In this video you see Obama asking why the US can’t provide “math instruction and science instruction for our children that matches countries like Taiwan and Singapore.” I cannot help again feeling that foreigners tend to see only an official rose-tinted view of Singapore’s education.

Do we have great Science instruction or teaching in Singapore? If we look at how Science is taught in Singapore it is not much different from that of teaching another content-based subject, like History. Only the content is different. Is the student encouraged to do scientific inquiry? Is he familiar and conscious with the scientific approach? Is cramming our students with Science “facts” considered science instruction? How different is that from teaching History “facts” in History lessons? Not much really except for the subject-related information taught.

I hope we in Singapore don’t allow such praise get to our heads. Teaching science is not happening in our schools. Only now is some of it happening. Even then it is happening only in the most elite schools here as if it is beyond the ken of the rest of the school-going population in Singapore.