Daily Lessons from Life 25 March 2012 - Every Student to his/her fullest potential

"Schools aim to develop every child to fullest potential: Education Minister - CNA 25 March 2012

SINGAPORE: At a dialogue with Ayer Rajah residents after his walkabout on Sunday, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat said different schools have particular interest in different areas.

And the policy is to make sure every school is able to develop every child to his or her fullest potential.

On Sunday, Mr Heng launched Wireless@Teban at Teban Gardens Market and Food Centre, the first hawker centre in Singapore to have free wireless service aimed at helping underprivileged students who may not have Internet access at home.

Mr Heng said: "So "Every School is a Good School" is to make sure that every school is able to develop every child to his or her fullest potential. Every school is a good school does not mean that all the schools are homogenous, that they are cookie cutter and then every school is like any other school. They will be different. What it means is that we must help a child to learn well in the school."

"The most important thing is skills. The kind of deep skills that the student brings to the work place, the kind of attitude that they bring to the workplace.

"So we're changing to make sure that what is learnt in the poly, in the ITE, in the university is relevant to the workplace."

On concerns of overloading students with co-curricular activities (CCA), Mr Heng said CCAs are an important part of Singapore's holistic education, where students learn many life skills outside of books."

It will be good if ALL present and future Minister of Education stops having to explain that the educational system is to help each student to develop to his or her fullest potentials as this SHOULD be the standard. With this, there is NO need to impress future voters with some sexy slogan of the Minister's term of office.

Lessons for me are:

1. MOE is a heavy weight portfolio and we have MANY top talents that went through it in the last 2-3 decades with much to show in terms of scoring grades in examinations. It is to be lauded but almost like a minimal standard expected now;

2. there is still a multi-million if not billion dollar private 'enrichment or tuition or crammed schools' system in existence. Some claimed to do wonders for the kids that go through their programs. Some even have their OWN qualification process to ACCEPT only students that are GOOD ENOUGH to be developed further! I think this SHOULD be a target of the Minister of Education to either: a) find out WHY these private 'educationists' can DO BETTER than the WORLD BEST public educational system?; OR b) incorporate these 'methods' into MOE methods IF they are really that good - better than ALL the experts at MOE's disposal can conjure up!!;

3. address the fixation or mindset of 'talented Singaporeans' will NOT serve the nation as national leaders IF they are not paid well. Help some of these kids to understand that it is NOT how much you earn but how much do you really need to live a decent quality of life in Singapore that the top 10% of prudent living folks live - like ex-MM Lee's family who has all the riches but yet live simply in old bungalow, eat healthy food, exercise regularly, etc.

Yes. Let's have every child developed to his or her fullest potential in the IQ, EQ (Emotional Quotient) and AQ (adversity quotient).

That would be NICE... :-)