Dear Parents,How are your children doing in school?

It has been 18 years since I came to Singapore to introduce a maths method from Japan. In those days, students here had to sit for not only the PSLE but also the streaming exam. Many parents were very serious in pushing their children to work harder. When I made a call to one of my Singaporean friends, she asked me to hold on and I could hear on the phone that she was scolding her child, “Why don’t you understand such an easy question?!” But nowadays, the situation seems to have changed. Many young mothers look relaxed and they are getting their children to do something fun like music, dancing and drawing, rather than attending tuition for conventional school subjects. I don’t know whether this means the situation has improved compared to the past. After all, relaxing too much may cause a serious problem in the future. I recall a similar problem in Japan in recent years.

The Challenges of Japan’s Education SystemIn Japan, students are forced to compete in examinations just like in Singapore. The Japanese school system comprises six years of primary school, three years of junior high school, three years of senior high school and four years of university.

There is no PSLE in Japan. All P6 students are automatically promoted to public junior high school. The system looks good, but most parents prefer private junior high schools because they think it is better than public schools. The students, however, must sit for entrance examinations to enter private schools. Question papers are set by individual schools and most are so difficult even adults find it hard to solve the questions.

It is because of this that students have to attend tuition to pass the entrance examinations. Each tuition centre boasts the knowhow to help students pass the entrance exams to famous schools. Every day, after school is over at around 3pm, students go back home, do their homework, have dinner, then go for tuition. They return home around 9-10pm, then do homework from the tuition centre. Such was the hard work and stress the students had to endure!

Kenji Wakabayashi is the Managing Director of Sakamoto Educational Systems Pte Ltd. The Sakamoto Maths programme was approved by MOE Singapore in 1997, and is now available here and in selected parts of Asia.Tel: 6387 9700 Email: sakamoto@singnet.com.sg www.sakamoto.net

Let Your Kids

in Their Formative YearsBy Kenji Wakabayashi

LEARN MORE

To lessen stress on students, Japan’s Ministry of Education carried out a new scheme in 2002 called “Yutori Education”, or Relaxed Education.

Yutori Education - Relaxed Education1) Reduced class time and content in the syllabus.2) 5-day class (Monday to Friday only. On Saturdays, students

go to excursions, play and relax!)3) A class set up for general study.As the number of lesson-hours in a year was reduced, there

was no longer enough time to learn the same number of topics as before. This led to some unusual decisions. For example, to avoid troublesome decimal calculations, (ratio of circumference of circle to its diameter) was simplified to 3 instead of 3.14. However, this is mathematically wrong because must be more than 3.

The Yutori Education was eventually shown to have a detrimental effect. In the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Japan’s ranking in Mathematics literacy dropped from first to sixth despite having topped the ranking for many years. Japan subsequently dropped to tenth position in 2006. Hence, MOE Japan stopped the Yutori Education policy in 2007. Two years later in 2009, Japan managed to climb only one position up to ninth. This is one example of a pitfall of taking a more relaxed stance on education.

Early primary level kids are still in their formative years and we have to take this period as an opportunity to teach them many things. Mathematics is a common language in science all over the world. So please, do not miss using these precious years to have your kids study and learn more!

Yours Sincerely,

Kenji Wakabayashi

EDUCATION

34 POPCLUB