One of the Workers' Party new candidates that was unveiled on June 26 has spoken at length about the education system in Singapore, highlighting that it is not preparing our children to take on good jobs in the future.

Education system has only allowed for 'superficial success'

During the press conference, 44-year-old Jamus Lim, an associate professor of economics at ESSEC Business School, and a Raffles Institution alumnus had said: "I believe that we have allowed superficial success in the educational system to blind us to the fact that this system isn't working."

Lim noted that graduates in Singapore were choosing jobs "with little or no future or are dissatisfied with their career trajectories".

In addition, the system "that was promised to us" has not been producing "world-class companies" that "smaller and perhaps less well-off countries", such as Israel and Estonia are able to do so.

Education system still over-emphasises reproduction of model answers

Lim further explained that currently, the education system still over-emphasises the ability to reproduce "a certain type of model answer".

He acknowledged that this was in spite of "our best efforts" to develop the system to allow for more creativity.

He added that creativity had been subjected to attempts at being structured, rather than being allowed to emerge organically.

This results in a system where students are pushed, but have difficulty in accepting questions and answers from the "margins".

Citing art and literature as an example, Lim said:

"When we look at questions in art and literature, the interpretation of a poem for example, what we want is we want to give enormous latitude in the interpretation of that, and we want to be charitable in the way that we try to understand what constructive criticism might be."

An entire change in mindset for the education system is required, he concluded.

Singapore ranks highly internationally but many segments of society struggling

Lim also pointed out that while Singapore ranked highly on various scores internationally, many segments of its society are struggling.

On this point, Lim highlighted that there were elderly who have been forced to clear plates for a living, with some fearing an that their CPF is insufficient or postponing their retirement, while PMETs are being retrenched in their 50s even though they have yet to build a retirement nest.

He also voiced his concern for the "sandwich generation", noting that they should not feel trapped by expectations of taking care of their own parents while also raising their own children.

He said:

"I want to know if there's a way we can create good jobs that Singaporeans actually want, even as our system of foreign workers and foreign capital looks to be increasingly exhausted. I want to know why despite decades, the productivity of our workers is still low and I want to know whether we can raise the innovation capacity of our home-grown companies."

These are the questions, Lim stated, that he was asking on behalf of his eight-month-old daughter, as well as Singapore's children.

He added that he did not want to leave behind a legacy where the next generation feels unprepared in facing the future, "even though they have done exactly all that we have asked them to do".

Top image by Rachel Ng