GEP Programme

It is with great irony as I read the article “A gift of a programme”, seeing how the author praises and emphasises on the importance on the GEP system. However, only 5 years after this article was published, the GEP system was taken down, so much for the GEP being the very foundation of Singapore education. The past is the past I guess. 

I personally do not agree with the author on the GEP system. He claims that these “special GEP students” are able to mix with the non-GEP students during their Co-curricular activities, otherwise known as the CCA. However, with so many school specialised and labelled as a GEP school, the dominating student population would consist GEP students only. Having GEP students mix with other GEP students during their CCAs would just defeat the purpose of letting GEP students mingle during their CCAs. 

On the other hand, the author also stated that there is little or no separation between GEP and non-GEP students, that there is certainly no such thing as differentiation between the two parties. However, he contradicted himself at the start of the article saying how superior these GEP students were, taking up a large percentage of scholarships, awards and other honorary titles. It would seem rather obvious that the author himself was a former GEP student, from my point of view at least. 

The author also included a paragraph on so called “non-snobbish” GEP students, quoting how these students were able to give back to the society and take part in all sorts of volunteer work. I personally feel that this statement is far off the point, is getting into GEP the only way to gain an epiphany on the importance of gratitude towards the country? Only GEP students are dense enough to love the nation? Non-GEP students, too, partake in such volunteer work! Moral education isn’t a GEP-only syllabus after all. 

In fact, I believe that the removal of the GEP system to be a good call. Giving students a sense of differentiation at the young age of 10 would seem highly inappropriate. Children of that age not only like to compare but anything that they have and others don’t have, becomes a privilege to boast about. Parents force their children to go for special GEP test tuition since Primary 1 just to get their children into this programme. Is it really necessary to subject young children to such stress at such a young age? Definitely not!

Being a non-GEP student, I have been called jealous and bitter multiple times by these students, but I accept that. However, some of these GEP students already have an in-built attitude that others are inferior, totally oblivious that the gap between the two parties is not much different. I do not bear a grudge against GEP students; I just believe that it is with such articles that GEP students gain their snobbishness.