Baby Carrots...

My children love the simple things in life; doodling on recycled papers, having fun with imaginary play, relaxing on the piano, and reading Roald Dahl's books are some of the things they enjoy doing thoroughly.

Three months ago, they decided to become farmers for a change. The thought of growing something that they can eat excites them. So, we bought a few packs of seeds and embarked on a journey to experience subsistence farming!

The first thing my children wanted to grow was baby carrot. After three months of 'hard' work, we were all ready to harvest the juicy carrots and make ourselves a delicious salad on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

We stopped salivating after pulling out the third carrot from the flower box. The baby carrots were really small or should I say microscopic. The biggest ones were only about 5-6cm in length. Our salad was rapidly fading right before our eyes.

I guess we are not ready to be farmers yet. We are not giving up though. We will attempt to grow 'KangKong' the next round. Hopefully this time round we will get to eat the fruits of our labour.

Well, the hard work put in by my kids did not go to waste. They gave the carrots away as farewell gifts to their classmates as another illusional 'Teach Less Learn More' school year came to an end.

No Apology Needed...

I am sure a whole generation of Singaporeans affected by the Bilingual policy would find it painful to read page B6 of the Home section of The Straits Times on 2 Nov 2009.

In the article, 'Bilingual policy was most difficult: MM', Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said he did not know how difficult it was for a child from an English-speaking home to learn Mandarin.

He went on to say:

You spend time on extra tuition, and still make little progress. Many were turned off Mandarin for life.

Eventually, we settled the problem in 2004 by teaching the mother tongue in the module system. Had we done this earlier, we would have had less wastage of students' time and effort, and less heartache for parents.

It took the PAP Government 30 years to 'resolve' this issue. To many Singaporeans affected by this ill-conceived policy, it will take more than just time to get over the anguish, pain, and frustration they felt growing up as guinea pigs in an educational experiment that probably drained a big chunk of their youthful energy, shattered their dreams and altered their aspirations.

A whole generation was affected by this Bilingual policy. It was reported that MM Lee initially believed 'intelligence was equated to language ability'. It took a confirmation from his daughter, a neurologist, to make him realise the flaw in the implementation of the policy.

Was there no feedback on the ground when this Bilingual policy was introduced in the initial years? I am sure many parents must have voiced their concerns and frustrations via some feedback channels. Where did those feedback ended up the past 30 years?

Although the PAP Government has wasted much of the students' time and effort in learning Mandarin, the 'by-products' that came with the implementation of this bilingual policy were more damaging. It is the stigma that many young students of that generation had to live with when they could not cope with the learning of their 'mother tongue'.

It is also the inferiority complex that developed in those young children over time that caused the most heartache for the parents. The money and time they spent to help their children coped with the bilingual policy can go to waste for all they care but to see their children slowly retreating into a world of despair and depression was probably the hardest thing for them to stomach.

Didn't any feedback from parents, students and teachers over the years prick anybody at the Ministry of Education, in the Parliament, or in the Cabinet? Must we wait for MM Lee's daughter to become a neurologist to awaken everyone on this ill-conceived approach to learning Mandarin?

Were there no experts or neurologists around the past 30 years to advise the Cabinet?

It may be easy for us to criticise such policy now. The PAP Government cannot be faulted for implementing the Bilingual policy because Singapore really needed to 'upgrade' its population to compete for investments in the early years of nationhood.

What I find it unacceptable is it took the PAP 30 long years to 'correct' the issue. Furthermore, has the issue really been resolved? Many parents with school going children may disagree with that conclusion. I am one of them. When time permits, I shall blog about this.

What is also disturbing was no Education Minister ever told MM Lee that there was something amiss in the implementation of the Bilingual policy over the years. It is hard to imagine no one at the Education Ministry knew there was a problem with the implementation of the policy for 30 years.

Educating our young cannot be an experimental thing. There was a time when our policymakers experimented with extending primary education to level 7 or 8. Fortunately, we did not have to wait 30 years for this ill-conceived policy to be scrapped.

Did we detect any sense of remorse in our leaders when they quietly dropped such ill-informed policies? Not really. The Bilingual policy wasn't wrong. It was just a 'difficult' policy to implement. There is no apology needed in a one-party rule.

Let's Not Politicise LUP Anymore!

The recent debate on the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) has only 2 conclusions.

One, the People's Association (PA), despite being publicly funded by millions of tax dollars, remains an unreasonably partisan entity. In doing so, the association has completely lost touch with the community. To put it simply, it has lost all sense of reality.

In the reality television game show, Survivor, when a participant gets voted out at the end of each episode, he or she must 'leave Exile Island immediately'.

In PA's version of the 'Survivor' show, a candidate who gets voted out does not need to 'leave the island immediately'. It all depends on the colour of his or her 'skin'. If it is white, you get to come back on the 'show' to haunt and taunt the very people who booted you out. If your skin is anything but white, off you go. You must leave the 'island' immediately.

That is indeed a uniquely Singapore concoction - something for the Tourism Board to think about and possibly include in its campaign of the same name.

Two, public housing is no longer under public control anymore. It is now in the 'private' hands of a partisan HDB. The rationale behind HDB's practice to deal with a constituency's grassroots adviser for all upgrading programmes instead of its popularly elected opposition MP is just beyond comprehension.

It is ludicrous for HDB not to acknowledge the two opposition MPs in Hougang and Potong Pasir are more 'grassroots' than the grassroots advisers appointed by PA!

Both Mr Chiam See Tong and Mr Low Thia Khiang have been serving the residents of Potong Pasir and Hougang since 1984 and 1991 respectively. Mr Sitoh Yih Pin and Mr Eric Low Siak Meng only surfaced in 2001.

It is also delusional for PA to think it could fulfill its mission to 'build and to bridge communities in achieving one people, one Singapore' when it repeatedly chooses two defeated candidates over two popularly elected veterans as grassroots advisers to serve the opposition wards.

A taxpayer-funded PA should not restrict its selection of grassroots advisers to just PAP members. Currently, the PA Board comprises mostly PAP members starting with the Prime Minister as Chairman. The only distinction between PA and PAP is just an alphabet letter.

As we have a non-partisan and elected President now, perhaps he should be the best person to front PA to promote racial harmony and social cohesion. After all, the President has the mandate of the people as the entire electorate supposedly elects him.

Last, the LUP is to rectify a design flaw in older HDB flats. It is not that difficult for anyone to explain that to the residents. In fact, HDB should be the one doing the job since those badly designed flats were built by some ‘penny-wise-pound-foolish’ civil servants in the first place. HDB should take full ownership of this problem and rectify it to the best of its capability.

Going through grassroots advisers or any MP to announce or publicise the LUP will only politicise the issue further. Nothing will absolve HDB of its shortsightedness in building such ridiculous flats until the lift landing issue is resolved.

Sadly, about 200 flats will not get LUP because of the high costs involved in rectifying those badly designed public housing. A Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme should be instituted for those affected residents.