My view

In YL's essay on Mother Tongue, he mentioned in the second paragraph that the self-serving English-speaking "persuasive" people are "Very persuasive, indeed, almost as persuasive as my guinea pig."

Thought you guys might like to know that his guinea pig is dead.

Well, unless you are Zhang Yang in the latest Channel 8 serial 我在你左右, I guess you can't be persuasive at all as a dead person.

I was toying with the idea of writing to the ST forums on this topic since retards with "5% logic, 20% personal example, 20% fallacy and 55% emotion" can already write in. But YL is not a man of harsh words, and what I read was more like 110% emotion and -10% logic, so much so that I've forgotten how to argue logically after reading one too many letters in the forum.

I bet the editors sometimes publish these asinine letters for a kick. After all, humour definitely sells better than logic (let's see, who's richer and more famous - Subhas Anandan or Russell Peters?)

Most people are logical, but not everyone can be comical. Although I must say after reading the forum page more regularly in the ST, I am inclined to start doubting my first line. Seems as though the balance is swinging towards the other way, albeit unintentionally.

To me, the whole situation is simple. You can only do a few things.

1) Lower the MT weightage in PSLE

2) Let it remain as it is

3) Raise the MT weightage in PSLE

4) Do it O level style and let students take their three best subjects

Item 1 sounds fairly logical, but only in the eyes of those who are weak in Mother Tongue. I was fairly weak in Chemistry back in school, and since it hardly has any real life application in the BUSINESS world, which is the course I am applying to.. shouldn't we lower the Chemistry weightage for A levels?

(Note: I know this is a lousy argument, but as mentioned it's easier to talk cock nowadays than to talk logic.)

Item 2 is what MOE decided to do. I think it's fair. The anti-MT camp will have a lot to say about this, but in the meantime their kids will have to continue failing MT while they gripe and bitch about how smart their children are, less MT.

Hey, I would have got perfect grades in RI if you didn't count Chemistry, Physics, French, Literature, English, Social Studies, and oh, Higher Chinese..

Item 3 is something no one has ever mentioned or talked about. I don't know why I raised it here, either.

Finally - letting students pick their three best subjects. This is about as "logical" as it could go - and it would benefit those strong in MT, yet not disadvantage those weak in MT.

Sounds good?

The PSLE is already about as basic as it can get. It amuses me how parents can think of their children as "talents" if they cannot even handle four subjects.

And still, this mode of examination will invite trouble. Let's say in one particular year the Science paper is a killer (to me it always is), and the MT paper happens to be unbelievably easy. The parents of those geniuses are bound to make noise. No matter what.

You can give them moderation and you can give them assurance, but as my BMT commanders say "stupidity has no limits" - their stupid words will go on limitlessly.

The ideal and pragmatic way to deal with this problem, in my humble opinion, is to leave it as status quo. As some anonymous prick said, "you can't please everyone" - you're going to piss people off no matter what.

Should the government change status quo and alter their current stand on MT weightage, what will only result is a different group of people getting pissed off. And human nature is such that one remembers grievances more than he remembers favours.

Might as well keep the same group of people pissed off.

So don't lower the MT weightage.