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The Straits Times (Singapore)

January 25, 2011 Tuesday

LENGTH: 778 words

HEADLINE: Parents' background the edge for students at top schools: MM;
Higher-educated parents 'tend to foster better learning environment'

BYLINE: Rachel Chang

BODY:

A MARKED difference in parental background is what divides the students of 'brand-name' schools from those of
neighbourhood schools, rather than the facilities they have access to or the quality of their teachers.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew told reporters yesterday after a visit to Dunman High School that he had formed
this opinion after visiting several schools.

These visits, to both top schools like Raffles Girls' Primary and neighbourhood schools like Punggol Primary, were
a bid to 'have a sense of the quality of the schools, the nature of the students, to see whether we are being fair to
everybody', he said.

Mr Lee acknowledged that top schools had more 'frills' because they charged higher school fees. Better teachers
also gravitate to them due to the perceived higher status and their principals' ability to scout for talent, he said.

But he emphasised that teachers in neighbourhood schools were, on the whole, 'equally competent'.

Rather, the difference he has perceived is 'in the nature of the students', he said. He revealed that he had asked for
statistics on the educational background of the parents of students from a range of schools to substantiate the
hypothesis.

The numbers showed that in top schools like Raffles Institution, Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) and Nanyang
Girls' High, the percentage of students whose fathers were university-educated did not dip below 50 per cent.

In stark contrast, among the four neighbourhood schools he had data on, the highest percentage was only 13.1 per
cent, in Chai Chee Secondary.

The import of this difference is that better-educated parents invariably create a more favourable learning
environment at home for their children, he said, whether with the presence of books or learning aids from a young age.
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Parents' background the edge for students at top schools: MM; Higher-educated parents 'tend to foster better learning
environment' The Straits Times (Singapore) January 25, 2011 Tuesday

'And that is the situation which we face,' Mr Lee said as he encouraged parents with lower qualifications to take
their children to libraries and make use of facilities there as this will help build a learning environment for them.

'They must try and get their children accustomed to go into the library, (get them) reading and trying to get used to
acquiring knowledge by themselves and not being spoon-fed by the teachers.'

Mr Lee also emphasised the crucial role of family background in a student's development in the area of
bilingualism, during his two-hour visit to Dunman High.

He decided to visit the Special Assistance Plan (SAP) school that offers an Integrated Programme because he was
curious to see if such an environment could foster an equal mastery of both English and Chinese in its students, he told
reporters.

Mr Lee's belief that no one can be equally proficient in two languages has been well-publicised. He has said in the
past that the national bilingual policy was implemented wrongly 40 years ago, as he did not realise then that it is a
near-impossible task to create an effectively bilingual population.

He grilled the students he met on what languages they spoke at home, and whether they felt that learning Chinese
was 'a duty or a joy'.

Despite sitting in on a Chinese studies class, he later told reporters that he came away with the impression that most
of the students he spoke to were more fluent in English, a natural result of a curriculum that was 80 per cent in English.

'So if you spend 80 per cent of your time absorbing knowledge in English, that must be your master language,' he
said. 'I think it's important that we understand that. If you want to be in an old Chinese school like in the old days where
there's no English, then you will produce students who cannot find suitable work in Singapore.'

Even though Singapore's working language is English, he acknowledged the desire of many to maintain as high a
standard of their mother tongue as possible.

'My feeling is, if you want your child to speak fluently in Mandarin, then your whole life you have to speak
Mandarin at home, not English. But more and more families speak English at home. That's not a good sign for mother
tongue.'

True to his reputation, Mr Lee pulled no punches when interacting with Dunman High students. To one flummoxed
class of Year 6 students, the equivalent of Year 2 in a junior college, he asked: 'What made you choose Dunman High?
Which schools did you try to get into but couldn't? Let's not be shy.'

Eighteen-year-old Wong Zheng Kai ventured that Dunman High was his parents' first choice as they wanted him to
attend a school rooted in Chinese tradition.

'So is Hwa Chong,' retorted Mr Lee.

'Hwa Chong's fees would be too financially taxing on my parents,' Zheng Kai explained. While the monthly fee at
Dunman High is $37, it is $300 at Hwa Chong Institution.

rchang@sph.com.sg

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