Most teachers would like to be full-time post-graduate students

Most teachers would like to be full-time post-graduate students (Lim Shi Hui, ZB, 14/4, p12)

Report noted that teachers could pursue part-time Master’s degrees while teaching part-time under the TEACH framework, and that teachers would receive a monetary award of $4,000 upon completion of their part-time Master’s programme.

Report however noted that teachers interviewed were not keen to teach and pursue a Master’s programme simultaneously, but showed keen interest in the new full-time Postgraduate Award.

Mr Chen, a male secondary school teacher believed that many schools did not provide adequate help to teachers pursuing part-time Master’s programmes. Hence, he preferred a full-time postgraduate course but noted that the length of the bond after that would be an important consideration.

Mr Hong, a male secondary school teacher also shared that it would be difficult to cope with both teaching and part-time studies, as the time spent on marking would take away the time needed for the part-time course. He said that to cope with the courses, teachers had to make sacrifices in terms of the time that they could spend with their students or loved ones. Hence, he preferred the full-time postgraduate course so long as he could return to his school to teach after completing the course.

A female secondary school teacher who planned to study Translation Studies in Hong Kong was disappointed that the new initiative only allowed teachers to pursue a full-time Master’s degree here.

A teacher from Dunman Secondary School with three years of teaching experience said that he would like to equip himself with teaching skills first and would only consider upgrading himself only in five to ten years time but found the new initiative for teachers attractive, as it encouraged him to upgrade.

MOE said it planned to give as many as 60 full-time Postgraduate Award by 2015 and would consider giving out more awards if there were more eligible applicants. Report noted that MOE would announce more details later.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

About time MOE realise that part-time Masters is seriously challenging.

What now?

I am now busy with thesis amendments, much to the surprise of my math and science trained colleagues. I'm the only one in my Humanities department doing a research master degree, so there is no other reference for them to gauge my progress. The other disciplines apparently do not have to do the amounts of revisions they see me struggling with.

It is very common for Social Sciences to still make changes to their thesis after examination. In my case, my internal marker has requested for me to put in more academic references for the background chapter for Singapore's development (and stop writing in the style of textbooks) and education history while my external marker wants me to tighten my conceptual understanding of cosmopolitanism before fine-tuning more empirical findings in relation to their theoretical aspects. Internal marker also did not let me get away with what she thought was an ambiguous understanding of Massey's Roots/Routes.

For some understanding on why I was struggling and to some extent lagging: there were some major events that happened in my life after submission. My father was hospitalised for a 2nd bout of flesh-eating bacterial infection for 21 days before passing away on the night of CNY day 1. Imagine my sadness. While other Chinese families had their reunions and family gatherings, I was arranging for my Dad's funeral with 2 of my other sisters.

As rational as I can be at the full ripe age of 30, losing my Dad was quite a heavy blow as I only lost my Mum almost just a year ago. In fact, both my parents passed away within a year of each other, all while I am still doing this part time degree alongside a full teacher's workload. I fell sick, was depressed for 2 weeks due to reactionary depression, had silly notions of ending it all, realising the irrationality of emotional thoughts... and coming out of it with consequences of shorter runways for work, studies, volunteering commitments...

Nonetheless, it does look like I am on my way comfortably to a 31 May deadline. Phew. I can think about working on 2 publications in June then. Children's Geographies with Tracey and one in an educational journal, which will help me break into education as a discipline.

While rushing to meet my final deadline for commencement, there is this pertinent question of "what now?" especially knowing my master journey is coming to an end, I am officially an adult orphan and some people simply giving me commonsensical responses of starting my family now...

I guess I am a female who question that which looks natural to people: the biological urge to reproduce. Does not help that I teach students that the urge to reproduce is an assumption we all have in reproduction policies as well as human outlook to life.

I can't find any good reason for or against reproduction. All I know it is an experiential journey with many feedback on the joys of parenting - pretty much similar to the pleasure I derive from taking care of my pets. It is probably also, not a rational choice at the individual scale, but a much required action given Singapore's population situation.

Perhaps, I am indeed one of the few women in Singapore who really think I must try my best to give birth because Singaporeans (truly born and bred here) are a dying breed. Yes, to fight against extinction. I resign myself to my species insatiable drive to consume Earth's resources.

