WP Rally leaves an imperfect impression

Tweet

Zelig Dhi Lee

Workers' Party candidates rallying supporters.

Workers' Party candidates rallying supporters.

While Singaporeans perceive the Workers’ Party (WP) as the most credible “co-driver” for now, I find there are shortcomings that may impede the WP from obtaining the “driving licence” to drive the vehicle forward for all Singaporeans. Last night’s WP rally certainly reveals room for improvement, in particular, the education system and the cost of living.

Education system

WP candidates Somasundaram (Moulmein-Kallang) and Koh Choong Yong (Sengkang West) raised salient points about high stress levels and competitiveness in our education system especially at the primary level. They even lamented about the tuition culture in Singapore as well as the need to compete with foreigners for university places.

What I found very disturbing about their arguments is that none of them offered really credible alternative models for Singapore’s education system; and even suggested revamping at the primary level first. Soma also left a hanging point when he commented about the tuition fee disparity between Singaporeans and foreigners; as well as the ASEAN scholarship not available to Singaporeans. As a polytechnic lecturer who has interacted and mentored several students of various nationalities, I felt that he ought to emphasise his postion more substantively, and reflect on his experience as a lecturer in a tertiary institution.

My key thesis is – parents groom their children with the university in mind (considering only 1 out of 5 Singaporeans can make it there) – and that any changes in the education system should start from the Tertiary institutions rather than the lower levels because ultimately parents and youths aspire to meet the university entrance requirements for their dream course.

What I always told many of my peers in NUS is that examinations in tertiary institutions has lost its purpose as it inadequately reflects the realities of the industry, when the real world is an “open book exam”. Perhaps, we should rethink the way tertiary institutions assess and set standards of entrance and assessment, for their requirements will send a ripple-down domino effect to our JCs, Secondary Schools and Primary Schools. Our tertiary institutions need to do more to encourage an application-centric assessment culture and totally do away with sit-down, closed book examinations.

If our tertiary institutions do that, the lower level education institutions will be forced to react accordingly; and could potentially put motivational-educational industries such as Adam Khoo’s NLP, Yaw Shin Leong’s Eduhearts and several educational agencies either out of business; or remake their educational programs to emphasise a holistic-mode of learning as opposed to simply study or exam-smart strategies per se.

Such a strategy will also reduce parents and students’ reliance on tuition since the focus is on application, NOT strategizing to ace the national examinations which is sadly the focus and motivation for tuition. Remaking at the lower level, such as removing exams at lower-primary or no national exams till age 16 will not solve the root of the problem cos ultimately they will face hard challenges at the tertiary institutions such as transiting to project-based programmes, and I think the MOE needs to think very hard how we model our curriculum and assessment methods.

Cost of Living

We are not Japan where deflation helps mitigate high cost of living as far as possible. But like it or not, the WP should realise that cost of living will always go up, and salaries will never rise up as much as they would desire mainly because we’re an open economy. We cannot artificially control our prices and wages too much and that would cause unnecessary distortions to our economy, which can potentially deter foreign investment which is so vital to our survival.

In addition, the fiscal burden to absorb these rising costs is uncertain – my question is – has the WP done any economic modelling and budget forecasting like what the SDP has done (with their Shadow Budget) to ascertain what is the best alternative model that would be sustainable for Singapore from a fiscal point of view?

I understand the rationale is to forge a more progressive cost structure which is a very promising alternative – however, how are we going to implement this effectively while ensuring that the upper classes do not abuse the system and park their wealth outside Singapore beyond our control? How are we going to do this without the necessity to tap into our reserves? How do we enhance wages beyond the productivity and minimum wage conundrum? Is there more to that?


Photo courtesy of the Workers’ Party.