Stop putting LABELS on things and people...

Recently, in the wake of the announcement of PSLE 2009 results, this label of "neighbourhood" schools has been appearing everyday in the media. Wow! It is the first time neighbourhood schools are producing top PSLE students as if these schools were condemned and destined not to perform.

It appears that it has become a social norm here to put labels on things and people. Such labels usually carry negative connotations. Who actually started this label called "neighbourhood" schools? What do you call the other schools then? Does it mean that students in neighbourhood schools are less smart? Is it the negative consequence of school ranking exercise?

Is there a neighbourhood ITE, junior college or polytechnic? Is there a neighbourhood university? By right, Singapore Management University (SMU) should be better and more prestigious than the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) because the former resides in the City area and the latter is located at the ulu (remote) end of Singapore.

If students in neighbourhood schools are deemed to be poorer and hence less smart than those in the elite schools, then does it also mean that the principals and teachers there are less qualified, less capable and lesser paid? If not, why keep stressing the significance of "neighbourhood"? I think it is time we wake up our ideas and stop putting such non-useful and negative labels on things and people around us. Schools are schools. All schools should be treated the same. In this respect, I think it is time to abolish the school ranking exercise which has been somewhat held as sacred for donkey years.

As I have said in my previous blog, try taking the last 10% of this year's PSLE cohort and put them in the prestigious Raffles Institution (RI) and watch the results four years later in the O-level examinations! By then, I think RI might become a "neighbourhood" school by this way of labelling!!!