The Singapore Learning Curriculum - Essay Example

Introduction

Yes, I agree that pre-school education should be made compulsory in Singapore.

Education is compulsory in the Singapore learning curriculum, but it is from the primary one. Pre-school is not compulsory and has left several communal outfits and learning activists to push for changes through the persuasion of parents to register their children in pre-school facilities. “The Singapore Children’s society of research and outreach argue that the pre-school learning helps students from a poor background to level up their capabilities when they get to primary 1” (Papanastasiou, Drigas & Skianis, 2017). But the rigidity and the care-less nature of parents are evolving and changing rapidly with interest to raise standards and quality of early childhood education rising. The introduction of pro-business lessons in classes is viewed as steps towards incorporating the parents' interests into the classroom, compelling them to send their children to pre-schools. This paper champions for the introduction of a compulsory pre-school learning system to promote the quality of kindergarten education. This can be done by creating more affordable facilities accessible and offering high learning quality. Later, it also criticizes the pre-school learning and advocates for the maintenance of the educational system.

Arguments that Fosters the Preschool Learning

Preschool offers an important foundation for learning

Preschool prepares children for the elementary levels where learning gets academic. This is because, during the early lives of children, neural connections are firmed within seconds, depending on the environment. “Pre-schools help children gain new psychomotor, social morals and behaviors and attain the general knowledge of the world” (Seng, n.d.). The objective learning in pre-schools gives the children early experience that plays a big function in the development and expansion of their brains’ architecture. It is the knowledge, skill, and experience through social interaction with other kids in pre-school facilities that forms the basis for the future physical, social, cognitive, spiritual, health, character development, and learning.

Preschool fosters the development of symbolic thoughts, which gives the children a mental ability to create imagery of objects, actions, and events. It improves the speed of brain expansion through imaginations that become more of elaborations as they grow into primary levels of learning. Through this, curious children can get answers for their disturbing questions, which their parents could find overwhelming. In pre-schools, the childcare curriculum teaches the kids to discover the answers to their questions via observations, exploration, and general discussions. Therefore, pre-school learning should be made compulsory in Singapore.

Preschool offers opportunities for the children to discover themselves in structured settings.

Pre-school offers chances for kids to learn, follow instructions in different settings away from their parents. From the school environment, the children will be able to learn how to ask questions systematically through raising hands, turn-taking in answering questions, and sharing the teachers' instructions. Children need to have the group learning experience before they joining Primary 1. Thus, the Singaporean Ministry of education should consider making it mandatory for parents to send their children to pre-schools. “The pre-school environment offers various learning activities that motivate and shape the children's educational skills” (Tekmen, 2017). Activities such as playing games and storytelling about things the kids find interesting, such as the stars, play with blocks. These help the kids strengthen their mastery of skills, reading, talking, and telling stories. In these facilities, math skills are taught through counting food items or leaning items as pencils. All these create pre-school play memory of how schools look like.

In this pre-school childcare and kindergartens, children are exposed to carefully researched skills with crats and intentions to be taught to kids. These help them in achieving their development goals. Before starting primary 1, children should have an overview of how schools look like. This is given to them in the pre-schools, which sets their minds to be imaginative, creative, innovative, socially driven. Pre-schools release well-rounded pupils for the primary schools. Thus, it should be made compulsory.

Pre-schools enable the children to develop socially and emotionally.

In the pre-school learning facilities, children are presented with opportunities to learn how to compromise, respect others, and solve their problems through curious imaginations. “The importance of pre-schools in the life and development of a child is that it helps them create a sense of self, exploration, and playing with other children” ("The Project Activity of a Pedagogue in Preschool Educational Institution in Accordance with Federal State Educational Standard of Preschool Education," 2016). It is at pre-schools that children can build confidence and discover their talents and capabilities and learn how to do things for themselves instead of continuously asking for help from parents. Educational facilitators should consider this to make pre-school learning compulsory to enable children to develop their steps in tackling bigger issues.

