WTF? Dong Jiao Zong (however u ever learned how to pronounce that) wants Science and Maths to be taught in Chinese in Chinese Primary School? WTF. WTF. WTF.

WHY ON EARTH?! Are you people nuts? It took the government such a hard time making English the medium of instruction for Science and Maths in schools and now you want to revert the policy? And your argument is to protect Chinese culture?

Hello, being in a Chinese environment with Chinese subjects is not good enough to learn Chinese eh? Not all Chinese kids are good in English too ok. I see so many students from Chinese schools graduating with poor speaking and writing skills. Do we want our Chinese kids to be further disadvantaged in this globalised world?

Anyway, this is a note the Education Minister. PLEASE KEEP THE CURRENT POLICY OF TEACHING SCIENCE AND MATHS IN ENGLISH. I was the last batch of students to be taugh in Malay and I despised that fact. I went on to pursue my A-level in Singapore where everything was taught in English. Luckily for me, I use English at home and I did not have to struggle much in Singapore with language. But for many others I bet learning everything in English was tough. So please keep the current policy for our future generation’s benefit.

This is weird. I am still getting used to this lifestyle - a lifestyle of slacking and bumming. After 2 years of hard work, it is rather strange not having anything to do.

When you are so busy, you wished for time to relax. When you have all the time to relax, you wished for things to challenge yourself. Life is ironic, isn’t it?

8 months to kill time. What shall I do? I had wanted all the time in the world to slack last time, but I did not really give much thought into what I will do during that free time. I was too busy studying I did not have the time to dream and imagine about the future – my favourite past time.

Laugh as much as you like, but I like dreaming and imagining up stuff. I used to do it a lot back in secondary school but I had to cut down on them in Singapore.

Read this: Life in Singapore, especially the junior college is simply too rigid and stressful for me to imagine stuff.

Look Singapore, you want to create creative students right? You want to remove the conventional, conformist, indifferent attitude of people right? You want people to think in unique, out-of-the box ways right?

Well, your education system DOES NOT encourage the above. It’s too RIGID, too ORTHODOX and too EXAM-ORIENTED. Students are encouraged to chase NOTHING ELSE but As in examinations.

Yes, it’s a process called meritocracy; I understand that. Perhaps it’s a trade-off between conflicting education policies. You push your students hard to ensure they are strong in their Science and Maths, but at what expense? I understand the need for Singapore to be the best in this globalised world; your teachers did a terrific job in drumming that into me. But I pity your Singaporean kids. They slog all their way through from Primary 1 all the way to JC2.

Those stronger ones might have the opportunity to develop other aspects once they are strong in their academics. They might EXPLORE other avenues. But how many of your students actually DARE explore things beyond their text books? Doing so might cause their exam results to deteriorate A BIT and cause them to LOSE OUT a lot. Is it worth it?

I had a serious misconception about your country before coming. My perception of your country and your education system before starting JC was this: Because Singapore is a more developed country, it will have a better education system as compared to Malaysia. And when I mean better I mean an education system that encourages creativity and unorthodox thinking. And this often means it is LESS EXAM-ORIENTED because exams FORCES students to think in a RIGID, INFLEXIBLE manner.

Maybe I did not do my research well enough. Maybe I did not watch I Not Stupid. And that probably gave me a cultural shock when I first entered my JC. I am surprised at the frequency of tests. I HATED the fact that the only way for me to succeed was to ROTE-LEARN my lecture notes.

The amount of things I had to MEMORISE used up so much of my brain capacity that at the end of the day I just have no spare brain cells to indulge in my imagination. Just ask Albert Einstein how important imagination is.

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’

Anyway, I’m not out here to deride the Singapore education system. The system is also good in the following aspects.

1) The Singapore education system encourages one to think critically of a subject matter. Yes, all those studying and those tough tests actually improved my analytical skills, something that I did not learn very well back home. After 2 years I’m a different person; I can look at anything now and analyse it to bits and pieces – and the weird thing is, I actually enjoy doing so!

