Schoolkids seeing psychologists – how did we come to this?

Something has got to be really wrong with our Education System, if a significant number of our schoolkids end up seeing psychologists to check if they are “outside the norm” of the learning ability of the average. These schoolkids are young. Some as young a 7 or 8, that being the average age of a Primary 2 child.

Worried parents taking children to psychologists

But many parents are confusing anxiety to perform in school with learning disabilities

Psychologists say stress levels could be exacerbated by the hothousing that goes on in enrichment classes. Children go to class already knowing all the answers, forcing teachers to raise the standard even more.

These days, enrichment classes are not the only extras in children’s schedules.

Parents are also packing their children off to see psychologists – paying upwards of $100 per hour – fearing that they may have learning disabilities.

Some do so on the advice of teachers. Others do so because their children have problems coping in school, presumably because of the accelerated pace of learning.

BACKGROUND STORY

JUST STRESS

‘The learning disabilities I sometimes see in my clinic are not disabilities by any definition. I’m seeing kids from good schools with good grades who feel anxious just because they did not ace their exams.’

Dr Adrian Wang, consultant psychiatrist at Gleneagles Medical Centre

TOO TAXING?

‘Her maths homework in Primary 2 looked like what I did in Primary 4… It’s like she is forced to learn how to cycle and juggle at the same time.’

Lecturer David Chin, on his daughter’s Primary 2 homework last year

One 42-year-old parent, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Tan, said her son’s Primary 2 form teacher in a local top-tier primary school had complained about his inattentiveness in class and hinted that he might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

MOE places the blame on “kiasu” parents. But how did this come to be in the first place? Isn’t it the MOE that brought the pressure to the kids in the first place? We all know that the vacancies in the local universities is limited. And the fact that the govt allots quite a substantial number of vacancies for foreigners is partly to blame too.

To get into the university, the surest way is acing your A levels or the International Baccalaureate. That means you have to get into the JCs. It is also a fact that the top JCs produce students that have the highest chances of entering the universities.

To get into the JCs, you have do to well at secondary. With the introduction of the Integrated Programme (IP), you bypass the O levels. But to get into these IP schools, you must do well for your PSLE. Again, the “top schools” at primary level traditionally have better PSLE results too.

Can it not be concluded that the pressure to gain entry into the top JCs has been brought down for secondary schools to primary schools, after the introduction of the IP system?

So what’s this claim by MOE that parents are over-pressuring their children, when MOE itself is a party contributing to the very highly tense and competitive situation in the first place?

In the article above, it was reported, “But many parents are confusing anxiety to perform in school with learning disabilities.”

Isn’t that an indication that the system is pressurizing these kids?

The govt may blow its horn that we have one of the finest education system in the world. That may be true. What lays hidden from many is the high pressure cooker environment. Out of every high academic achiever we produce, there are many other children who fall within the cracks.

MOE, their ministers and the policy makers should start walking the ground and see the real ugly truth, instead of bathing in the glory of only the high academic performers.

>National Day Rally 2010 – Education; making it worse?

>In his National Day Rally 2010, PM Lee mentioned how the education system will be tweaked. It was supposedly to address parents’ concern that their children may miss out to be in the “best schools”.

As it turned out, this tweaking is about creating another 7 more Integrated Programme (IP) schools where secondary students bypass their O Levels and take A Levels in their sixth year. Here is a report from the Straits Times, dated 1 Sep 2009.

7 new schools to offer IP

IN a first for Singapore, three secondary schools will come together to provide students for a new Junior College.

The all-boys Catholic High School and the all-girls CHIJ Saint Nicholas Girls’ and Singapore Chinese Girls’ schools have banded together to create a new Integrated Programme (IP). The IP will begin with the Secondary 1 cohort of 2013.

With this move, all the students in the three schools are on a six-year programme that will see them heading to a new as-yet-unnamed government junior college after four years in each school. The new JC will offer the A-level examinations and open in 2017.

