I always like to attend wedding dinners, not because of the food served there, (hotel food are normally so-so only), but because of the company you would see. As you grow older and get married, you tend to go for less outings with friends. So wedding dinners are a good way to catch up with people, especially those friends you have not seen in a long time. But of course, as you get older, you would also attend less weddings, since more of your friends get married and those who are not married, ………….would most probably stay that way :P.
I attended one of friend’s wedding a few weeks back. One of my good friends – who was one of my “brothers” for my wedding. We were school mates in JC and also university course mates. We join the same ECA in JC – Chinese martial arts. So there we were, all the “武林高手” in the same table and some of our spouses.
There was one particular person we did not see in quite a while because she was overseas all this while as her husband had an overseas posting and was only recently back. Of course, she was not idling all this while but had three kids while she was overseas. So I am not the only one who is “productive”. She married earlier than me, so her elder kid is older than mine. Her kid is 5 years old this year and would be going into a primary school in 2 years time and the topic of the day revolves around primary schools for our kids, which is the theme of the story for this post. (Even the financial crisis took a backseat that day).
Because she lives in Buona Vista, she said she is going to enrol her kid in Henry Park Primary School, supposedly one of the better primary schools in that area. She was saying her flat is within 2km of the primary school. Actually I never believe in so call “good” and “average” primary schools. Whether a person would be successful in life really depend on a lot of factors, going into a “good” primary school would really play an insignificant role in his/her success, in my opinion. So I don’t really understand why some parents go to great lengths to do volunteer work or to move house so that their kids would go into a “good” school.
After the birth of my children, I already make up my mind that there is no way I am going to do volunteer work to get my children into a primary school. (I am just too “lazy” and “bochap” to do volunteer work, and my time is too precious for such “mundane” chores.) Moving house is also out of the question (until that night), because my place is in a such a convenient location and many people would “die” to come to live here. The only issue we have is that there are very few primary schools in my vicinity (the price for living at the city fringe). The one primary school within 1km of my place is a all girls school, which is not what I want for my daughter. So the next choice are schools out of 2km, which is an issue I am going to face in time to come.
It just happens that one of the friend works in MOE, so he becomes the “SME” (subject matter expert) on enrollment in primary schools. And though some of us don’t have any kids yet, this is a perennial and popular Singapore topic, so all of us were pretty engaged. Though the wife shares my view of not doing any volunteer work, she still wanted the kids to go to a “good” school. (She wanted to best of both worlds). So how do you get your kids to a “good” school with minimal efforts? Since there was a MOE SME, we know phase 1A is for sibings, phase 1B is for alumnus of schools or people with “connections” to schools like board of directors, member of clan associations etc, and phase 1C, 2 and so on.
Luckily or unluckily, I happen to be an alumni of a “good” primary school, one of the SAP primary school. So if I join the school’s alumni association, chances are that my kid would definitely get into the school, which a lot of parents want their kids to go. The only problem is that school is not near my place, so if I want the kid to go there, I can
1) Drive her back and fro everyday (so I need to buy a car which is not a very wise decision, considering the age of rising petrol prices and ERP rates, anyway, I eschew car ownership because I hate to find carpark lots and cars are depreciating assets)
2) Move house so that I don’t need to subject the kid to long traveling time and hopefully avoid buying a car (also not very wise, if I need to sell my prime location and move to the “suburbs”)
Anyway, the wife was so excited, she had difficulty sleeping that night. To settle this once and for all, we actually went to the school to take a look. And to be frank, we actually like what we see, the surroundings and also the website of the school.
The only “negative” point is that there is no worthwhile house to buy near the school. I didn’t really want to buy a resale flat because it is quite expensive. Yes, there is a condo within 300m of the school, but it is a 99 leasehold property and 15 years old already, which would not make a very good property investment. But then again, is there any basis for comparison between a property investment and investment’s in your child’s education?
For me, one of the consideration is that the kids in this school would get a good grounding in the Chinese language because it is a SAP school, plus I like the motto of my alumni which I still remember to this day.（忠孝仁爱，礼义廉耻）
For those who don’t understand Chinese, it means, in the same order
- Loyalty
- Filial Piety
- Humanity
- Love
- Courtesy
- Righteousness
- Integrity
- Sense of Shame
Compare this against the motto of the neighbourhood primary school which is “Work hard, play hard and make a mark” (doesn’t the first few words sounds eerily familiar??).
The wife called the alma mater to get an application form for me to join the alumni association. It is still on my table collecting dust. Do I really need to孟母三迁 and follow the crowd? Anyway, I still have more than 2 years before my kid enroll in the school?
So it’s between "Work hard, play hard" against "忠孝仁爱，礼义廉耻" , where would you enrol your child if you are the parent?
weeyong
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