NewSintercom

by Andrew PK Yap
Singapore, Friday 20 November 2009 0845am

Quote:
Insistence on bilingualism in early years of education policy was wrong: MM Lee
Date Posted: 17 Nov 2009 2142 hrs (SST)
SINGAPORE: Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said his insistence on bilingualism in the early years of education policy was “wrong”. Instead it caused generations of students to be put off by the Chinese language.

Mr Lee said: ‘A language is first listened to, heard and then spoken. It’s not read or written – that follows later. (But) we started the wrong way. We insisted on spelling and dictation (in Chinese).’
End of Quote

You might say that I am really rude for saying that it was a stupid mistake. It is because I am a victim and I am really angry.

All that misery trying to learn mandarin amounted to nothing. There were so many that could not go on to university, because of the amount of time learning mandarin that they have no aptitude in and the insistence that they must pass it to move on.

Those whose parents had the money sent them overseas into universities that do not need you to excel in mandarin. Just imagined how many lives were thwarted as a result of his social engineering rubbish.

The lesson is simple.

The government’s role is to provide. It is to provide opportunities for the people to learn, to develop and to shine. It is not to dictate to people how they should live their lives, and in so doing, cause great misery, and stifle their development.

Yet Lee Kuan Yew did not learn the lesson. The newspaper reported that he said and I quote:

“So Mr Lee became determined to right his wrongs, which led to changes in how Chinese is taught in schools.”

Instead of learning his lesson and promising not to interfere, he “became determined to right his wrongs”.

If you are a Singaporean, I am sure you are familiar with the various social engineering policies that he made.

Let me cite one social engineering policy that is still in force. The racial composition of HDB flats.

Humans are social animals and living in a large community helps them to be happy and rooted.

Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a book: “It Takes A Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us”

It is from the saying: “’It takes a village to raise a child’”

More than the Chinese which were mostly migrants, the Malays lived in kampongs and villages. The community brought up the children. It was their way of life. It was their culture.

The social engineering of Lee Kuan Yew broke apart their kampongs and forced them to live far away from each other with the HDB racial composition policies.

Is it any wonder that the Malay children in Singapore more than any other races have the most problems? Their culture and lifestyles were shattered not by natural (with time to adept) forces but by the social engineering work of one that thinks too highly of himself.

I was grateful that he recognized his stupid mistake but then I remain angry because it would seem that he is still as arrogant as ever and thinks he knows best how people should live their lives.

Edited 22 Nov to add: If “ends” can justify “means”, even Hitler had his reasons. Law is “amoral”. An immoral lawyer on the other hand will face retribution/karma depending on the degree of the harm and misery he causes.

If you look at the family of “some” people, you cannot help but wonder if the punishment on the wife (prolonged death/dying), the 1st son (cancer), the 1st daughter-in-law (dead at a very young age) and the first grandson were not “retribution”.

JB Jeyaretnam on the other hand can only be described as dying in a manner that is “Ho See” (literally in the Hokkein dialect, “Good Die, a good way to die”). On waking up he felt chest pains and died shortly after. I want to go like that too.