The ‘O’ Level results were out yesterday and as usual most of the top scorers were foreigners! This is a lesson for us – when children who come from outside of Singapore not knowing much English can go from an F6 to an A1 in two years or less, then why can’t our children do the same? Are we mollycoddling our young ones? Here’s an article I just read while browsing WordPress which somehow relates to this issue. Most of the top scorers, especially the foreign students came from China and in two years stared acing subjects. I also know of the son of a friend of a friend who came to Singapore when he was in P3 (I think) and failed in all subjects in his first exam here. He then persevered (to the extent of reading dictionaries daily) and went on to become a top student in his school and after his Primary School Leaving Exams (PSLE), went to one of Singapore’s top secondary schools – Raffles Institution.

Everytime these results come out, I show them to D&P and in my heart, hope that they emulate these children. After all, which parent would not want their child to be academically brilliant, especially here in Singapore which is obsessed with paper qualifications and want to know which primary/secondary school you went to, even if you are the Prime Minister of the country!

The front page of The Straits Times has this picture. It showed a line of people queuing up for something in the dark. As a teaser the article asked readers to go to a specific page to know why these people were queuing up. The shocker – people were queuing up to get admission forms for a kindergarten! And the best part – the admissions were for their tiny tots for 2013!! Here’s the article from the Straits Times website. The article also has a picture with a baby who looks to be less than a year old. And it also mentions that this kindergarten was the alma mater of the Singapore Prime Minister and his children. So what does this tell us – even if you are the PM of the country – where you went for Kindergarten is important!

No wonder parents in Singapore get so hysterical when their children reach P6 and it’s time for the dreaded PSLE. My turn in the next four years – with two of them doing the PSLE, wonder what I will be doing (boink!)