#133 June school holidays

“How was your field trip to Beijing and Shanghai?” I asked my niece who is at primary 5 level at school.

She replied exasperatingly, “It was sightseeing.” 

I was flabbergasted. The school made her pay S$1500 for a 7-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai…making teachers and senior staff to tag along or be nanny during the long school break in June.

It was presumed this was a field trip in understanding how schools operate and perform in other parts of the world…and to give primary school level students exposure to Chinese language learning. They only spent 30 minutes in a school lesson. Naturally, one so young were not able to understand or grasp that the China teacher was saying.

I said, “If that was sightseeing, then you should be spending time with your parents and sister to go on tours! Surely not with your school friends and teachers during the long June holidays.”

What was the purpose of the ministry of education allowing the schools to bring students on the primary level giving parents the impression it was a field trip when that was for sightseeing?

What is the value to this 7-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai? If this was for sightseeing, surely parents would gladly tag along to take care their child — rather than having many teachers and senior staff spending their holidays with school students for such!

Besides $1500 spent on a trip with little value and purpose is extravagance…this sum could be a parent’s earning for a month!



In school, I was taught to memorise some apt proverbs for English subject. I see its relevance today when I can use these to understand a little of that written by the media.

At the moment, ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ stands out.

One interprets that read depending on which side of the fence one is sitting on.

I pick ‘the talking point’ below for convenience and I like the perspective of the Chinese to the recent Olympics Torch fiasco.