tzlee.com/blog

Category: Society & Education

  • Open Source Primary and Secondary Educational Resources

    Open Source Primary and Secondary Educational Resources

    Can Primary, or even Secondary education materials in Singapore be made Open Source so that educators or even members of the public contribute and consume freely? Can and should such education materials be made free and open for all?

    What triggered me was the need to sign up for an account before I could even browse the booklist at an appointed book store for my child’s Primary school. After glancing through the list of books, it’s clear that only a few handful of publishers monopolize this entire market.

    I recall having gone through much of my youth depending on many external/supplementary resources including the famous “10-year series” as well as various other exercise books, notes, etc.

    When I went to Polytechnic where I was given a choice of my own, I did not buy a single textbook after my first year and instead relied on lecture notes (which were annoyingly only for purchase at the school’s printer) and additional material either on the Internet or the library for most of my studies.

    I also recall books getting stolen, because people who didn’t bring them didn’t want to get punished, so the stole others’. I also recall ripping apart super thick books by chapter so we would carry less weight around to school, and then getting scolded for it because defacing a textbook was an offence. (For the youngsters who don’t understand: back in those days we carry every single book to school every day – there were no lockers and we can’t leave them under our desks. The idea was that if we left the books in school, we don’t study them at home.)

    Long story short, my personal experience with textbooks hasn’t been great; if textbooks were perfect, our teachers wouldn’t need to come up with additional materials and creative ways to teach.

    Imagine a world where we could opt for books in print or PDF. Imagine a world where we could just print only the chapters we wanted. Imagine a world where if your child saw a typo error could just submit an edit back, and maybe even get recognized for it. Imagine a world where if we needed to see a newer or older version of a book we could simply download a different PDF, or look at a specific git tag? Imagine a world where underprivileged families wouldn’t have to get sponsorship to buy textbooks, but instead go and print a chapter they need at a community center?

    I’m sure every year thousands of educators create content that would have made our materials much better and more up-to-date if it were contributed back to a central, open, textbook. Our education ministry MOE can then act as the maintainer of the project – to curate and validate content before accepting it mainstream.

    Question is, where and how to start? Can our education ministry drive this? Can we see in 5, 10 years that Singapore has built such a strong Open Source resource that we have other countries use and also contribute back?

    Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

  • Teachers – the unsung heroes

    Teachers – the unsung heroes

    Not his first “skool”

    My First Skool (MFS) isn’t Ethan’s first school; he had transferred from another private school which shall remain unnamed (although it is noteworthy that it was a well-known franchise.)

    Ethan joined MFS at Nursery level (age 4). At the time, Ethan had just gone through 4 main teachers, 2 principals and countless part-time “assistant” teachers, plus 2 hand-foot-mouth-disease (HFMD) episodes, and it was an incredibly difficult time trying to encourage his return to school. He was excited to go to a “new school” for the first week or two, but his excitement weaned quickly.

    Every parent probably thinks their kid is a genius, and I was no different. Some of his “achievements” include being able to name both primary and secondary colours by age 2, identify almost every single brand of car on the street by age 3, and even discern differences that sets almost similar car models apart (Lamborghini Huracan Performanté vs Evo – I can barely tell the difference!)

    As a kid, he was also incredibly observant, catching details of things we usually wouldn’t notice. I was led to believe he has a photographic memory.

    At 2-3 years, he was also able to remix words into the tunes of nursery rhymes:

    两只car car，两只car car，跑得快，跑得快。
    一只没有headlight，一只没有taillight，真奇怪，真奇怪。

    Ethan, ~3 years old

    However, Ethan had always seemed distracted and restless in class. Teachers from his previous school and also MFS had highlighted this, but over time, his behaviour seemed to have improved – especially in MFS. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t at some point thought he might be ADHD/ADD.

    The bad experience

    It is not until much later now at the age of 6 that Ethan had finally explained why he did not like going to school: his (previous) teachers were very fierce and always scolded him, and he hated that they simply “dragged” him to class. Thankfully, he had not expressed the same sentiments for his teachers at MFS.

