A fitting conclusion.
The Mother Tongue issue is closed now, with the government’s categorical reassurance that Mother Tongue weightage at the PSLE will not be lowered. Fairness has – for once – triumphed in this country.
I expect this to be one of the last letters the Straits Times is going to publish about the issue, hence the title.
Government should have stood firm (13 May 2010)
I COULD not believe yesterday’s report, ‘No change to PSLE mother tongue weightage’. I have long admired the Government for sticking to the right decision even if it was an unpopular one.
Times have clearly changed and the Government has caved in to the demands of a parochial group in a particular community.
How many times have we tried to teach the mother tongue in different ways but inevitably ended up with the same unsatisfactory result?
The fact is, we cannot expect English and the mother tongue to be accorded equal weighting because it is unrealistic to do so.
Our environment is oriented in the English language, so how can we expect young minds to be moulded otherwise?
Why do our children have names like Megan or Bryan, and why do our national table tennis players adopt English names like Joy and Tiffany?
Those who fear a loss of culture without equal mother tongue weighting should ask themselves why their children or grandchildren are called by their English names, even when there is.
Imparting culture, like religion, is the parents’ job, and should not be forced upon us by public policy.
As a mother of two kids in primary school, I have first-hand experience of pupils’ struggle to learn an utterly foreign language and the consequent unnecessary stress and demands on them.
Parents like me are not demanding the elimination of the mother tongue, but merely appealing for a smaller weighting in the PSLE score to help children who excel in English, mathematics and science earn their rightful chance to qualify for a place in a better secondary school.
Long ago, the Government wised up in the weighting game for the GCE O- and A-level exams. How much longer do we have to wait for the PSLE to fall in line?
This is truly a fitting conclusion. It has it all – overbearing selfishness, tunnel vision and poor argumentation. It is a culmination of all the previous terrible letters calling for the imposition of a completely unfair policy on this country. It is both easy and desirable to demolish every argument it puts forth.
First it attempts to cast the maintenance of equal weightage as a parochial opinion that lacks wide public support. I wonder where our author gets this impression from. A newspaper poll of 200 respondents found 65% in favour of maintaining the weightage. As of last week, according to the Straits Times, 80 out of about 100 letters sent in about the Mother Tongue policy were supportive of maintaining the weightage. The Straits Times, mind, is an English-language paper. Although these statistics cannot stand on their own to indicate how popular the Mother Tongue policy in its present form really is, there is no indication either from numbers such as these that maintaining the current weightage is a mere parochial opinion. So, unless our author has actually conducted a much larger poll of her own, which I heavily doubt she has, she is basically making things up. If anything, what the figures point to is that the opinion for reducing the weightage is the parochial one.
So, a good start. Next? This:
How many times have we tried to teach the mother tongue in different ways but inevitably ended up with the same unsatisfactory result?
Yes. How many times? I genuinely have no idea. Perhaps our author can enlighten me?
In any case, what is an unsatisfactory result? This statement is far too vague to be anything else than an appeal to emotion. Our author, again, is putting out a weighty statement that requires quite a bit of hard proof, without providing any of that at all. Unless she did, and the editor cut it out, but somehow I doubt that’s the case here.
The fact is, we cannot expect English and the mother tongue to be accorded equal weighting because it is unrealistic to do so.
And it is completely unfair to thousands of students out there to cut the mother tongue weighting. Ever given any thought at all to that?
By all means tear down this current PSLE grading system and reform it completely. But to call for the current system to be kept and only one single subject weightage to be lowered is an incredibly selfish act. Face it, the world doesn’t revolve around your offspring and the sooner you teach them that the better.
Our environment is oriented in the English language, so how can we expect young minds to be moulded otherwise?
Maybe your environment is. But even though more Singaporeans now speak English at home than the mother tongues, there are plenty who still utilize the latter extensively in day-to-day communication. I am one of those. True, the working language in Singapore is English, and well it ought to be, but it is too much of a simplification to say that the prominence of English means Mother Tongue lacks all importance.
Young minds are like sponges. Of course they can be moulded. It just depends on the effort educators and parents want to put in. Obviously it’s not easy, but what aspect of parenting and teaching is easy?
