The generosity of Singaporean Education

Singapore boasts of its education system. It prides itself on having a "Number 1" education system. Yet, is this true? From close up one sees something rather different.

Here education is standardized to an absurd degree, such that it is impossible to get the right education for any particular person: what you get is the "standard response".

So far, Ainan has not got what he needs from the education system - what he needs comes from his parents, at home, with a pile of books. The "system" has been most reluctant to offer up its resources to him, as yet (with occasional exceptions that don't alter the general tone of the situation). For instance, rather stingily, a nation filled with chemistry labs, hasn't made one available to Ainan on a regular basis. They would rather the labs sat empty, unused, than have one scientifically passionate child at work in them. The ones that are available, are only so, if we are prepared to, and able to, pay exorbitant fees. Where is Singapore's "great wealth" when it is needed? They can't even afford the expense of one unusual student.

Today, I found evidence that our situation, with respect to Ainan, is not an isolated case. There are other children out there, striving to get the special education they need. One other example is a twelve year child with an interest in Physics, beyond his (or her...we don't know) years. The student in question needed lab space to acquire the skills necessary to take an exam (an exact parallel of our own situation with Ainan, at six, but in a different subject, at a different age.) The education system was making no accommodation for this particular gifted student: no-one and nowhere was prepared to offer them the resources needed. So, what did the parents do? They found a private school that was willing to take their child on and teach them practical physics skills appropriate to the exam - at a price.

Now, I would like you to guess what that price was, per hour, for a nation where many people earn about two or three thousand Singapore dollars per month. Have a long think about what a school, in all good conscience, could, would and should charge a young student in such a situation, for the opportunity to further their passion for physics?

This school charged the desperate parents of this twelve year old, who had nowhere else to go, since nowhere in Singapore was willing to offer them the necessary facilities, a sum that I had to check three times, with the person who told it to me (an administrator at the school concerned), so disbelieving was I, of my ears.

This Singaporean school and bastion of generosity charged the parents of this gifted physics student, SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS an HOUR!

Now, that is the size of the barrier that the parents of unusually gifted students face, here, in Singapore. Only the very, very rich, can afford to give their children a differentiated education. The rest must do with the rubber stamp process offered to everyone else.

I was really appalled. The percentage of parents of gifted children who could actually afford six hundred dollars an hour to give their child the education they need, is vanishingly small. Clearly, this particular gifted child had wealthy parents: most such children do not. Such children, instead, face endless frustration, as the "system" says "no!" to their every special request.

I will write more of the other examples of frustrated gifted children that we have encountered, in Singapore, in due course. In each case, the national education system has failed to accommodate them, in the way which was self-evidently appropriate.

Singapore has a lot to learn, if it is to be the supreme nation it intends to be. Perhaps one of the first lessons should be how to accommodate the exceptional, rather than deny them. The problem with that, of course, is that Singapore just doesn't like to make exceptions. What they don't understand, though, is that making exceptions would make them exceptional, in time to come. Singapore has, it seems, chosen another path: the one that leads to conformity, uniformity and second-rateness.

That is not the choice we are going to make: whatever the "system" says. Unfortunately, we don't have six hundred dollars an hour to buy our way out of the situation...but then, who does?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)