    Given his incredible memory for things, it is likely that his early experiences left a scar in his mind that school is “not fun”. He might, at some point, have even been traumatised by the constant change of faces and treatment from different teachers when at the age of 2-3 children are mostly seeking security from familiar faces and battling separation anxiety.

    I am glad that Ethan’s attitude towards school has improved ever since he entered MFS – with much credits to teacher Stefanie, Zhou 老师 and teacher Celine. While most of Ethan’s previous teachers only complained of his inattentiveness and restlessness, there was only one other teacher from the previous school (who eventually resigned) who observed that Ethan was a little different – similarly, the teachers at MFS then expressed that while Ethan seems distracted, he is actually listening and capable of answering questions afterwards. Of course, I understand that his restless behaviour is, however, a distraction to both the teacher and classmates, and needs some work.

    Finding MFS, and the dedicated teachers was a matter of sheer luck during a time of desperation as I sought to get Ethan out of a disastrous pre-school experience, but should not be taken for granted. MFS (or at least the branch Ethan is in) had the operational scale and capability to provide a good support structure for the teachers, and that has helped the teachers remain dedicated and committed. With scale, it makes manpower planning easier. With scale, it is able to hire more teachers or assistants to relieve workload when required. With scale, teachers have a growth path in their career.

    The primary school rush

    Ethan will be enrolling for primary school in a few weeks’ time. I am more convinced than ever that it is not necessary to get into a name-brand school, and could never understand the kiasu-ism that surrounds P1 registration. I believe that in every school there will be good and bad teachers. As long as there isn’t terrible peer influence (which is more a function of the location/neighbourhood than the school’s reputation), any MOE school in Singapore is possibly a decent school.

    Not shown accurately in P1 registration data is the population of the applicants in the neighbourhood versus the capacity of nearby schools. The popular schools in each neighbourhood tend to have a disproportionally high oversubscription ratio which feeds on itself year after year, and has no direct correlation to the actual quality of the school’s teaching staff, management and curriculum delivery style. For example, Clementi is an incredibly dense neighbourhood, and no doubt Nan Hua Primary may be a good school, the high oversubscription ratio might be just a function of town population.

    I was paying almost 3 times more (before subsidy) in a private name-brand franchise school, which is clear that even “throwing money at the problem” could not guarantee my child’s early formative school experience. Fancy award-winning programmes, music and dance, arts, whatever it may be, had little actual effect on the child’s development if teachers are overwhelmed or have no passion in their work.

    It is my belief that a school that is not overwhelmed with students and demanding parents will likely function better, and hence, using a similar logic – an over-subscribed primary school may not always be better. Of course, there are arguments that lousier schools have other things to deal with – such as bad students – but what makes one think that good schools don’t have bad students?

    The role teachers play

    Teachers should not underestimate the impact or influence they have on every child. Children spend most of their waking hours in highly developed countries like Singapore in school. Pre-schoolers are in school for an average of 45-50 hours per week – more hours than average adults are at work.

    Teachers work even longer hours then – they have to prepare for materials, be in school before kids arrive, and leave only when the last child has left. Rain or shine, COVID or HFMD. Passionate, dedicated and committed teachers like Ethan’s teachers at MFS are the under-appreciated unsung heros of our modern, highly-educated society.

    I, too, hope that one day I can become a teacher and contribute back to society. Without our education system and teachers, Singapore wouldn’t have been what she is today.

    Wishing all teachers and those in the education profession an advanced Happy National Day and a Happy Teachers’ Day 2021 – thank you!

  • I hate paper

    I hate paper

    I hate paper, really. From when I was in Secondary School I always wondered why we cannot have our books on floppy disks and load them up on a computer.

    In the late 80s, the whole world switched from paper to plastic to reduce deforestation. Plastic cups and bags are more economical and easier to make, lighter to transport, and stronger for the same material density. Suddenly the whole world now wants to switch back to paper products.