What our children need to learn at the very least is there is more than one world out there. It is not desirable to limit them to a singular English-speaking worldview just because English happens to take prominence in a large part of their lives. Learning another language will shape the way they think from a young age, allowing them to understand and better appreciate a whole other culture.
Why do our children have names like Megan or Bryan, and why do our national table tennis players adopt English names like Joy and Tiffany?
Hilarious logic here. I’ve not yet met a Singaporean Chinese without a Chinese name. So by our author’s logic Chinese is still important. Good work shooting yourself in the foot, I suppose.
Parents like me are not demanding the elimination of the mother tongue, but merely appealing for a smaller weighting in the PSLE score to help children who excel in English, mathematics and science earn their rightful chance to qualify for a place in a better secondary school.
Why should only children who excel in English, Maths and Science deserve a chance to qualify for a place in a better secondary school? What about those not as good in these subjects but better in Mother Tongue? What are they, chopped liver? They have as much of a right to challenge for places in good schools, and lowering the weightage – no matter by how much – is going to infringe on that right. Empirically speaking it is definitely going to disadvantage them, and this is not fair.
Ideally, we need to have an education system that allows every child to maximise his or her potential, and all children have potential in different areas. That’s the sheer difficulty of it. The argument for dropping weightage always appeals to the point that children should not be hobbled by being poor at Mother Tongue, blocking their chances to maximise their potential, but look at the other side of the coin: if we drop the weightage, are we not also blocking a whole other swathe of children from maximizing their potential? No matter how small the cut, this group who are good at mother tongue will be placed as a disadvantage. Some will most certainly lose out. But this is okay for the crowd who want the weightage to be dropped, I guess, because it’s not their kids. So, really, what they want is for a certain select group of students to be given a special privilege to help them succeed. I think any sensible person can agree that this is not fair, reasonable or desirable for our country.
Ultimately the big issue in this entire saga, for me at least, is not anything about culture. I’m written on a personal level about that, but the best argument against cutting the weightage is still the issue of fairness – of giving all students an equal crack at things. Somehow, to the bunch who want the weightage to drop, fairness is when the students who can do well in everything except Mother Tongue get a leg up on the rest. I do wonder if some of these people can at least appreciate the hypocrisy of their position.
Writer is barking up the wrong tree!
No one is clearer than the MOE that it
has not been achieving its objectives
on this issue of Mandarin.
Hey, why all the numerous exercises
and revisions throughout the 30 odd
years of its existence. In fact, the latest
included one by the PM himself and the
latest just months ago by the old man
himself?
Are you saying they had no good or valid
reasons to waste their time and attention
on an issue that is doing well? Are you
seriously suggesting that they and now
minister Ng is wasting their time to fix
something that AIN’T BROKEN?
You are living in the past my friend.
Time to wake up anf face up to
reality. Mandarin is not equal to the
heritage, roots and culture of the vast
majority of local Chinese here. It carries
NO WEIGHT as far as our dialect root, heritage
and culture is concerned. And I feel very
angry and perturb by some ignoramus
buggers telling me what my roots are!
Bug off, please.
It appears that you are the one barking up the wrong tree. I stated in the above post that my main objection to lowering the Mother Tongue weightage lies in the fact that it would be grossly unfair to thousands of students good at Mother Tongue but weaker in the other subjects. In terms of culture, my opinion is that it is advantageous for our students to come into contact with another culture other than that represented by the English-speaking world.
By all means tear down the entire PSLE grading system and create a new one that can better measure and take into account the varying abilities of our students, but keeping the present system while only lowering the Mother tongue weightage would represent a great injustice for many students out there.
You have set up a strawman to knock down. Go attack someone who is actually “telling [you] what [your] roots are”, because I am not.
George. You’re an idiot.
It’s not your fault, don’t worry; it’s just that in Singapore, the language standards are so bad that they have problems understanding the proper wording of any well-constructed argument, and then have subsequent problems trying to express themselves. Sadly for you, you have completely missed the point and, as you so sententiously put it, “bark[ed] up the wrong tree.” But it was a forlorn hope that you would be able to follow our learned friend’s meaning, and as such, I am not overly disappointed.
If you read over our learned friend’s essay again (yes, I know that at your speed, it’ll take you another right hours, but perhaps you could learn something from the experience; Buddha said that roads were made for journies, not destinations [Oh, look, proof my my cultural credentials. How much cleverer am I than you!]), you would find that our learned friend was, at the point of publishing, unconcerned with the link between culture and “mother tongue” in his essay. Yet you have chosen to attack him based on this point. I would hazard a guess, but I believe that the ignoramous (and illiterate peasant) is, tragically, yourself.
