Uh, dun have to bash me for what I quoted. Just that since the topic is now on schooling, just thought I should paste regarding comments on the same topic.
"I have friends in Australia who had to send their kids to private schools for both primary and secondary. They even had to supplement with books from Singapore coz the standard of the public school system is very low"
Actually for this quote, I only quoted half. The other half states "They are not Singaporeans. Also have friends(non-asians) in US and Europe supplementing their children with Singapore textbooks/assessment books too."
So, it's not really those migrated Singaporeans that are spoiling the market.
I believed it's not a matter of wanting to compare Aust public school standard with Spore standard. It's just that things are so bad that you can't help but look at alternatives. I dun see parents comparing the standard when their kids are in private schools, except for the cost maybe.
When I was staying in Tas just a few years back, there was this piece of news on TV that looked into the schooling system of Australia. They reported that the system is so bad that 15 yr olds students can't even spell simple words that shld have been taught in primary school. Some, couldn't even write their alphabets properly.
When you see things like that on national tv, you can't help but worried if you have kids in public school. Imagine you can not earn enough to send your kids to private school, wouldn't you want them to at least study based on other materials in hope that they wun end up like those students in the news?
Seriously, not everyone can afford to send their kids to private school. My hb found out that the top private primary sch in perth cost ard $3k a year. And that's only primary. Even if the normal private school are not as exp, the fees will still go higher with each level. If you only have 1 kid, then that's fine. But what if you have 2 to 3, and only 1 person is working?
While I do not need my kids to be geniuses, I do want them to grad from uni nicely. How to find a job if they are not uni grads when uni grads are abundant in aust? And if they can't even pass their high school properly, how to enter the uni?
So in situation whereby we gotta send our kids to public school and the system really sucks, I will consider getting them spore schooling materials. Spore schooling materials simply becos they are easily available. If I can get my hands on the private school materials, they will work too. And if that's ks, so be it.
But of cos, if my kids can go into those good public school or private school, I dun think I will bother doing anything. Considering the fact that almost everyone in the June mummy thread is talking about GD, Shicida, enrichment course, all I'm letting my son do is sleep, eat and play.