    It is 20 years since the height of the “dotcom boom”. Governments, banks, insurance, telcos and other stupid corporate institutions are still sending me tonnes and tonnes of paper every day which I have to take additional effort to scan, shred and then sort into recycling bins. Some are still sending me paper letters even after I have opted for electronic distribution.

    By now electronic distribution should be the default if an institution has a customer’s email address on file. Printed paper should become a chargeable option.

    Too much emphasis has been placed on the relative security of sending information over digital medium. What is stopping somebody else from opening my letter, or the postman from delivering to the wrong mailbox? How is a signature scribbled on a paper cheque more secure than an electronic transfer authorised after logging in with a username, password and 2FA OTP?

    If you wouldn’t use a cheap lock that has the same key as a thousand other households in your neighbourhood, then you wouldn’t make a password “123456”. If you wouldn’t take a candy from a stranger, then you wouldn’t open that attachment from Amy Yip. Weeding out bad stuff on the Internet seem a bit harder, but in reality it is not much different from everything else in the physical world – especially if made an important part of early childhood education.

    The case for children

    There has been advocacy that children should have little or even no exposure to electronic devices. They need to see, feel and touch paper. They need to learn penmanship.

    No doubt it is good to have children explore the world from different angles, but let’s not kid ourselves (pun intended): our children will live in a future fully surrounded by electronic devices. Not too long ago our parents were once surrounded by print advertisements, smog generating vehicles, hand-drawn cartoons, and washed their clothes by hand. Where have those gone? Do we still carve words on stone?

    Penmanship and writing on paper is already becoming a thing of the past. Just like mechanical watchmaking and oil painting, it will become a form of art.

    Various articles seem to suggest that early exposure to electronic devices can cause ADHD, ADD or even depression. Maybe it does, but is it really the electronic device itself or the games, TikTok and social media? When I was young, I was told not to watch TV all day long. Our parents were probably told not to play marbles all day long. Is YouTube any different?

    Like it or not, all our children will likely grow up interacting with computers – if not as part of their education, then certainly as a large part of their work. Today’s artists are already using digital cameras, Adobe Photoshop, computerised music notation software, GarageBand, and a myriad of other digital tools to supplement their art. Doctors, nurses, and hospitals all depend on computers to be efficient. With the exception of maybe a Shaolin Monk – if that is what you desire.

    Children should gain familiarity with reading, typing, controlling, interacting and understanding how a computer device function. That is not to discount the need to restrict access to TikTok and YouTube, just like how we weren’t supposed to mix with certain groups of friends or have access to certain books or TV channels. The need for parental control hasn’t changed.

    Are we really saving the Earth?

    If the goal is really to save the Earth, removing plastic straws and switching to paper cups aren’t the solution. Corporations should make it a mission to aggressively reduce paper use. Governments should help drive investments into improving bioplastics.

    Of course we still need paper, but we shouldn’t deliberately avoid technology. Writing an essay on a piece of paper should hopefully be a thing of a past, but children should still do art, and I still need to wipe my ass.

    Wait, there’s bidet sprays.

    I hate paper.

  • Hiring Singaporean Software Engineers

    Hiring Singaporean Software Engineers

    I’ve been hiring Software Engineers over the past few years in Singapore, and I notice a worrying trend.

    As a local business, I always want to hire Singaporeans first; I want to give our own young people a chance; I want to see our local SMEs develop a strong Engineering culture, but recently it has become really difficult.

    One of the reasons could be because good local Software Engineers have gone to apply for Tech Giants, MNCs, banks, GovTech, etc. where they can be paid reasonably well, get good benefits, etc.

    The unfortunate thing is that small businesses and startups receive the lower percentile of the cohort, and that sucks, because these people waltz in and ask for a pretty high salary “because industry standard”.

    Bullshit. The “standard” is based on what you can do, not what others can do.

