Daily Lessons from Life 19 January 2011 - Why Foreign Kids Outperform Local Kids

"Why foreign kids outperform local kids: MM Lee - AsiaOne.com Edvantage Wed Jan 19 2011

New immigrants are more highly educated, and their children will provide stiff competition to local students.

Some foreign students may be outperforming local kids in examinations such as the O levels, but that is not the reason to stop welcoming foreign talent, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, at the 25th anniversary of the S'pore federation of Chinese Clan associations (SFCCA).

For the sake of national interest, Singapore must continue to welcome new immigrants to its shores.

Speaking in a mix of Mandarin and English, MM Lee offered his thoughts on why there are visibly more foreigners excelling in this year's O-level examinations.

He said new immigrants entering Singapore are more highly educated, and therefore these graduates will produce intelligent children that will offer more competition to local students.

But MM Lee also added that there are "many, ordinary immigrants"."

There is NO DOUBT that of the new immigrants recruited, some will be fairly bright in the academically. This is especially when you put the ratio in perspective. i.e. 1% of 1.3B PRC Chinese or 1.1B (?) of India Indians that are bright will be a lot of them. And if 1% of them come to Singapore as new immigrants, surely they have a higher chance of being better academically.

Lessons for me are:

1. there is NO basis to reject getting more new immigrants to augment or shore-up the falling fertility rate. It will be presumptious to think that Singaporeans do not understand this. If so, it is just an emotional response and not a rational one. In a way, this is WHY it is so difficult for our government to manage the 'resentment' or 'paranoid' of some Singaporeans of the new immigrants. Emotion is harder to appease than rationality;

2. if it is an emotioanl response, it is imperative that patient, tonnes of them, must be shown and that relentless efforts to explain and educate on the pros and cons of having new immigrants must be increased and sutained. There is NO NEED to chastise the Singaporeans who DO NOT get it still. Just continue to explain and educate and even down to individual basis if needed;

3. the reason for me to conclude the academically brilliant students do not necessarily excel as a person at work, especially, are they DO NOT have the benefits of experiencing good business practices and processes in their home countries. It will take them a while to learn, and maybe due to their intellectual capacity, they learn very fast, better they are good at work. As to be a better social being, that is much more complex as what is a good citizen or person can varied widely depending on the values and aspiration of the new immigrants' children. IF it is just about to get rich is glory, maybe it is not something we should look forward to.

We need new immigrants. The challenge is to do so in a controlled manner and to integrate them quickly and totally into Singapore's way of life, sans the reluctance to challenge the established thinking and way of doing things!

Be careful as you may get what you wished for!! :-)