$0.

00

2 February 2015

THE STREETS
Main | Life | Opinions | Politics |

Double-Edged Sword or a Single-Edged Dilemma?

Responses seem to be quite diversified as a
result of Overseas Family Schools plans to do
away with face to face teaching and deliver its
entire curriculum online. A man named Mr.
Glover had a rather unique approach to the
situation and when asked; said the following
statement: Students increasing dependency
on technology in ever y aspect of their
academic lives is a double edged sword. The
Streets believe that the statement is true to a
certain extent. However, our opinion is that
the sword appears to be more sharp towards
the negative side of the situation. In other
words, we feel that overall the limitations of
this abrupt change exceed and outweigh the
benefits. Some queries would like to be raised
here at The Streets. What about the hundreds
who lose their jobs at the campus? What
about those who cannot even aord to buy a
computer, let alone have access to internet?
What about the thousands of dollars wasted
on an education enhancing project when the
same money could be used to actually enhance
the platform for those who learn? Could the
money not have been used to educate the
illiterate to a certain extent? These questions
werent raised, in fact they were pressed down
and quietened. Experts believe that this has
been done strategically to minimise the
potential for any rebuttals.

An image of the classic symbol yin yang, which

symbolises the relationship between people and
technology in our generation.
Not only do we sympathise with the loss of
jobs from placements provided to the
homeless, but we also think it is cruel to
allow a high number of redundancies in
other administrative sta. Think about all
the maintenance men, aunties and uncles,
and administrative staff who are at an
extremely high risk of losing their job. The
concept is quite simple, students will be
given the choice to either continue with face
to face teaching or to learn online. Seeing
the current generations addiction with
technology, it is assumed that most of the
students will opt for online learning. Due to
this, there will be less maintenance sta
required and perhaps a few less teachers.
Cleaners already living on minimum wage
and with a lack of skills may find it dicult
to survive or find a new job.

$0.00

In all honesty, perhaps there is a chance that

many jobs wont be lost. Regardless, The
Streets believes that not the tiniest amount
of consideration was given to the massive
expense of such an unfeasible idea. Of course
this plan requires a large value of money, but
is this really the best use of the money. Could
the money not have been used in a better way
rather than this? The answer is yes. According
to the principal of the school, this change is
going to be brought about the develop and
increase the platform of those learning at
OFS. She says that after this change, students
living overseas will be able to learn at OFS;
which basically increases the platform of
those getting educated. If the principal
actually wanted to enhance the education
platform, why couldnt this money have been
used to educate the illiterate in Singapore.
Perhaps the statement made by the principal
was just a publicity stunt, but we think that
the act of moving to e-learning should be
reconsidered.

2 February 2015

There are very few benefits that we can

identify as a result of this major shift. All in all,
we here at The Streets believe that this is an
ill-planned idea, and if executed, will not show
such good results. Overseas Family School still
has the chance to reconsider their recent
decision, we would highly advise them to do so
as it is in everyones best interest.

We would like to acknowledge the fact that

this advance is indeed an advance and not a
regression for some. For students living
abroad, they have the opportunity to learn
according to the curriculum followed by
OFS online. This is quite beneficial and
households in developing countries dont
have to save up money to travel all the way
to Singapore for education. Instead, they
can simply buy any (old or second hand)
computer and use that for their childs
education. Besides overseas students, this
new plan gives existing students a choice to
make freely about how to learn. Nowadays,
students are controlled as robots by
teachers and parents. This is one
opportunity where children can themselves
make the decision about how they wish to
learn.