You criticise the government for its subversion of education for its political means. This is itself not beyond reproach: which totalitarian government, and indeed, which government, does not do that? The opposition to a government does not necessrily mean opposition to ALL its policies; although the PSLE system is deeply flawed, to re-weight it in your favour would be to damage it further. You’re being obtuse by not seeing that particular point.
I shall, however, indulge your foolishness for a moment: it shows nothing but selfishness, inconsideration and possible racism. Perhaps Mandarin isn’t important to you, culturally speaking. What about the Mother Tongues of our different ethnic friends? They may speak English to you, but in their families they speak Malay, they speak Tamil, they speak Boyanese. Are you to decide that their cultures are not dependant upon the language?
You attempted to appear cleverer than you really are by trotting out our old friend Maslow. Are you saying that by re-weighting the Mother Tongue, students who were falling behind would suddenly achieve enlightenment? The truth is that they won’t. Students are beset by multiple personal problems growing up in Singapore. Believe it or not, there is an underlying level of malignancy in society itself. For instance students in Normal (Technical) streams aren’t stupid, and are arguably able to perform complex academic tasks; there are societal issues which need to be tackled regarding broken families, substance abuse. Practical teaching experiences tell us this. Do YOU claim to have this?
The “sick joke” is people like you who think that the only important things in life are English, Mathematics and Sciences. This is nothing short of idiotic. For instance, the lack of objective historians in this country is what enables the government to experiment, fail, and cover up. This emphasis on Mathematics and Sciences is shortsighted; ultimately, one remembers civilisations for their culture, and all the mathematics and sciences in the world can only get you so far.
If you’re wondering why this note is so insulting, and makes so many personal attacks, it is because I take great exception to your personal insults on our learned friend. So, in sum: get your facts straight before lashing out. Do something positive like form a new political party so you can oust the government and implement whatever learned policies you may have. But until then, follow your own advice and “[bugger] off.”
Give one good reason why a second language deserved the same weightage as the other three when it clearly plays only a secondary role when compared to the rest?
By your own admission it is a prop for those weak in the rest. That IMO runs smack in the face of logic. Weakness in English, Maths and Science which are crucial subjects cannot be in any sense compensated for with 2nd language. That’s like a sick joke.
But I agree that the entire PSLE deserved to be torn down and re-created anew on a more logical and substantive basis.
In what way does the so-called second language “play only a secondary role” compared to the other subjects?
It does not for me and for many, many Singaporeans because we use this language daily at home, at school, in the workplace or with friends. Perhaps it does for you, but not everyone lives like you.
I believe you have also misinterpreted me in saying I admit Mother Tongue is a prop for those weak in other subjects. I did not admit any such thing; it is far too simplistic to say that. For instance you can have a student whose aptitude is in languages. He or she is good at both English and Mother Tongue yet weaker in Maths and Science. If we decrease the Mother Tongue weightage, this student is also disadvantaged. Since you acknowledge English is important, won’t it be undesirable to disadvantage students who are in this situation?
Moreover, surely you agree that an education system ought to allow students to live up to their potential in areas where they are strong? If Mother Tongue weightage is cut, won’t that infringe on the ability of students strong in Mother Tongue to live up to their potential?
In any case, lowering the weightage of Mother Tongue while keeping the current grading structure flies in the face of all the values MOE wishes to inculcate in students. It teaches our students from a young age that, rather than working hard to overcome one’s own deficiencies, one ought to simply shift the goalposts to get around one’s weaknesses. Surely you must agree that this is most definitely not a lesson you want our younger generation to learn?
I must also question: on what basis do you find that Maths and Science are more crucial subjects than the second language? I mean no offence to any of the other mother tongue languages to speak of Mandarin, but Mandarin is as much of a global language as English is. In terms of absolute numbers more people speak it worldwide, and every single one of our neighbours possess large Chinese minorities. Would it not help our students greatly to know a second language, especially considering the continuing march of globalization? Culturally it will also stand them in good stead to gain from a young age insights into a culture that is both rich and completely different from that represented by the English language.