Here comes a lady claiming to represent children and young people

For the Singaporeans who bother reading up on politics, there is this youngish 27/28 year-old female who currently is being fielded by a dominant political party to enter into parliament once the elections are done. Notice she is going into parliament, not politics.

When I first heard about her and saw her on the news, I was quite curious why she was suicidal enough to enter politics at her particular life-stage. Never mind her personal reasons nor my personal concerns about her. Let's get to her as an aspiring political figure.

1. Her beliefs and convictions and her rhetoric to convince people

She mentioned her years of volunteering and observations of people from a volunteer's perspective as her entry point into politics. Yet she does not critically mention in her interviews what her own evaluations were, neither is she actively writing online (say a blog?) about her own convictions if she had missed out her chance on traditional media. A politician must be heard and not let others control her image nor the branding she ought to personally take responsibility for.

When interviewed about the most pressing issue in Singapore, I'm impressed she tried to give a topic sentence to show her awareness that Singaporeans come in different age groups (normal O level student with some EQ should be able to say the same thing for English Oral). I was then puzzled when she narrowed down to young people and then give a typical kind of "filler answer" that young people all wanting to "pursue their dreams and achieving their aspirations". This general approach shows she has not given much thought to the concerns of young people in particular, especially when "pursuing dreams" can be applied to the majority of Singaporeans who are interested in bettering their lives. Nice answer, but too generic, and does not show us voters you can be taken seriously as someone representing young people in parliament.

My take on her public traditional media interviews is that she failed to recognise that traditional media exposure were golden opportunities for her to showcase her ability to think, especially when she wants to take on something like representing young people, an area she must be able to acknowledge that it is under-represented. Policies surrounding young people tend to be subsumed under other policies like education, community development, sports etc but never had the government thought about young people as differentiated, having different life experiences and therefore need more critical examination and sense of purpose to start 'seeing' children and young people in our current policies from the viewpoint of their life experiences.

2. An example of what she should be concerned about

See what I mean about development concerning children (and to a large extent, young people) being broken down into so many ministries - which structurally prevents many well-intenting civil servants from seeing a big picture concerning policy for children. If things are working so well under a "many ministries but integrated approach, why is it that there are more children abuse (50% more)?

Minister Vivian himself acknowledged that a "child-centred" approach is much needed, but by keeping the same structure of policy and surveillance, I do not see how keeping the same structure that resulted in the hike in children abuse will help bring the numbers down.

If Tin Pei Ling is really interested in children, why did she not pick out this most recent report on children to talk on, at least say she wants to be part of the action will help her gain some credibility with some voters.

I congratulate Pei Ling on being able to classify Singaporeans into different age groups, and she is able to point out some pressing issues (like "mental" but she seemed to have used "mental" quite loosely), but like a student who is not familiar with her materials, she lacks substantiation. When she mentioned "especially the mental", I was hoping she was aware that more children are being diagnosed with ADHD, or that young people with mental illness are quite being overlooked, the result of which I attribute the issue of young people's mental health as a 'nobody's child' since MOE focuses more on education, while MOH focus more on population health issues. Young people's mental health becomes a 'secondary' issue to both ministries... Yup, Ms. Tin could have mentioned this.

Worse now, I listen to her talk about us Singaporeans just like the people she is being mentored by, a clear US(PAP) and them(citizens) divide where she does not even mention how she is going to understand the populace. She ought to say things like she will want to create more channels of feedback (and this woman is in charge of new media for PAP) so she can understand better how to argue for the people she wants to represent. By not stating HOW she can get ideas about the citizens she wants to serve, one can only assume that her years of being a grassroot leader (at most I will credit her with being there with people, but she does not make the cut to be critically thinking about the structural issues which will require her to enter the parliament), a student who had gone through the University Scholar program in NUS, and her auditing experiences and whatever youth projects she took part in, as the credentials for becoming an MP.

Wait, grassroot leader, university student, auditor, wife, daughter positionalities can qualify to go into parliament liao? Where is the thinking required to identify structural issues? Without the maturity or more importantly, critical thinking, she actually does not need to enter politics to help others. Pei Ling can simply be who she is before becoming a candidate to help people. So why enter now?

