While browsing the articles on The Singapore Daily I come across an article titled ‘Lack of Career Guidance in the Singapore Education System’. The blogger basically lamented about the lack of guidance given to young students as far as their career path is concerned after they complete their secondary school education – which generally means obtaining a good enough pass in their GCE ‘O’ Level exams to either proceed to Junior College or to enter the specialisation stage of their education in the Polytechnics. She pointed out the usual factors driving a student’s choice and what are some of the outcome on making the wrong choice. She then claim that those who end up hating their course is proof that students lacks career and education guidance.

I too have my gripes about the education system. Basically, they are mostly about the lack of choices. I felt it concentrates too much on the science and technical fields, with too little on the humanities and the arts. As a result, we have a well-trained and possibly well-qualified workforce, without anyone particularly outstanding. To put it in an analogy, Singapore’s Education System is like a PC manufacturer, which will ensure that its products are competitive. That means it will attempt to produce hardware with the latest CPUs, the best RAM etc. Unfortunately, Singapore’s Education System does not ‘preload’ these computers with software, and you are left to ‘install’ them on your own.

The other thing I am also unhappy about is with the streaming system. While I can understand resource constraint means putting all the ‘bright sparks’ at one place would be a more effective use of resources, the streaming system makes our Education System very unforgiving to late boomers. And that is the very reason why a brother of a good friend of mine has remained in the U.S. to this day, even after a close shave with the collapsing WTC in New York City back in 2001.

However, while I resent the system, I could not find fault with it. A well-trained and qualified workforce is what I considered a pillar of Singapore’s economy. The government gahmen ensures there will be a ready pool of trained manpower for companies encouraged to set up shop here and also fulfill their promise of creating job opportunities for the citizens. Otherwise, the jobs will end up going to foreigners like the very blogger who wrote I am talking about. Thus, it is natural the gahmen actively promotes certain courses from time to time (e.g. Mechatronics in the 80s, IT in the 90s and Life Sciences in the early 21st Century).

Anyway, one must always remember that ultimately, no one is forced into taking up the course they have chosen. If they end up disliking their choice, is it really a lack of career guidance? It would be rather natural that one would pick up course which enhances their chance of future employment. Just who would want to be left out of where the gahmen is taking the nation’s economy? And which agencies are to take up the effort to give advice to the teenager, and be responsible for the advice which might affect their lives forever? No matter how neutral such an agency, I would find it unlikely it would be giving an advice different from what their parents or peers are giving. In fact, at the tender age of 16 or 17 (depending on whether you are ‘Express’ or ‘Normal’ stream), it would take a partial genius to take the risk in going down a path less trodden.

On top of that the economy is never static, and changes happens pretty rapidly once it pushes past a certain point. Back in mid-1988 when I was entered the Polytechnic, the choice of that time was Mechatronics – which generally deals with automated production. I repeated one semester and by the end of 1994 when I entered the workforce, certain companies have started to move their production lines to Johor, Batam and by the start of 1997 to Suzhou in China. In short, it has become a sunset industry in Singapore, production facilities are moving out of Singapore and unless you are in the management or R&D level, a particularly sought out individual, or you are willing to work overseas, there’s basically not much of a prospect left in this line.

Now, this change didn’t happen rapidly and it took almost a decade. By then everyone I knew have either shifted to doing sales of products for the company they already worked for, or they have changed line entirely. I changed line in 1998 to work for my friend who is dealing primarily with network and computer setup. None of us would have expected this, and I doubt anyone who happens to be giving career guidance would have expected this back then either.

Either way, it is not entirely true that there is no career guidance given. My mei xinyun did a quick search and came up with the following links:

Do also note that it wasn’t so long that IT, and then Life Sciences was the in-thing. But with the coming IR, it is now all about Entertainment and Services!

So I must ask, was it ever the responsibility of the Education System to ensure everyone have a successful career? In fact, is it even relevant or necessary to offer career guidance when the nature of Singapore economy changes ever so rapidly? Or are we just finding it convenient to blame someone or some perceived lack when conditions in life don’t go the way we want? How are we to expect our very own Bill Gates or Steve Jobs when we expect everything to be spoon-fed?

Sure, I would really like to blame my current employer too. The wise guys with coats and ties in the Head Office making the decisions thought it would be better to sell the entire firm to a competitor. Ya right… and no one advised me this was coming.

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