By all means, we should move away from examining the second language via examinations and rote memorization, but it remains important and the weighting ought to continue to reflect that fact. Already MOE has made concessions in second language learning – is there any other subject at the O Levels that is offered at 3 levels (HMT, MT and Chinese B)?
“it would be grossly unfair to thousands of students good at Mother Tongue but weaker in the other subjects” I interpret it from this quote of yours.
Mandarin is secondary because for the most part, it is not essential to daily living here and what is worse it has been employed by govt to usurp/displaced the proper place of dialects in the daily lives of ethnic Chinese here. In a sense, its like ethnic cleansing in a quiet and insidious way. China Chinese don’t accept nor recognised Mandarin as ‘mother tongue’. Putong Hua, literally, common lingo, is meant for communication purposes only. No attempt by any Chinese govt to displace any of its scores of different dialects or languages with Mandarin as ‘mother tongue’. Looks like after 3 decades of enforced speak mandarin campaign, many Singaporeans, (including you?) has lost track of their real genuine ethnic dialects, heritage, culture and roots. Or, could it be worse than that – they have abandoned their heritage for the sake of the economic ($) value that Mandarin promised?
Let me get this straight, I have NOTHING against the learning of Mandarin and for that matter any other language. My problem is with the massive manipulation that Singaporeans are being subject to by the govt for mostly its own political ends.
Give me one good reason why can’t students be at liberty to choose his choice of a 2nd or even 3rd language or even just one language. But why force feed if the facts are in themselves so compelling and evident to pick up Mandarin? That linkage to heritage and culture is counterintuitive (and in this case actually flawed) and a load of crap to the vast majority! If you have to struggle to even scrape through, would you have the time and capacity to ‘smell the flowers’? In Maslow’s scheme struggling students are at the lowest ‘hygiene’ level. To appreciate culture and finer mores, one must at least be a couple of levels above.
On your question of what I want for the younger generation, IMO, that has already been messed up by the govt with its meddling, inappropriate tweaking and experimentation. In effect we have some 30 generations of experimental Mandarin laboratory mice to show for the govt’s efforts to date, and it is still unrepentant refusing to admit that it has employed too many Mandarin cooks and spoilt the broth.
That quote of mine is merely expressing the point that Mother Tongue weightage within the current system ought not to be dropped relative to other subjects, because that would be unfair. This is what is being called for by many. As I already said, tear down and rebuild the entire system of PSLE grading if necessary, not simply cut Mother Tongue weightage.
I must disagree with you that Mandarin is not essential to daily living here. There still exist many from the older generation who can only speak Mandarin or dialects. It is necessary to be able to speak Mandarin in order to communicate with them unless one wants to wall oneself up within an ivory tower.
I assure you that I have not forgotten my dialect, which is Hokkien. I can speak it. I do not appreciate however the implied personal attack. That I believe in the importance of Mandarin does not mean I do not believe in the importance of dialects as well. As for your one good reason why students should not be able to choose to learn whatever second language they would like, I would say MOE’s resources are much too limited to be able to cater to so many languages. However, MOE does have several language centres that allow students to learn a variety of third languages from secondary school onwards.
Other than that it appears that you keep barking up the wrong tree. I say again that I have not promoted the learning of Mandarin for the sake of maintaining one’s Chinese heritage or roots. I do not even need to touch that point in order to bring up good arguments against why the weightage ought not to be lowered within the current PSLE grading system. So please, stop setting up strawmen here to knock down. However, I will say that however you square it, Mandarin is a global language and has great importance both worldwide and regionally. Whether or not the government has a political agenda in promoting Mandarin, this remains an empirical fact.
I will, however, address this point: “But why force feed if the facts are in themselves so compelling and evident to pick up Mandarin?” – apparently the importance of Mandarin is not compelling and evident to a considerable percentage of our population as shown by the sheer number of anti-Mandarin forum letters. We ought not to see primary education as force-feeding because primary level subjects are taught at a foundational level. In primary school, children only learn the basics of each language as well as basic mathematics and basic scientific knowledge to acquaint them with the world around them. I don’t think it is asking too much for children to have to learn the basics of a language, particularly since language learning ability is actually the strongest in human beings at a young age.