    I recently put out a job advertisement on LinkedIn, and after about a week, I received around 100 applicants; there were only 3 Singapore/PR, 2 Malaysia, 5 Philippines, 6 Myanmar, 2 China and the rest are from (you probably guessed correctly) — India.

    As a local business, plus recent COVID-19 Government incentives to favour hiring of locals (JSS, JGI), I called up all the Singaporean candidates for interview, but was met with disappointment.

    Note1: All of the candidates whom I describe below (regardless of nationality) are mostly fresh graduates with 1 year or less of work experience.

    Note2: Also, just to be clear, this is not a blog post to diss all Singaporean tech graduates. Frankly most graduates I’ve met from local universities like NUS or NTU are decent. This blog post is targeted at the “COVID-19 cohort” I encountered this year.

    I usually put candidates through a fairly simple technical quiz. It is no where close to the likes of Google and Facebook, but is effective in weeding out candidates that lack basic technical knowledge. There’s no coding; just questions and verbal answers.

    What disappointed me the most was that despite having the upper hand in terms of Government support and language proficiency, Singaporean candidates came out weaker.

    The government has actually done a good job of enticing businesses to hire locals, because they are in effect subsidising the salaries of Singaporeans, and then making foreigners expensive by increasing the salary brackets, and imposing quotas and levies.

    In addition, I like to work with locals because you see, the primary language of Singapore is English. (This is different from our national language Malay, which is purely symbolic.) Singaporean candidates are usually very conversant in English, especially those born after the 1990s. The other nationalities — especially Myanmar or China — are not so lucky; English is not their primary language, but despite their struggles, they picked it up, travelled here, took a course (such as the Graduate Diploma from NUS-ISS, which I interviewed quite a bit of applicants from.)

    I commend the effort of candidates who try their best to explain a concept in a language they aren’t familiar with. I could tell that they knew for example what a particular algorithm is about, but are unable to explain in English. They try their best, and as a recruiter, you can tell if somebody knows their shit or not.

    However Singaporeans who are naturally strong in English tend to lack actual technical understanding of many things, and instead because of their fluency in English, they are able to respond quickly with guesses, a.k.a. “smoke” — sometimes rather intelligent guesses — but that’s not what a recruiter is looking for. We don’t hire you to tikam (guess). We expect you to know your stuff. Of course I don’t expect candidates to know everything, but the fundamentals must exist.

    Sometimes after a candidate answers incorrectly, or maybe tries really hard, or makes really close guesses to the correct answer, I will share the answer and explain why, etc. Some Singaporean candidates I have come across seem nonchalant to the fact that the recruiter had actually taken an effort to explain something, and they simply answer it with a rather monotonous “oh, OK.” The better candidates would usually ask more questions, or show that they had a eureka moment.

    The other trend I noticed is that Singaporeans tend to pick the swanky Degree courses, like Cyber Security. Whilst I have no qualms with somebody taking a keen interest in this area of specialisation, it is quite impossible to learn that in a 1 or 2 year part-time Degree without even having learnt any fundamentals.

    I asked one candidate why did he pursue a Degree course. The answer is exactly what I expected to hear: “A Degree is the minimum now.”

    Let me assure you it is not — at least not in the private sector. I have hired people who have completely irrelevant Degrees but taken a bunch of Udemy courses, taken it upon themselves to work on some personal projects, and proven that they knew their stuff. A Degree makes you expensive (because you would have priced your expectations so) and that actually makes you less employable. I much prefer a candidate who has work experience than a frivolous Degree.

    ~

    So with the benefit of English proficiency, plus not having to deal with the perils of living alone in a foreign country, why do these Singaporean candidates turn out weaker?

    Wrong school/course? Should we stop letting crappy private Degree programmes be taught in Singapore?

    Not paying attention in class? Have they gone through too many years of mundane Singaporean education and grown nonchalant, uninterested and bored?

    Too comfortable? Should we maybe instead yield a higher rate of unemployment so that there’s a pressure to get better?