The three are among seven schools that have got the approval from the Ministry of Education to give up the O levels for an IP leading to A levels or the International Baccalaureate (IB). The expansion of the IP to more schools was announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the National Day Rally on Sunday (Aug 29).

This will bring the proportion of each cohort enrolled in an IP up from 8 per cent to 12 per cent.

‘We are very pleased. We had been applying for the programme at every opportunity, but it was only now that we hit upon the right formula,’ said Catholic High School principal Mr Lee Hak Boon. The school has been trying to get an IP in place since 2006.

The other alliances will see the all-boys’ Victoria School and Cedar Girls’ Secondary School partnering with Victoria Junior College and the Methodist Girls’ School tying up with Anglo Chinese School (Independent). St Joseph’s Institution (SJI) will expand to offer a six-year programme leading to the IB.

On the surface, it appears to be a good move because it allows more Primary students, after completing their PSLE, to be able to take the IP courses. But what is so attractive about IP?

IP in itself is no big deal. The big deal is that it leads to a direct entry to the choice Junior Colleges like RJC, Hwa Chong, ACSI, VJC etc. Hence, if a PSLE student does well enough, and he gets into a school that has the IP, he has assured of that top choice JC the secondary school is affiliated to.

Ironically, there lies the problem!

Before we had IP, ALL students had to go through O levels to gain entry to JCs to take A Levels. The fight for the top JC places was hence, at the O level stage. This meant that even if a secondary student was from a neighbourhood school, he had an equal chance to compete for a top JC with another student from an elite school. The only advantage the top secondary school student had was affiliation.

With the introduction of IP a few years back, that changed the playing field. It was no longer level. With IP, it meant that any student who gets into the secondary school with an IP set up, IS ASSURED that he ends up in the JC of that choice (provided he does not fail his yearly exams, but why should he in the first place?).

For example, if a primary student gets into RI, he is assured of a place in RJC for his A levels. Because of this “reserve system” (otherwise known as “choping system” in Singlish), the vacancies left in RJC open to the public gets reduced. From the standpoint of the student who did not get into RI, his chances of getting into RJC after his O levels now becomes bleaker. If there was no IP, all students will stand equal chance. Not anymore, no thanks to IP!

Currently, 8% of secondary students are in the IP system. With an addition of another 7 more schools, it is projected to increase by 12%. Conversely, it now makes it harder for the remaining 88% secondary students, after these 7 schools embark on the IP, to enter the top JCs because 12% of the secondary cohort has already reserved their places.

What does the above mean?

It means that from the traditional “let’s compete for top JCs when we are in secondary”, it has now come to “let’s compete for top secondary schools (so that we can be in top JCs) at primary level”!

Are not primary students more vulnerable to emotional stress and fatigue than secondary students? Yet this pressure shift down to primary level?

What the introduction of IP a few years back has done, is to shift the pressure to perform from secondary level to the primary level. What the introduction of 7 more IP schools will do is to pressurize the primary school students to get into IP even more, because if they don’t, the ever elusive top elite JCs may well be out of their reach.

I feel that ever since the old guard of the PAP stepped down (that includes the likes of Goh Keng Swee and Party Chairman Toh Chin Chye), the following generations of PAP leaders are simply ad-hoc fire fighters. They see a problem, they tackle that one problem. They don’t see a problem as part of a bigger problem. Yes, that’s the problem!

When the IP was introduced, it was already seen that the pressure was shifted down to PSLE students. Ironically, that’s why PAP (stupidly) now wants to “relieve” that pressure by introducing “more vacancies” using the IP system by introducing it to another 7 secondary schools – which will magnify the problem even more!

This kind of ad-hoc patch up work is prevalent in PAP so much so that about every problem is tackled that way. If you note PM’s Rally speech, that’s the approach they take. Be it rising housing prices, transport squeeze, immigrant issues etc.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that they don’t deserve their high paying salaries. We don’t need patch up workers. We need long term thinkers. The ones the old guard of the PAP showed to be.

Living in a pressure cooker society is one thing. To pressurize kids at primary level is to deprive them of their childhood. That’s what the PAP has just done to your children.