To address your point about struggling students – the answer is to examine and refine teaching methods. I support less emphasis on examinations and rote memorization, which are the major banes of students poor in any subject. A simple weightage cut is not just unfair but merely a band aid solution that will help little and send the message to students that difficulties in life can be simply dealt with through enough whining. I ask again – is that the kind of lesson you want our younger generation to learn?
Let me answer your last point first. If you are for less emphasis on exam how do you get round the issue of PSLE weightage for school posting?
Agreed, a simple cut in weightage is no solution to an overly demanding or unrealistic syllabus if that is the source of the problem. But when you keep the weightage, something else has to give. What? Right now MOE/PM Lee seems to be saying nothing that is new. Lee said for the less endowed they still get their marks based on what they could manage. That is nothing new. Isn’t this currently the case? Does it in any way resolve the perceived disadvantage of the less endowed.
Do you accept the truism that if you are just not cut out to be good at something, it is highly unlikely, that you can excell in it, no matter what AS LONG AS THE BAR REMAINS AT THE SAME HEIGHT. That, I believe, is the whole crux of the issue. MOE/Lee and you are saying that with different methods and approaches the less able students can still be brought round to the same expected standard.
In my view, that is being overly optimistic for two reasons: While a more creative approach may help students to gain some additional marks, it is highly unlikely that it would result in any remarkable difference for the great majority of such students because surely you are not implying that current teaching concept and pedagogy is so off the mark or inappropriate. This, after 3 to 4 decades of Mandarin teaching? Incidentally, it is rather revealing that the MOE is not in the forefront of new teaching technology and expertise would have remained stagnant if not for the furore generated by this issue. it is neither reassuring nor comforting for parents to learn that.
Secondly, effectively, the demanded standard remains unchanged. So in effect, the govt has already cast it in stone. No change really, Therefore, the problem will remain since there is a refusal to acknowledge the fact that some are just not born equal, linguistically. Who decides that so called ‘foundational’ or required basic is applicable to Singaporean students, after all, are we not unique, our educational system has been described as ‘stressful’ by others, etc etc? Is PRC or Taiwanese standards appropriate here, for instance? Is there such a thing as a universal standard? If there is, how do we fare? There are really lots and lots questions. Has anyone really studied whether there is a case for a de facto lowering of standard given our genral language environment and other psycho-social factors. We are not even the same as our nearest ‘cousins’, the Malaysians.
You may even be right about the foundational levels and basics, but I firmly believe a lot of things depend on context and circumstance. Straight off my head, I would disagree that what is applicable to primary students in China is applicable to local students. While both are learning Mandarin, sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander for the obvious difference in milieu and background, esp. family background.
I also think that bringing into the picture Malays and Tamil is a red herring. In the first place, it was the govt which had muddied the mandarin/mother tongue issue. At the very most, Mandarin is only a minor subset of the entire Chinese language environment here. It is really a sick joke to make all ethnic Chinese Singaporeans ‘honorary’ northerner of China. Frankly, I feel insulted and angered by such high-handedness of the govt for taking such obscene liberty with my ethnic roots and heritage.
That “something else that has to give” would be the teaching methods and assessment criteria. Right now the PSLE T-score is the only determinant as to which secondary schools students are sent to (barring a small number that are accepted for their CCAs). Perhaps this can be changed to make the PSLE T-score not the only determinant but also factor in other modes of assessment, like enlarging the role of CCAs, for instance. Within the syllabus further tinkering can also be done, such as moving away from rote memorization by expanding the importance of the oral component.
With such different approaches, the abilities and needs of each individual student will be better considered. Instead of a one-size-sits-all examination, students who are better at speaking than writing the language, for instance, will be better taken care of. I must also disagree that Mandarin education holds all students to a common standard. Even now it does not, due to the existence at the primary level of 2 levels of Mother Tongue – MT and HMT, and the existence at the secondary level of 3 levels of Mother Tongue. More capable students can make the step up at primary level and less capable ones can make the step down from secondary level onwards.
So there have already been changes by MOE to the Mother Tongue policy to ensure that students’ abilities in learning Mother Tongue are taken care of. Moreover, the individual syllabi of Mother Tongue have been tweaked over the years. For example, in 2005 MOE raised the weightage of the oral component within the O Level MT examination. More changes are afoot as PM Lee has stated, but these will be long term and so the effects may not be quickly apparent. Hence I must disagree with your statement that there is a refusal to acknowledge the fact that not all students have equal linguistic abilities. If anything, this recent furore is going to make the government further take note and take action on this problem.
