national education in s'pore

"implemented in 2002, the lee kuan yew national education (lky ne) award recognises schools that have made special effort to design and implement innovative and effective programmes to equip our students with basic attitudes, values and instincts which make them singaporeans. as the lky ne award is the pinnacle of the ne awards, winners of the lky ne award will be deemed to have attained the outstanding development award for national education."

a lot of things now being done in our schools are just for show. like the ne award. will it make our future generations, proud and patriotic singaporeans? instil what kind of attitude, value and instinct, when the pupils and teachers can be exempted from attending the flag raising ceremony just so that they can 'steal' time to do some remediation in their preparation for the national examinations.

at flag raising and lowering ceremonies, who sing the national anthem? not the older upper primary children, not the teachers; it is the younger children. it seems like when they get older, they do not want to be caught/seen singing the national anthem. in secondary schools and junior colleges, you do not hardly hear any real singing.

so, how successful is our national education programme? granted, it has created awareness. children learn about the cultures and practices of their peers belonging to other racial and religious groups. they go on learning journeys around serangoon road, arab street and smith street. they learnt about ethnicity. does this knowledge lead to acceptance?

come the month before national day, the people are exhorted to fly the state flag. can you see the great difference in the two pictures above? the blocks where you see flags on every level represent the work of the resident committee and the community leaders. in those blocks where the residents are left on their own to decide, the showing is most pathetic. generally, less than 10 per cent of the households in each block fly the state flag.

when i visited johor recently, i could see how different the people of the two countries are when it comes to display of public affection for their respective country. maybe we have a sophisticated way of showing love for our country. what it is, i do not know.