Mum’s the word on smarter children

Straits Times Forum
Published on Sep 21, 2011

THE announcement of my engagement to a Caucasian surprised many who had accepted my status of being ‘on the shelf’ (‘A PhD’s fine, but what about love and babies?’; Sept 6).

It is my PhD that is currently on the shelf as after more than 10 years as a full-time mother, it is almost impossible to return to academia.

Many intelligent Singapore women will recognise this problem: most Singapore men are not inclined to marry women they consider to be cleverer.

I remember the look of one man who chatted me up after I had made a witty remark at a lecture. When I told him I was (then) a master’s degree student he – literally – turned away.

Spot the difference: My husband (who holds a Bachelor of Science degree), tells people he is clever enough to have married me.

Studies have shown consistently that a child’s educational attainment correlates with that of his mother’s. My son’s IQ is significantly higher than that of either of his parents. (I am convinced that 11 months of breast-feeding also helped.)

I might have opted out of a career where I could inspire many young people on to their own doctorates, but my son has also benefited much from our discussions on the scientific method, statistics in research, Descartes, splitting an infinitive (and atom), and so on.

He is so far ahead of his cohort that he has skipped one year in Maths and is being ‘extended’ in other subjects within his normal classes.

My points are:

First, Singapore men who wish to have clever children should consider marrying women who are better educated or cleverer (remember, one does not always imply the other), just as short men should marry taller wives if they want taller sons because sons are rarely shorter than their mothers.

Second, it is all right for well-educated mothers to stay at home to care for their children. Their education will not be wasted in the instruction of their own children.

Third, Mr Lee Kuan Yew first alerted us to our limited gene pool in 1984.

Fourth, what has been done since to preserve and enhance this gene pool? Has the foreign talent initiative superseded this urgency?
Finally, a lack of support for well-educated mothers who wish to take career breaks – which can only benefit their offspring, with or without breast-feeding – is myopic.

Dr Lee Siew Peng
England

Fukushima 50 – lessons in worker loyalty

Mar 19, 2011, Straits Times Forum

THE extraordinary courage of the Fukushima 50 – the Japanese engineers and technicians battling to contain the nuclear fallout from reactors damaged in the earthquake and tsunami – offers lessons to Singaporeans.

One important factor behind the dedication of these workers is Japan’s collectivistic corporate culture that values loyalty and ensures long-term employment security. This is in contrast to the American model, which is characterised by individualism and short-term profitability.

These values are reflected in the salaries of senior executives: CEOs in Japan are rewarded far less than their counterparts in the United States and Europe.

While the Japanese corporate culture has often been criticised for breeding conservatism and inertia, and for rewarding riskaverse senior management, it has also fostered an exceptional sense of team spirit and commitment that transcends short-term gains. This sense of esprit de corps is evident among the Fukushima 50 workers, and it is through them that the best of Japan Inc is being shown in these harrowing times.

Singapore Inc has been moving towards the US model with its emphasis on rewarding ‘top talent’ generously. Over the years, we have been seeing increasingly disproportionate levels of remuneration for senior executives in contrast to workers down the line who have to face the prospects of redundancy and wage reduction in tough times.

Also, given the ease of replacing local staff with foreign labour, Singapore Inc risks being turned into a mercenary, alien and transient space peopled by workers with little sense of belonging, loyalty and commitment that is found in the Japanese worker.

Liew Kai Khiun

Employment enclaves

Mar 1, 2011
The Straits Times

‘While there is a quota for foreigners in public housing, there is none to prevent foreign bosses from preferring fellow citizens over Singaporeans.’

MS LAURELLE HO: ‘Mr Cheong Tuck Kuan raised an important point about hiring Singaporeans first (‘Target white-collar foreigners instead’; Feb 23). While this may not facilitate the movement of talent best, it is a point to consider in preventing foreigners of the same nationality from congregating in a multinational corporation (MNC). While there is a quota for foreigners to deter ethnic enclaves in public housing, there is none to prevent high-ranking foreign bosses from preferring their fellow citizens over Singaporeans, which results in foreign colonies forming within organisations. When an Indian Singaporean friend of mine answered a job interview for a vacancy in an MNC recently, she was the only Singaporean. The other interviewees were Indian nationals. When she went into the interview room, she understood the reason. Two of the three directors were Indian nationals who dominated the interview process. She had a sinking feeling that she would not clinch the job and she was right. Ironically, when she finally landed a job, the employer was an Indian national. Her team was dominated by Indian nationals, which made her feel out of place despite working in Singapore.’

Tuition and Socioeconomic status

Feb 12, 2011

PAPER CHASE
Skewing a level field

MS PHYLLIS Christe’s letter (‘A matter of means, not just genes’; Jan 31) raises a pertinent point about an increasingly uneven playing field in the paper chase, which appears to favour the more affluent.

As a student of a decent neighbourhood school who made it to an elite junior college, I have experienced first-hand how students have such vastly different access to resources, especially in terms of academic aid.

In my neighbourhood secondary school, most students were from lower-income families and there were those who strove hard to pursue academic excellence, knowing that it was the most realistic way to climb up the social ladder in the future.
Nearing the exams, many would unfailingly seek extra lessons from teachers, settling for every scrap of free time the teachers could spare after schooling hours.