    I really don’t know leh.

  • Why it is not OK to lose blue collar workers

    We’re losing talent, and I think blue collar workers play an important role in our economy to produce quality work. Keeping local blue collar talent costs money, and will drive up costs of living some, but that is how things will go, especially if we want to continue to enjoy a good quality of life. People like aircon technicians, car mechanics, plumbers, etc.

    If we ignore this segment of people, sooner or later we will suffer. They say automation will replace these jobs. That’s bullshit. Robotics and automation has long ways to go before it can replace your plumber or aircon technician or mechanic. These are skilled work that is almost like the work of art. Why does the BMW factory continue to employ so many workers to build mass produced cars like the 5 series? Watch this video to understand.

    I believe one day — and the day will be soon enough — that a plumber is paid more than a developer.

     

  • What do we plan for?

    What do we plan for?

    Life… can be unpredictable. We make plans, we make decisions. How do we know if they were for the better?

    Only time will tell.

    Most people plan financially. It’s hard to admit it, but it’s probably the only thing we have ever really spent time planning for. How many people make more plans for their health or family than their finances? Not many. Not yet. Not at my age I don’t think.

    As age passes, I realize how important it is to spend more time with family. And also friends, of course. When I got married and bought my HDB as a young teenager, I couldn’t wait to get out of my parent’s house. I mean, every kid does, right? Parents are naggy and annoying. But ever since I had a kid, I went home every weekend so that my parents could see the little one, and it is also sort of a childcare break for me and wife. November 2015, grandma passed away. Towards the end of 2016, my dad had a pretty big heart op, and that’s when I start to realize, hey this man is getting old. You know, there’s only 52 weekends in a year.

    —

    Money is evil. It really is. People get obsessed with it. I’m no saint either. You get some, you want more. You get more, you want even more. People spend a lifetime in search of more money. But, really, money is just an enabler. Once there’s enough to go around, the excess is just… really… excess.

    I know it’s easy to say that once we actually have money. And when we don’t, shit goes bad pretty quickly. We spend all our time trying to fix the lack of it. We get so absorbed into it that at a certain point, amongst the chaos, we will most certainly make bad decisions. That’s why the rich gets richer, and poor gets poorer.

    So I spent the last two years chasing after money — not for me, but for the company. Across my desk are two colleagues… well, friends. Old friends. Both whom I’ve asked to join the company because I thought I saw a better future for them and I believed they could do better. I’m no Bill Gates. I can’t change a million starving kids’ lives. But maybe I can help those around me.

    After years operating as a cost center, salaries have been pretty stagnant. We didn’t really pay very well to start with. I don’t want them to feel like I dragged them from one shithole to another shithole. They both have kids, and I know it’s not easy. It’s about time to turn over some profits.

    Those who know me know I hate doing sales. I’m no sales guy. I’m too honest. Too practical. Too straightforward. I can’t say yes to shit and then let the money do the talking. I hate clicking through shitty-ass bidding sites. I hate writing proposals. I hate doing cost calculations and currency conversions. I hate Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. I hate sitting in a room with pointy-haired bosses “talking business” for hours. I irritate the shit out of sales people too, because I tell people their shit sucks when it really does. That’s why I am a techie. But I did it anyway and took it as a challenge. I will be lying if I said I haven’t learnt anything new.

    So, we tried to be profitable for about 2 years, maybe coming 3 years. Then comes the 2017 year end review: It wasn’t too good. So-so. We tried our best, we won some, we lost some. But the good news is that there’s finally some money to go around for bonuses and pay raises. As the local “boss”, I had the discretion to allocate… as much as I wanted to myself! Haha.

    Nah, I did not. I gave out most of the allocated budget. I believe that the extra money would take some distraction off them, so that they can focus on work, family and friends. I know money is evil, so I try not to make it evil.

    Did this silly idea of mine really help them? Or maybe they were better off doing what they used to do? Only time will tell, I guess.