Focus on developing each child's ability

The excerpt from Associate Professor Teo You Yenn's book (When kids say 'I lazy what'; Feb 4), can be summarised as follows:

• Children from low-income families tend to underperform at school due to lack of money to pay for tuition, low motivation caused by labelling, and negative family influences.

• Our education system needs to change to give these children more opportunities.

As a product of Singapore's education system, I am proud of it. My son just entered a good secondary school, and that made me prouder. Nothing can change a parent's behaviour of trying to provide the best education for his child. I have lived abroad many years, and this behaviour is common everywhere. It is engraved in our genes.

What we can do, however, are two things: Re-examine the two-language policy, and encourage employment mobility.

Language ability should not correlate with competency.

In a world where Google Translate can bring down the language barrier, I argue that mastering one language is sufficient for productivity.

A child who struggles with his mother tongue should be allowed to drop it. Another child, due to his family and upbringing, may show promise in using his mother tongue. In this case, perhaps he should go to a school where the subjects are taught in the mother tongue.

Instead of creating racial rifts, we may be making our country stronger by accepting and encouraging diversity. In fact, for those whose language is art, music, or even computer code, they should be given more opportunities to develop their ability.

This brings me to my second point.

Despite many changes, our education system is still run like a factory to create generalist workers.

Instead, teachers should be "talent scouts". They should reduce their time teaching too many subjects and, instead, spend more time understanding a child's ability and preferences, to increase his employment chances.

They can also motivate children with overseas study programmes and excursions to see adults in different job environments. Make them understand that many employers look not at exam marks but character attributes.

It is our duty to realise the potential of every child and embrace his uniqueness.

Foo Yong Tse

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 08, 2018, with the headline Focus on developing each child's ability. Subscribe