Tuition was the next viable option for those who really wanted the extra push. However, many had parents who simply could not afford it. Many turned to community tuition programmes offered by the Singapore Indian Development Association, Chinese Development Assistance Council and Mendaki.

While helpful, such programmes were compromised by an inflexible schedule that often clashed with the students’ co-curricular activities (CCAs). Many students could not afford to ignore CCAs because an excellent record allowed them to hive off two points from the raw or gross scores of their O-level exam results.

Class sizes of the community tuition programmes also averaged around 15 to 20, so personal attention was diluted.
The environment in the elite junior college I attended was the opposite. Many of my peers were from more affluent families and could readily afford private tuition. They did not have to contend with inflexible tuition hours and enjoyed personal coaching by quality tutors such as professors and former teachers. So, in my experience, excelling academically appears to be becoming as much a matter of means as it may be of genes. Being able to afford and have access to private tuition seem to tilt the balance in favour of the more affluent, skewing what may once have been a more level playing field for all students.

Lee Min Shing

Non-grad parents, but they made it to top schools

Non-grad parents, but they made it to top schools
By Rachel Chang

THE first glimpse 12-year-olds get of their secondary schools, their homes for the next four years, is on Reporting Day every December.

What Isdiyanah Dulkifli, now 15, saw then were big, shiny cars parked on every spare inch in the Raffles Girls’ School (RGS) campus on Anderson Road – which her future classmates had arrived in. ‘I was taken aback,’ the Secondary 4 student recalled.

‘These people are so rich,’ she thought to herself, and wondered if she had made the right choice of school.

Students like Isdiyanah who hail from humble backgrounds are now the minority in several of Singapore’s top secondary schools, statistics released by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew two weeks ago showed.

In RGS, 72.3 per cent of students have fathers who are university graduates, putting them in the uppermost socio-economic bracket.

The figures for other top schools like Hwa Chong Institution and Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) are similar – all above 50 per cent.

In contrast, in neighbourhood schools like Jurong West Secondary and Bukit Merah Secondary, the share of students with graduate parents hovers at around 10 per cent.

The Straits Times interviewed ten students who have bucked the trend, to find out how they did it.

Of the ten from five brand-name schools, four are minorities and two have a parent who died.

Some are the exception in their families, with siblings in polytechnics or the Institute of Technical Education.

But when they are the oldest child, they seem to have pulled along their younger siblings, who also do well academically.

While it is not easy being different, these teenagers believe that as long as they work hard and shut out impulses to be envious, the sky is still the limit.

The culture shock many of these students felt upon entering the hallowed halls of their brand-name schools was not limited to the iPods and iPads on display.

Hwa Chong student Wong Kang Ming, 16, was surprised that his classmates would buy all the recommended assessment books, but not do the exercises in them.

‘They spend money without thinking,’ he said. When he buys an assessment book, he uses it from cover to cover.

Kang Ming’s father passed away when he was six years old. His China-born mother is a cleaner.

He said that he copes with his relative lack of spare cash by planning ahead.

If there was a last-minute need for a book, he could not just pop down to the bookstore to get it like his classmates do. He must first ask for extra money at home and buy it the next day.

‘But all this is minor stuff,’ he insisted. ‘As long as I have enough money for the basics, it’s enough.’

Like many of the other students interviewed whose parents are not university-educated, he was an academic self-starter from young.

These kids cornered teachers after lessons for extra help, went to libraries on their own, and gathered their siblings for joint study sessions every night.

Their parents believed that education would better their lot and encouraged them to work hard – even if they did not always have the financial resources or expertise to help directly.

Although Kang Ming’s mother helps him with his Chinese classes, he is used to relying on himself, even researching the type of financial assistance Hwa Chong could give him before settling on the school.

‘I just feel motivated, as I’m already from this type of situation,’ he said, referring to the hardships of a single-parent family. ‘I feel that the least I can do is cope by myself.’

Time and again, this self-motivating fervour emerged from the students interviewed.

Never having enjoyed luxuries such as tuition, they simply managed without.

Ms Dina Ee, 20, a former Nanyang Girls’ High student now studying medicine at the National University of Singapore, said: ‘There comes a point when you realise that you can’t rely too much on others. That probably came earlier for me.’

For a student like Raffles Institution’s Ahmad Musthofa, whose father passed away when he was 12, what drives him is his desire to provide for his family.

‘I want to work hard, support my family and lift the burden off my mother,’ he said.

RGS student Isdiyanah still feels out of place at times.

When she goes out with her friends, she takes along a packed lunch rather than spend more money. Her friends accommodate her by eating at an open-air area in town, instead of in a restaurant.

‘My classmates’ parents are all doctors and professors,’ she mused. ‘I do feel embarrassed sometimes. Here I am, always at the Accounts department asking for money.’

Isdiyanah’s parents are divorced – and for a while in primary school, she lived in a rental flat in Redhill with her mother and siblings.

‘But I know this embarrassment cannot last for very long,’ she said.

‘Even those professors and doctors, they may not have come from a very educated family. They had to work very hard to get to where they are now.’