Is the aim of education a set of perfect scores?

I READ that in Raffles Junior College some A-level students who got less than a perfect score of four As, A1 for General Paper and three distinctions in S papers were weeping or hanging their heads in shame despite doing very well.

They felt that their chances of a prestigious scholarship and a ticket to high office were blown because they did not get the perfect score. Whatever happened to talk of providing an excellent well-rounded education for children in Singapore?

Twenty years ago, paper qualifications took centre stage when scholarships were awarded; 20 years later, the same academic criterion is being used to measure top talent.

Now we find that many of these academically brilliant people are flops in the real world, deficient in every other department and good only at regurgitating facts and theoretical knowledge.

We are mass producing straight-As clones assembly-line-style in top JCs and this spells doom for Singapore because other more important qualities are being overlooked in the quest for perfect exam results.

It is a warped world of Alice in Wonderland when excellent students who have done very well feel like hopeless flops just because they don't have the perfect report card.

There is something missing in our education system and recognition of true talent. We cannot see the wood for the trees.

Dr Lim Boon Hee