I do not recall saying anything whatsoever about Chinese standards in China being applicable here, so I am not sure what you are on about there. My point has always been that it is desirable to have some foundational knowledge in Mandarin because it is a global language. Whatever you feel about your roots and heritage and the role of Mandarin within those roots and heritage, Mandarin is a global language spoken by billions worldwide and hence its importance is empirical fact. That is my point, and I would appreciate it if you stop harping on Mandarin in relation to your ethnic roots and heritage, because frankly I have said nothing about that point and I see no reason for you to keep belabouring it here.
George. In case you’re too thick to understand what I said previously: YOU ARE AN IDIOT. But Buddha tells us to be kind, so I shall try not to lose my patience with you.
Whilst it is true that much of China were not native speakers of Mandarin, the Manchus ruled China for about 300 years, to the exclusion of all others. They imposed Mandarin as their court language, which then became the lingua franca in China, although this was only really officially adopted in China in after the Communists came to power. It was very handy to know even if you were an illiterate peasant back then, what with needing to pay taxes or to explain why you can’t pay them.
It is very likely that Mandarin has become part of your heritage, unless, of course, your family moved away from China before then 1700s. Judging from your case, that’s highly unlikely. Obviously, you weren’t part of the aristocracy then, so your family must have comprised of illiterate peasants. You’re a foolish, foolish person for not even knowing your historical roots (which you seem so passionate about), and that is the true tragedy of the Singaporean experience.
Understand?
Thanks for the summary of actions taken by govt to help with the problem.
Without meaning to make light of the efforts by all concerned, I do find it somewhat
amusing-it’s like a game where the govt is trying to put a hole where the ball will roll in.
I have been harping as you put it on MT-Roots link for the very simple reason that the govt has made it so by pursuing policies and using its power to promote Mandarin at the expense of dialects. So the two issues are inextricably linked in the local context. Govt in its flawed thinking have been pursuing a policy of promoting Mandarin by seeking to destroy dialects which it perceives as a hinderance. That is yet one more example of taking the ill-conceived shortcut at the expense of the people. For the sake of its objective to make people conversant in Mandarin it was willing to destroy people’s roots and heritage. The irony is that as has come to pass, all that scheming and engineering over 3-4 decades, have not produced the desired effect of any appreciable or significant import, hence the current status quo. But, in the process it has virtually killed dialects. Did you ever pause to consider if Mandarin and dialects use has no connection, why has the true mother tongues that dialects are of the people no life and vibrancy of their own in this society? Have it occurred to you how unnatural the state of affairs is? Because of the pursuit of such undemocratic policies, we ended up with almost dead dialect cultures in an half-baked Mandarin environment!!!
As an aside: To be perfectly personal about it, IMO, such hard-hearted Mandarin policies were made possible because those who started it, aka the leadership, have only a nominal dialect, which they don’t possess in any appreciable degree of fluency. It’s not their flesh and blood, so it not difficult to make such decisions. Minimal if any impact on them at all. This has changed recently when the progenies of VVIP complained about what 30-40 generations of lesser mortals’ children have rued about. Like the Chinese saying, ‘you won’t feel the pain unless the needle is pricking your own flesh’.
By its flawed thinking and belief that dialects was in the way
of Singaporeans learning Mandarin, govt took measures to
kill dialect use and with it the roots, culture and heritage
of ethnic Chinese Singaporeans whose very ‘Chinese-ness’
comes to them from dialects.
The tragedy of this wholly misconceived inimical move is that
it actually removed the very foundation, ballast and stepping
stone that dialects would provide to the learning of Mandarin.
Depriving Singaporeans of their dialects is in a sense a ‘self-sabo’
by the govt of its own objective.
The removal of dialects coupled with the inability of Mandarin
to effectively take over, left a huge cultural and heritage vacuum
which by and by popular western culture quickly and easily takes
up. So, you have actually created a double-obstacle to learning
Mandarin instead of helping it.
As a corollary, look at families with Mandarin-speaking background.
They are in the main families where at least one parent had received
their education in Mandarin. Their children as a result have no problem
with it. It would be interesting to know if such families have remained
steeped in their customary dialect practices and values.