Too much?

Do you think the syllabus taught in SG schools is too much?

From: The Straits Times Forum, 28 March 2011

Packed syllabuses won't make thinkers

THE revamping of Nanyang Technological University's undergraduate programme is a great move (''Teach less, learn more' now at NTU'; March 16).

It is necessary for students to develop skills and qualities beyond just academic excellence.

From my recruitment experiences in the corporate world and direct interactions with students at universities where I deliver workshops, I find that most of our students are not interested in asking questions - they do not challenge what they hear, and they do not have their own views and opinions.

Not even 10 per cent of the students in my classes read books or magazines. How do we expect our students to come up with ideas and creative solutions if there are no broad-based stimulants and external inputs?

Until we get this right, it will be difficult to expect leadership qualities in our students. We will continue to produce just efficient implementers and doers.

Singapore's emphasis on academic excellence was necessary in the days of nation building and we have done very well. What we need now are thinkers who can handle ambiguity, risk-takers, and people who can translate theories into applications.

We need people with the courage to venture into the unknown, challenge the status quo, push boundaries and make changes. These qualities do not appear overnight, and tackling these at university is too late.

NTU is taking a step in the right direction, but what we really need is to get away early from the notion that the more we study - both in terms of depth and volume - the better we will be.

For example, the level of maths our children learn in primary school, the number of A-level subjects taken at junior college, and the syllabus of a university course.

We need to cut the syllabuses right across our primary, secondary and tertiary education levels. Why do we need to study so much?

Apart from specialist disciplines, how much of what is taught in university is actually needed in our jobs?

Let our children enjoy their childhood and give them an education that is balanced and truly all-rounded.

Sylvia Lee (Mrs)

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For university courses I would say yes. They (or whoever decides on the amount of content taught in a module) tend to include and pack a lot of content into the short 3-month semester. Though it is true that at university level, students have grasped much of the basics and hence able to learn and absorb new knowledge at a much faster pace, but studying so much within such a short period somehow defeats the purpose. Having learnt so much during the semester, how much of it is actually retained in our brain by the time the next semester starts? By the time we reach our final year, we would have forgotten most of what we've learnt during our first year, supposedly the fundamentals. This is especially true for standalone-content which are not required in subsequent modules.

Among the contents, there are examinable and non-examinable ones. Of course most people won't bother to understand in detail for those non-examinable ones. As for examinable content, our brains will be refreshed right before every test, quiz and exam. Imagine the absorbed knowledge as a plotted signal. It rises sharply during these critical periods, but dies out really fast too. There is hardly any activity to keep it at a high level all the time.

Should non-examinable content be included within the syllabus as well? If it makes the syllabus more packed, probably not. If modules just teach what is examinable, it can lighten the load of students, especially those kiasu ones who tend to study everything, even those that don't seem important. That's the practical, exam-oriented way of thinking, from the students' perspective. From the professors' POV, they want to expose students to as much information as possible, even though there is a limit to how much they can set in tests and exams. In order to make students study more, they won't explicitly reveal what content is tested and what is not. (Though I've a lecturer who goes through every single slide of the lecture notes indicating whether the content shown in the slide is tested or not......)

As we progress up the education level, we'll realise that the things we learned before is not that much after all. In secondary school I used to lament on the sheer amount of content we had study for Social Studies, History and Geography, to the extent that we had to spot topics for the exam. Thinking back now, it seems like a small fry. Of course there are also the 'useful' content and 'useless' content. (these are pretty subjective, depending on your future education route and interest) Talking about useless content, I can't help thinking about this topic taught in Primary 5 Maths - Tessellation (google it if you've forgotten about this word). I just don't see much of a point in teaching this, though it serves as a breather after all the intensive chapters.

I guess the reason for including more content in our early education years is not only to provide us with the basics, but also expose us to more varied subjects such that we can discover our potentials and affinity to some. For those who still cannot find what they are really good at in secondary school, probably they are not suited for academics. Unfortunately SG does not accommodate much for arts and entertainment oriented people.

Recently I read a contrasting report in the Japanese newspaper saying that Japan is going to increase the syllabus for primary and secondary schools, in order to move away from the 'relaxed' education system. Not really clear about the reason, but probably it has something to do with the 'lazy' phenomenon in Japanese youths nowadays.

Does reducing the syllabus breed laziness and lower one's tendency to spend more time on learning (and thinking) instead? That's another problem to consider.