"I didn't want to blog until the common test, .." (I realised I didn't type the word "after" haha) but I seem to be contradicting myself.

I read a forum letter recently, and subsequently listened to mrbrown's podcast, on this very suay guy who received a summons letter from the Media Development Authority (read: government), apparently for not paying broadcasting licensing fees.

The only problem is that he does not even have a television set at home.

Sounds like the matter is solved? No! He still had to pay the fine! Because he did not tell the authority that he does not have a television set!

I marvel at the intelligence of the government. =x

Recently there has been alot of discussions on the issue of English standards in Singapore.

http://blog.vjc.sg/2006/06/19/because-our-native-tongue-is-singaporean/

This is lengthy, but a good read. Let me grab a couple of quotes from it which i liked.

"Every couple of years or so, the education ministry comes up with a press release highlighting yet another problem with our education system. My question is this: If you have so many problems, maybe the problem lies with you?"

"Everytime there’s an issue with education, I barely see a student write anything in the Forum. It’s always people who have kids (parents know close to nothing about the system, by the way), or educators (who are often the problem anyway), or just someone with an opinion (oh please, who doesn’t)."

I have read countless forum letters in the newspapers, on educators and the general public who came up with all kinds of suggestions that they think can increase the standards of English.

I remembered one letter was about introducing English and Higher English, similar to our Mother Tongue and Higher Mother Tongue, where more capable students can study literature. Well I wonder if that was a good way, because it is, then we didn't had to reform our Mother Tongue syllabus.

Back to my friend's article, I agree that our education is too tied up with our economy. Since young we have been brainwashed to memorise those F! formulas and theories, so that we can do well for examinations, get into top schools, get a good degree, so that we can get a good job that earn us good money.

That made sense, because all this money has translated into the comfortable homes, stable supplies of food, and fine security we have today. But if education is seen as preparing ourselves for a "prosperous future", all the passion to gain knowledge, is any in the first place, will be killed.

The main point of the article is that passion is the way to solve the countless problems that keep popping up. I myself put that into action by substituting Biology for Computing haha. Passion often can be a huge driving force in getting things done. I think one will not anything difficult if he has the passion to learn.

Unfortunately, now that our education is so tied up with economy, even passion cannot let one go far. Everything appears easier said than done.

I don't study economics, so I don't know anything about money. But still, I dislike the way money is controlling people.

Someone wrote into today's newspapers about not having enough local content in our electronic media, which contributes to the drop in English standards and also the lack of national identity (an issue brought up recently). I'm not going much into this today, but I thought, no one is supporting these local content, what's the use of putting so much of that into our media?

Singaporeans are full of praises for Korean and Japanese dramas [soccer], and Taiwanese variety shows [European soccer leagues], but there is no lack of criticism when it comes to local content [soccer], no matter how much hard work the producers [players] put in.