Facilities are definitely better; there is no denying that. Students today are taught with gadgets which would seem like sci-fiction in my days as a student. I had my first exposure to the computer when I was in upper secondary. My little girl learns to use the computer in Std 1. The machines were XT machines, with no hard disk and running on DOS. The floppy disks were those 5 1/4 inch floppy. I learned BASIC at the school computer club in Form 4. The monitors were monochrome. You get only one colour...green! And we thought playing green PacMan was cool!
Fast forward 20 years....Pentium Core Quad is already out. The OS is more user friendly. Students are used to projections of animated stuff to aid in learning, fully air-conditioned computer labs, internet access...It would be mind boggling 2 decades ago. Friendster, Facebook, MSN, blogging....they would have seemed to us then like stuff from space age.Discipline on the other hand is not getting any better. Read this take from The New Straits Times. And I think it is affecting the boys more than the girls. Male enrollment in the higher institutions is on the decline. In upper secondary, girls seem to be doing better too. XX chromosome build seems more suited to the modern world.
Better everything....yet, employers are lamenting that our graduates don't seem to have the skills to meet the requirements of the job market. Our young are spending more time social networking through the mobile and internet, yet they lack communication skills. They are exposed to more technology and gadgets..yet lack problem solving skills. They are given more opportunities at everything, yet lack resilience.
First class facilities....supposed to also produce first world mentality. What do you think?
3 comments:
LOL... remember when handheld computer games was such a big deal? some of our friends had the rowing monkey and space rocket game which were black LCDs on a grey background.
It was a big deal to get to look through the reference section in the ACS secondary school library. Now, most kids can look up model answers to exam papers on the internet :(
Ya-lor...they had tetris too remember and we would be so 'siao' about them. Give that to the kids today and they will probably snub it.
Well, I agreed with you. And I'm starting to think I'm one of those....Haiz..too much time I'm spending on computer. I should control myself! Control! Thx ma'am for reminding me this. Thx alot!
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