Apart from the provision of academic learning opportunity, pre-school environment, and childcare programs allow the children to develop emotional skills and create social interactions and relations beyond their family ties. This influences the children’s sense of wellbeing and interests later in life. The pre-school environments enable them to make friends, play games that foster special and emotional growth. Researches have shown that early educations have significant effects on their families, communities, and society. This has pushed the educational activists to advocate for compulsory pre-school education as well as encourage parents to overlook their perception of the pre-school environment to create a strong basis for their children's education.

In these pre-schools facilities, the kids are encouraged when they feel low through counseling on the importance of school to create an emotional attachment to learning. The facilitators brainstorm and get solutions for every student’s' problem to eradicate any limitation that might affect the children’s interaction with books later in their primary lives. “Putting children in groups fosters the individual-people relations that create bonds between children” ("Why Singapore's education system needs an overhaul," 2020). This teaches them about care, love, and other moral virtues that they might not find easy to learn at home. Pre-schools widen the viewership of children by teaching problem-solving skills, arbitration, and case reporting to teachers instead of involving in fights.

Counter Argument

High Cost will low quality learning practices

Even though skipping pre-school education is deemed as giving the children a difficult start in life, it is to skip pre-schooling in Singapore. It is argued that sending less than four-year-olds to school is not beneficial to them.

The parents feel the pre-school programs are meant to milk them of their money. Despite the initiatives by educational promoters to lower the costs of pre-school learning, some parents argue that the Cost does not match the quality of education they offer. Well, it is the public domain, that the country's innovative report card has significantly remained constant, pre-school opposes use this to justify their points that there is no innovative learning that can be done at pre-school to solve the current world problems.

The moralities of life taught at these schools could be done at homes with parents acting as teachers. The simple acts of reading, talking, storytelling, interactions are virtues that children can learn at home, or through interactions with immediate neighboring children. Moreover, parents are so close with their parents than they are to the teachers, and as so, they are able to grasp lessons quickly from their parents than the teachers. Additionally, children below four years old have more affinity to their parents than those in the primary one. Parents can independently focus on their children and instill the quality values they desire to see in their children without disruptions. In these pre-schools, the ratio of teachers to children is so unfavorable that a single facilitator handles more children, and the focus per child is reduced. Thus is opposed to home learning where the parents concentrate fully on their children without having so much time to wait for their turn. Parents can guide their children and faster by asking, discussing, and answer them with no delays.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the aggregate benefits of making the pre-school learning compulsory are more than the counter-arguments, I agree that kindergarten and pre-primary learning should be made compulsory by the Singaporean Ministry of Education. These facilities offer a solid foundation for the development of children's interest, focus, and energies into learning. Cost's counter agreement is stale reasoning as the government has issued several incentives to the pre-school facilities making it less costly. Besides, the informational knowledge and social interaction a child receives while in these pre-schools with fellow children are great compared to what they could have received at home.

Therefore, I agree with the statement that pre-schooleducation should be made compulsory in Singapore.

Reference

Papanastasiou, G., Drigas, A., & Skianis, C. (2017). Serious Games in Preschool and Primary Education: Benefits and Impacts on Curriculum Course Syllabus. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (Ijet), 12(01), 44. doi: 10.3991/ijet. v12i01.6065

Seng, S. Promoting and Investing in Early Childhood Development Projects (2nd ed.). Tampines.

TEKMEN, B. (2017). Preschool Teacher Education as an Example of Open Social System. Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, 12(2), 81-90. doi: 10.18844/cjes. v12i2.1220

THE PROJECT ACTIVITY OF A PEDAGOGUE IN PRESCHOOL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL STANDARD OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION. (2016). Философия Образования, (5). doi: 10.15372/phe20160510

Why Singapore’s education system needs an overhaul. (2020). Retrieved 12 July 2020, from https://www.todayonline.com/daily-focus/education/why-spores-education-system-needs-overhaul