By popular demand, the mrbrown column has been moved back to Friday. Happy now?
Latest TODAY column is: Express Stream to the World Cup
Excerpt:
So our marshals must be all-rounders, too. We must strive for excellence, people! No time for underachievers. No time for late bloomers. No time for people who are talented in areas that do not involve grades! I mean, do you want to be led by an MP who has 6 Cs rather than 6 As? Of course not!
But don't worry, we are flexible in our pursuit of excellence. Although we seek Express Stream for most of our specialised schools, those from other streams will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
This is in line with our intention to streamline our education system. From now on, there will only be two streams: The Express Stream and the Case-by-Case Stream. Isn't that better? No more EM1, EM2 and EM3, Technical, Express or Normal. Just two streams to deal with: Express and Case-by-Case.
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Full column:
Express Stream to the World Cup
The fun never stops, does it? All this while, you were thinking, no lah, economy not so good liao, there is nothing else they can increase the price of, surely.
Then they announce, “Our trains need protecting! We need to upgrade the security of our trains!”
When you read that, you just knew, didn’t you? There is no such thing as a free ride here in Sunny Singapore, Train Marshals cost money. Another price increase is coming.
Upgrade. Co-pay. The foundations of life in our society.
Maybe next time, we may need upgraded security in buses too. Enter the Bus Marshal. Enter the higher bus fare.
You know what? I think the taxis of Singapore need protecting too! Let’s have a Marshal riding shotgun in every cab! Taxi Marshal, and when business is slow, he can even chit chat with the driver.
We may need to set up a Marshal school soon. To make sure that we get a trained and motivated team of individuals to protect all our public transport. But we do not just want any old Marshal. No, only Express Stream students will be accepted into our elite Marshal school. Students who show an aptitude for catching terrorists and defusing bombs but do not have good results will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Look, we want the best Sports people, not the uneducated and stupid kind who can run quite well (or worse, the kind that comes from, gasp, Technical Stream!).
We have no time for anything less than the best Arts people, we want them to be artistic and still get their International Baccalaureate, so anything less than stellar results will do. Oh, by the way, the cost to train a High-End Upgraded Arts Singaporean is very high, so the fees will be slightly higher than normal schools, just $500 a month.
So our Marshals must be all-rounders too. We must strive for excellence, people! No time for underachievers. No time for late bloomers. No time for people who are talented in areas that do not involve grades! I mean, do you want to be led by an MP who has 6Cs and not 6As? Of course not!
But do not worry, we are flexible even in our pursuit of excellence. Although we ask for Express Stream for most of our specialized schools, those from other streams will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
This is in line with our intention to streamline our education system. From now one, there will only be two Streams. The Express Stream and the Case-by-Case Stream. Isn’t that better? No more EM1, EM2 and EM3, Technical, Express or Normal. Just two streams to deal with, Express and Case-by-Case.
You can run the 100m in 10 seconds and you are Express Stream? You are accepted. You can run the 100m in 7 seconds and you is Technical Stream? Case-by-case.
You have Grade 8 in Piano and you are Express Stream? Welcome. You learned to play by ear and can compose beautiful pieces of music from your head, but you is be Normal Stream? Case-by-case.
You only have yourself to blame, who asked you not to study hard. Instead, you spent your time running, playing football, doodling, drawing in class, filming your teacher scolding your friend, when you should have been paying attention to your schoolwork.
If you young footballers had studied harder, we would have reached the World Cup by now. But no, you boys just wanted to play football after school, instead of getting the grades needed to attend our premier Sports school. See how dismal our football is now? Our idea of progress is that Japan did not thrash us too badly (the score was 2-1). We lost but we lost well. That is not acceptable. We want to win! Imagine what an educated team of footballers could have accomplished under this situation.
And look at our Arts scene now. Did anyone even know half of who the recent winners of the ST Life! Theatre Awards were? Did anyone care? No! If these artistic people had better grades at school, maybe Singapore would be host to an Asian Tony Awards by now.
Why are we not the film capital of Asia? What did New Zealand have that we did not? You are right if you guessed Grades!. Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings crew got their 11 Oscars because they all had their International Baccalaureate and 11 As at “A” Levels.,I am sure. Some of them probably had degrees and maybe even Masters. That is the secret of their success, which we must emulate.
Look at our film industry now. Instead of films made by directors who have good grades in school, we have Royston Tan, making that kind of tasteless movie with that gangster Ah Beng theme and scenes of male genitalia. An Express Stream student will never make that kind of movie.
Even his choice of actors for those roles were below our high academic standards! I heard the young actors he used were really Ah Bengs and gangsters with little education and no acting experience! Don’t talk about Normal Stream, I don’t even think they went to school! Surely he could have found some nice Express Stream students who are active in their school’s Literary, Drama and Debating Society (LDDS), to act in his movie?
Okay, so the movie “15” received critical acclaim in film festivals all over the world, but does he have a PhD in filmmaking? No! Because he is not Excellent and an All-rounder.
A filmmaker with an International Baccalaureate would not have made “CUT”, his next short film too. Someone with good grades would never stoop so low as to make a short satirical film that pokes fun at our valued institutions like the Board of Film Censors, and the hardworking public servants who work there.
So remember, we must Upgrade. We must Upsize. We must Co-pay. It is the only way.
"mrbrown is the accidental author of a popular website that has been documenting the dysfunctional side of Singapore life since 1997. He was an active LDDS member in school, and he was from the Express Stream. His acting credentials included plays, musicals, and a stint acting in education TV shows for Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore (CDIS). He has acted with Lim Kay Siu before. He is not making any of this up.
