am in no way suggesting that students study at local junior college are not as creative and innovative as their overseas collegeau. It is just that creativity and other non-academic abilities should be taken into account in assessments. School ranking should not purely base on academic performances, neither should student ranking. Extra-curriculum activities should play a more important role in deciding whether a student should get a place in university. Afterall, leadership, character, communication and academic performances are all important in pathing the road to sucess. We sincerely hope that the government would take some initiative in recognising the importance of thinking and let's welcome the "thinking mellinium" together!
Yee, Kwang Chien
University of Tasmania,
Australia