Are the stakeholders focussing on the wrong thing?

I spoke to a mother yesterday and she told me she has two daugthers aged 15 and 11. The elder has quit school and has been idling at home doing nothing, while the younger often says she does not like to study. The mother appeared and sounded helpless. From my experience in interacting with many parents in the community, this is a common problem faced by many parents. In fact, there are many other problems besides not wanting to study!

The problem, I think, is multi-faceted. Home, school, community and the government each has contributed a fair share to the problem the students are facing today. There were reported and unreported incidents of students committing suicide, known and unknown cases of students having mental depression, shoplifting, gang fight, bullying, teen sex, gaming addiction and an unending list of undesirable and socially-unacceptable behaviours!

There was an incident, the father told the daughter, "If you don't get band one for your Higher Chinese, you will know." That has put a tremendous pressure on the child, and she told the classmates if she didn't get band one for her Higher Chinese, she would die. True enough, she did not get band one. So, during recess one day, she went up to a nearby housing flat and from 12th floor, she plunged to her death. Who caused this? Father? School? Ministry of Education? Student herself? Government? It is for us to ponder.

An ex-colleague of mine whose daughter when in primary 4 was seeking psychiatric treatment at the Institute of Mental Health. She was suffering from depression and was afraid to face the books. So, the father had to take it easy, not to pressurise her, bring her out every weekend to unwind. Poor girl! Who caused this? Father? School? Ministry of Education? Student herself? Government? Each party should reflect on this.

One day, I was in a double-decker bus seated right at the third last row at the upper deck. There were three girls in school uniform from a certain school but I won't mention the name of the school here, chatting away very loudly with vulgarity in every sentence. Goodness me! I thought those days, vulgarity was only proprietary to the rough guys, but girls have acquired the skills, too. And on a separate occasion, I saw another three girls from the same school, sitting on the parapet wall outside one of the shopping malls crossing their legs as if they were meditating, but were puffing their cigarettes instead. I did call up and inform the school about the two incidents. Who caused this? Parents? School? Ministry of Education? Students themselves? Government? It is time to do something before the values get shifted and eroded further.

As I stare at MOE's latest initiative, "Teach Less, Learn More", I think to prevent further erosion of values, it might be more appropriate to "Teach Right, Learn Right". It is not a question of more or less, but an issue of right or wrong.