INSECTHUNTER

The World is Flat

Our generation had been able to enjoy a much higher Per capita in Singapore compared to the surrounding countries in Asia. Fresh Graduate in China are paid only about SGD$400, though those from well known university like Fudan can fetch as much as SGD$1000. They are as intelligent if not more intelligent than the graduate produced in Singapore. With information society that is where we are now, geography and place had become a lesser factor as communication technology had over come distance. A call center in India answer calls from passengers in Texas Airport seeking for direction. Indian accountants fill up American Income Tax Return within 24 hours. American upload his information and goes to sleep, while the Indian on the other side of the globe pick it up and fill it up, the American woke up and the Tax Return is done. American lost IT jobs in the thousands to Indian and Chinese. This is not manufacturing jobs. Singapore has lost manufacturing jobs to China and we had not been able to replace those manufacturing jobs although we had moved up the ladder with high-tech manufacturing jobs, biotechnology, etc. However, the labour demand is such that, the Graduates from Medicine are just “test-tube washer”. That is reality.
Therefore, as parents, we do realize that there is certain inadequacy in the educational system. We should not expect the same system that revolutionalised the social structure of the 80s and raised standard of living for majority of Singaporean and Malaysian continue to perform perfectly. Such immense system build up over years will take years to change, but the world, working places, working methods and working tools had changed tremendously. Emailing is the number one communication medium in working and social environment. Schools do not teach how to write email. As parents I teach them emailing and blogging. As working adults, we spend our time in front of the terminal. How is it that we always discourage children to use computers? We use mobile and sophisticate PDA. They are ban in school.
The next big relocation of employment is information intensive jobs. They are the sweatshops of information technology. Graduates from India, China, East Asia will compete for them. Our children will compete with them. So the big question is how are we preparing and equipping our children to compete with them? Traditional method of education is inadequate for such task.
We need to be revolutionary parents; we need to see beyond our own history of success and our past experience. Our parents are revolutionary as they see the worthiness of a good education, although most of our parents do not have the opportunity for such an education and they are not as educated as us. As educated parents, what are we doing for our children? Are we only good for following the same age-old method of sit down study, which they are still doing in school? These are some tough question to answer. One thing, I am sure, the old method of education cannot cope with the changes of the Industrial society to the information society.