2) The Singapore education system makes a student more determined and competitive. Losing is not fun and the Singapore education system is excellent in making people lose. It is not uncommon for half the cohort to fail a certain subject. I thought exams are designed to pass students! Well, not here in Singapore. It’s design to fail student. Well it demotivates you, but it also encourages you to push harder to succeed. As long as you do not give up, the whole process just makes you a stronger person.

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Ah, just my personal musings of the Singapore education system. I diverged a lot from my original thoughts. Perhaps I gotta write a more objective piece of the education system soon. 8 months to go - all the time to write.

I’ve noticed lately that I received quite a number of incoming links from search engines regarding the keywords, Asean, [tag]Asean scholarships[/tag], [tag]Oldham Hall[/tag], Victoria JC etc…..hmmmm….I wonder why….I guess it’s because the new batch of Asean scholars are coming soon to Singapore. If I’m not wrong the new 2008 Malaysians Asean scholars will be coming in on 18th December 2007? Haha….just like me last year, no time to enjoy after SPM…Only 2 weeks at most.

Anyway, when the scholarship letter arrives, it doesn’t state which hostel one is posted to. It simply mentions the hostel name and asks one to report there at so and so date and time. I was Googling around last year also to find out which college I had been posted to. I ended up doing a search at streetdirectory.com to look for colleges near my hostel.

Just to make things simpler, here’s a list of hostels and the JCs one will be posted to.

Oldham Hall – [tag]Anderson JC[/tag]
Victoria Hall – Victoria JC
Raffles Boarding – Raffles JC
Hwa Chong Boarding – National JC
NUS High School Residence – Anglo Chinese JC
Dunman High Boarding – Temasek JC
McNair Lodge – Saint Andrews JC

So which is the best hostel? Can’t really say much. But let me talk from my 1 year experience.

Just in case you are wondering, I’m staying in Oldham Hall, and goes to Anderson JC. I’m a direct scholar, meaning I came to Singapore only during JC level. I’ve just completed JC1 and will be in JC2 next year.

From experience and hearsay from other scholars, it seems like Oldham Hall is the best (ok dun kill me, I shall change to one of the best) place to live in. It has all the facilities one can dream of, except a running track (Near town la, no land!). It has air-cond in rooms (I’m surprised too when I first came last year, lol!), gym, indoor basketball courts, swimming pool, futsal court, music room, laundry service (free & unlimited number of clothes!).

The only drawback is it’s kinda expensive to stay in Oldham Hall and Anderson JC is a little far from hostel (35-45 minutes travelling time via public transport). We gotta pay around S$10 per month for aircond, S$1 per hour for internet and gym membership (not compulsory) is S$40 per year. Next year there will be wireless access but it’s not free. There’s some special plan from some private company and the price range from S$5 to S$22 depending on speed. And also since school is far from hostel, we have a chartered bus in the mornings which charges us around S$15 per month. It’s simpler and faster this way.

I don’t think I wanna babble much here about my hostel. I guess many of you are also hunting for information on which is the best JC in Singapore right?

Well, the Government has stopped releasing the rankings a few years back. But one can basically gauge the rankings of the schools from the cut-off points required by Singapore O-level students to enter these colleges.

This is an unofficial list but based on historical data and cut-off points the [tag]rankings[/tag] are somewhere like this.

1. Raffles JC
2. Hwa Chong JC
3. Victoria JC
4. National JC
5. Temasek JC

These are basically the Top 5 JCs in Singapore. I prefer to call them the Tier 1 JCs.

6. Anderson JC
7. Saint Andrews JC
8. Anglo-Chinese JC

The above 3 JCs I would prefer to call the Tier 2 JCs. Now don’t come killing me saying AC is better than SA or better than AJ. This is an unofficial list and the schools shuffle among themselves for better rankings every year.

From experience, the MOE usually places new direct Malaysian scholars in the above JCs. The only exception is Hwa Chong JC. I have no idea why direct scholars don’t go there….