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I refer to “No more naming of top students for national exam” (Nov 21). It is about the Education Ministry (MOE) & Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) will no longer list top-scoring students in the release of all national exam results.
Reading the above, I feel that MOE is moving a step forward in making every school of an equal standard. I applaud for their effort. It can be seen that MOE wants to remove the public’s wrong impression that schools which produce top scorers are the good schools in Singapore. In fact, I can see that many more neighbourhood schools are producing students with better national exam results. However MOE still have a particular area for improvement – the way of dealing with students’ national exam results. I will list down my view and suggestion below. Currently, students are still admitted to higher education based on their national exam results. The students who score a better grade will proceed on to study in more well-known schools. The rest of the students are left behind to study in neighbourhood schools. For instance, Raffles Junior College takes in majority of 3 pointers ‘O’ Level Students, rejecting the rest of the students with a poorer grade. How is this considered as making every school of an equal standard? In this case, MOE is still indirectly drawing a line of separation between the extremely smart ones and the normal students. I feel that all national exam results should not be released to the students or public. These results should be taken note by MOE officials and school teachers confidentially. When a weaker student enter a school, that particular school should have already taken note and provide them with extra tuition and attention after curriculum hours. This will ensure that the weaker students will not lose his/her self- confidence after seeing their poor results. Hence, I suggest MOE to remove the process of admitting students to higher education based on national exam results. MOE should allow all students to choose any school of their own choice or convenience. At the same time, both groups of students (extremely smart ones and normal students) are able to interact with one another, and learn the good points from each other. In this way, it will enable Singapore to have a generation of equally capable Singaporeans. Singapore’s education system would be a success! Tosh Zhang wrote Ah Boys To Men official catchy theme song - RECRUIT'S ANTHEM.It tells the daily life of a Singaporean recruit training to be a soldier. It also bring back memories for those who went through National Service to reminisce the moments of being a recruit. The process of which an "ah boy" becomes a man.Behind the song though lies a more serious message, where it requires sweat and painful sacrifice from the NSman himself to his parents, family, commanders and the SAF support network. Perhaps that's why the video is such a hit. Fishermen carry out shark finning at sea. It refers to the removal and retention of shark fins. The rest of the dead body is chucked back into the ocean. This is such a waste. Hence, sharks are on the edge of distinction now. It is estimated that if we continue consuming and killing sharks at the same rate they will have completely disappeared within a few years. Not only do the sharks risk extinction, but killing them in such great numbers will also harm ocean ecosystems.
With that I refer to “Companies, ministries take shark’s fin off menus” (Nov 12). I am impressed to see more organisations officially taking shark fin dish out of the menu at their functions. It is a great step forward to save sharks. However I feel that there is still a large group of people not taking any initiative to say “No” to shark’s fin. They are mainly the people from the older generation, who are resistant to move away their favourite dish. They valued and viewed shark’s fin as a symbol of power according to the Chinese tradition. They would have shark’s fins at family dinners. The challenge now is was how to communicate the message clearly behind this decision to the elder dinner guests. The desire for shark’s fin certainly stems from ignorance of the truth and a long entrenched perception of it as a symbol of affluence. We can tell the older generation people that it is ridiculous to kill millions of sharks for the non-existent "status" that egotistical humans try to label themselves with by consuming shark fin soup - tasteless meat and flavourful, rich chicken broth that is, of course, just as delicious without the fin. Both sharks and humankind will be much happier with the fins where they should belong instead of landing on our dinner tables. Creating anti-shark’s fin cards to be placed on every dining table is another great idea to serve as a reminder to all dinners. Avoid printing graphic images or preachy messages inside the cards. Instead we very gently encouraged our guests in a bilingual few-liner to abstain from shark’s fin because of the environmental impact. These lovely cards sparked some animated discussions during the dinner and will eventually convince more guests through the spread of words from one person to another. When everyone plays their part and stop eating shark’s fin, I have the confidence that sharks will not become extinct one day! My form teacher and higher chinese teacher is leaving Bartley at the end of the year. I wish her all the best in her future work. 3E2'12 misses you! Hope she will remember us forever!
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AuthorYong Wei is a freelance blogger who writes about viewpoints on current affairs, lifestyle and sports articles. Contact MeFor product/service reviews, advertorials, sponsorships or any other enquires, please drop me an email at [email protected]
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