Recent newspaper articles as well as some online ones had used the rhetoric of "give Tin Pei Ling" a chance to prove herself. I was quite disturbed by the idea of "giving chances". Chance refers to a situation where, at its simplest, something unknown and unpredictable. The same idea of "giving chance" is actually applicable to the other parties now working hard to combat a dominant party, which frankly, probably does not believe in giving them the chance (Remember PM Lee had to apologise for saying his party will 'fix' the opposition) to be in parliament. The same party Miss Tin Pei Ling is standing with had also notoriously propagated the idea of "survival" to us, especially the young Singaporeans. Survival is not about chance. Survival is intentional.

The "chance" argument simply does not apply to Tin Pei Ling. If we are to give this lady a chance, we voters need to look at the other candidates from the alternative camp with the same "chance" argument. They are equally as unknown and as unpredictable to us. There, we pay the price no matter who we put in, DPM Teo.

All these considered, I have not attacked the lady for her gender, age, looks nor yes, her personal relationships.

Reference for this post: http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/61280.html

Can Singapore improve its education system? Can!

Was quite inspired by the Finnish education system, where 'streaming' only happens when a child is 15 years old. I think this will work so much better for many kids in Singapore, as well as the boys as boys tend to peak later than girls.

Something else is also that children in troubled family structures nearing the teens (when the streaming happens) will be more ready to open up about their families and reasons for their underachieving (assuming they are not doing well, those doing well will not need much help) can be tackled by the schools.

But of course, this system will cost money, lots of it, and hopefully Singapore's budget for education can support such a system.

Ideas for title again!

Okay, I'm now more free since I took no-pay leave to focus on writing my thesis and I'm glad to report that my first data chapter is now more or less done, with 1 last minor edit which Brenda does not want to read until the whole thesis draft is in order. I have proven to be a slow learner but with not having to work for a month, I hope I will become sharper with my writing and thinking.

Finally kinda know what I want to write for the national scale of teenagers' citizenship in Singapore. I realised it is actually not much, but the few channels teens have actually play a major role in fostering their citizenship. Well, I'm forming a case to argue for more teenage citizenship participation I guess. Hmm, will think about how to translate these ideas I've gotten from the academic angle into govt action. Hmm, still dunno whether I'm ready to be civil servant again. Last spent only 8 months of my life as a government teacher.

I think I should call my thesis "Roots/routes to teenagers' citizenship in Singapore". Simple and direct. The stroke kind of reminds people that the approach here is postmodern. I think I need to find Pauline soon to find out about submission procedures. I HATE admin work, but must do it properly to finish candidature and graduate!

counting down 1.5 months to completion

It has been such an arduous journey so far. I just sent in a more decent Chapter 5 to Prof Yeoh after falling sick on it. I swear I will not go crowded places ever again other than the need to go to church. I think my body seemed more prone to stuff in the air. Also, my staying in my school most of the time far away from the maddening crowd seems to have made me not so updated with the flu strains that fly around in public places every time. Oh, well, these days of staying at home and writing and sleeping routine has helped me be more relaxed.

I have another 1.5 months to finalised Chapter 5, 6 and 7, finish up a final chapter which I am not confident enough to call it a conclusion, there's some conclusions but not enough to justify calling it conclusion chapter (I'm quite postmod in writing in this sense).

I am taking these few days to start to produce appendices. I have quite a few of them. The first one is probably the NE messages, which has gone through an update in 2007 after a review report, respondents, interviewees' profile in detail which needs SPSS again, calculations of the t-tests and other results of calculating significances which cannot be placed into the main report.

To date, I only have chapters 1, 2 and 3 on standby. I just realised I forgot about updating chapter 4 and send it in for inspection too.

Chapter 5,6,7 are the data chapters and will need to be worked on intensively, faster than my "sick rate".

Then complete the elusive chapter 8. And I will be done! Woho!

Singapore as a place for citizenship

Just thought this looked very nice when I scribbled my first thoughts onto my window in my study room. It's Warren Town by the way.