Well, I suppose it can be argued that it is not the education system, per se, that is lacking, but rather an oversight (or nonchalance) of the Ministry of Education in thinking that people will know what they want, and will be happy with the choices that they made at the age of 16. But bear with me when I equate the education system to the Ministry of Education.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Singapore education system, let me briefly run through the route that most of us go through:

(Click for Larger Image)

Pardon the crudely drawn diagram and the omission of non-mainstream education routes.

At age 16 or 17, after taking the GCE O Levels, a student must choose whether he/she wants to go to the Polytechnic, where he/she will pursue a diploma in a specialised field (for example, Engineering, Business, Accountancy, Mass Communication, Nursing, Biomedical Sciences, Information Technology, etc) or to go on to the Junior College and study for the GCE A Levels examination or International Baccalaureate diploma. The GCE A Levels and IB diploma programme are essentially similar – students choose a number of subjects to study, from a pool of available subjects, such as Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, History, Literature, Geography, Economics, etc. In other words, it is all rather general, and students are not limited to any particular field of study.

What concerns me most is when students choose the Polytechnic route. I am actually all for the idea of going to a Polytechnic, because I personally feel that the other route is a waste of time (having gone through it). But this only holds true if the student knows, at the age of 16 or 17, what he or she is interested in, and would like to build his/her career upon.

Which brings me to my point that we lack career/education counselling or guidance in our education system. Students are going into the polytechnics, choosing courses that they have very little idea about, and end up finding out that they hate the course. While some may quit the course and reapply to another course, most end up perpetuating that mistake, and pursuing careers in those fields that they dislike.

Hence, it is imperative that students are given a clear idea of what they are applying for, what options they have, and the different types of careers that they would have, should they pursue a particular course.

Students often choose courses based on the following factors:

1. Not knowing what they want
2. Friends’ choices
3. Parents’ choices
4. Ministry’s choices (when the MOE was actively promoting life sciences, everyone rushed to that course. Ditto Info-tech courses)
5. Not having a choice due to less-than-stellar O Level results

And students sometimes end up hating their courses because:

1. They didn’t know the course was going to be like this
2. They weren’t informed of the career choices (most who study the life sciences never figured that they were going to end up in the lab every day, watching cells grow or something)
3. They were given only an overview of what the course is about, but not in depth information of the various modules (more material should be given to students to read, instead of just an overview in the faculty brochures)

In which case, it becomes painfully clear that students lack career/education guidance, especially after the very general O Levels, and also the very general A Levels (these paths are named the General Certificate of Education, GCE for a reason), as it is after these examinations that they choose the specializations at the polytechnics or universities, which will affect their careers in the future.

Of course, breaking out of a particular field of study when you enter the work force isn’t entirely impossible, but isn’t the point of education to equip one with the skills and knowledge, so as to be able to efficiently and effectively carry out one’s job in the future? Would it not be a waste of resources to train an engineer, only to have him/her end up in another completely unrelated job?

The remedy to this, perhaps, is to reduce or minimalize errors at the stage of decision-making, and I do feel that it can be done through proper career/education guidance.

ETA: As I write this, it also becomes clear to me that perhaps it would be better for career guidance to be provided by a party that is neutral, that is not directly related or influenced by the Ministry of Education. But I’m fine either way (external party or MOE, preferably the former), as long as it isn’t provided by the school which the student is considering, for obvious reasons that they aren’t exactly going to be impartial.