COMMENT: Singapore’s kiasu gang must break addiction to exams

A FEW months ago, a mother wished to pass on a few kind words about one of my novels. Her son had really engaged with the central character and looked forward to reading the next books in the series.

“That’s lovely,” I said. “I’ve spent years convincing readers that Princess Incognito is not just for girls.”

“No, not that one,” the mother said. “The one with Inspector Low.”

That would be the one with a double murder in a hotel suite and horrific sexual undertones. It’s a long way from Geronimo Stilton.

Her son was 11 years old.

“Oh, no, no, he really shouldn’t be reading that one,” I pointed out, wary of a court case involving childhood trauma. “The content isn’t appropriate for an 11-year-old.”

But the mother persisted. “He’s really advanced,” she said. “It’ll help with his English composition.”

For the record, my Inspector Low novels will not help kids pass PSLE exams. They will not really expand vocabulary either, unless you want your kid to swear like my late grandmother after a few gins.

But God bless the kiasu, eh? They’ll do anything to gain an advantage, an edge, something, anything to get an extra mark or two in that all-important PSLE, O-Level or A-Level exam. They’ll take leave to help their children revise, an astonishing act of parental sacrifice that still impresses. When I was kid, my mother wouldn’t have taken leave to help if I was on fire.

They’ll buy inappropriate literature and then brag to the author that a boy yet to discover puberty is socially equipped to digest jolly topics like murder, sexual assault and manic depression (Again, he isn’t. I’m not being sued.)

They’ll even pay for mock exams at tuition centres, after that pesky government of ours took the laudable step of scrapping mid-year exams to allow our knowledge-drenched younglings to try something different around this time of year.

Like sleeping. And eating. And breathing.

Mock tests demanded by kiasu parents

For some, though, lunch is for wimps, as the kiasu gang push on with their dispiriting quest to produce a nation of mini Gordon Gekkos, seeking every opportunity to get ahead, (because a nation of fact-stuffed, data crunchers will be about as useful in an AI-dominated workplace as a pair of sunglasses on a man with no ears, but we’ll come back to that.)

Let’s stay with those mid-year mock tests, a rare example of an initiative driven from the bottom up, rather than the top down in Singapore; a community coming together to do something for the betterment of their fellow young men and women.

Yeah, all right, they demanded more exams for their kids.

When the Ministry of Education took the decision last year to do away with all mid-year exams for primary and secondary schools, parents took matters into their own hands this year and sneakily sidled up to tutors, presumably hanging out on street corners like illegal ticket touts and whispering that they’ve got exams to sell.

In the coming months outside the National Stadium, expect to find suspicious-looking folks promising three Taylor Swifts, two Coldplays and a Jacky Cheung for the auntie.

In the coming years outside every tuition centre, expect to find polished entrepreneurs insisting that they can do three O-Level chemistries, two A-Level maths and one English oral for the weird kid who fancies a career in the arts.

Of course, the kiasu gang are not doing it for themselves. This one's for the children, because a common refrain among so many young Singaporeans these days is that they just don’t have enough revision and exams to occupy all that free time.

Wander around any busy Starbucks and you’ll find existential scenes playing out as one teenage dilettante cries to another … “A course, a course, my kingdom for a course exam.”

Or something equally pretentious.

But that’s not really happening, obviously. In reality, giddy news articles speak of boom times at tuition centres as they organise mock mid-year tests for those suffering from withdrawal symptoms, prescribing exam methadone to stop addicts from going full cold turkey.

Some generously promoted their “complimentary” mock exams and hundreds of teenagers signed up. When I was a teenager, the only complimentary item guaranteed to attract teenage attention was alcohol.

Exams can't prepare kids for AI-dominated workplace

It's all different now. In fact, one particular tuition centre called itself Overmugged, which I assume means its customers are over-revised for their exams. Again, when I was a teenager, overmugged meant being robbed more than once. (I was mugged twice . If I completed the hat-trick, I kept the knife).

But in Singapore, overmugged means being over-prepared for mid-year exams, in a country that has scrapped mid-year exams, in a valiant attempt to stop students from being overmugged; students who are now signing up - and often paying - to take mid-year exams at centres like Overmugged. You couldn’t make this up.

The MOE is gently pointing out that exams are just one way to assess learning progress, emphasising that the removal of mid-year tests should be a step towards strengthening the genuine joy of learning. Quite right.

Academics are also stressing the gradual shift towards self-directed learning and independent decision making, which might turn rote learners into thought leaders in an AI-dominated workplace. The ability to think on one’s feet, improvise, engage and make daft connections between exam sellers and ticket touts can’t be done by Chat GPT just yet.

Chat GPT already possesses the knowledge to ace any exam at any time of the year, so why even try to keep up? AI is a challenge to rote learning and exam crammers. It’s not as serious a threat to those who colour outside the box, those who might make a puerile comparison between mid-year exams and methadone to underline the strange process.

It’s the scribbles we jot down in the margins of real life that get us through, rather than the binary ticks and crosses applied in artificial test conditions.

Stuffing a child with exams is rather like force-feeding an inappropriate crime thriller to an 11-year-old boy. Any potential benefits are disputed and it’s a pretty miserable way for a kid to spend a holiday.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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