Chinese tuition for two sons

$1,000 on Chinese tuition for two sons

news.asiaone.com 

It's a "family idea". Her Chinese parents, who couldn't speak Mandarin, had to  spend thousands of dollars to send her for Chinese tuition. But she still did so badly for Chinese that she could not enrol  in a polytechnic here. So she went to Australia to study and  eventually got her degree there. Now, it's deja vu for Madam Karen Boh. The 39-year-old school administrator has been spending  $1,000 on Chinese tuition for her two boys every month, but it has yielded little result. Madam Boh is not alone. In Parliament yesterday, MP Josephine Teo (Bishan- Toa Payoh GRC) raised a concern shared by parents like  Madam Boh. Sharing her story with The New Paper, Madam Boh described  how this week, her elder boy Trystan Choong got his   Primary 3 mid-year Chinese examination results. He scored  a dismal 15 per cent. The best result the eight-year-old ever got for Chinese was  29 per cent in Primary 2. Not that he didn't try his best, Madam Boh told  The New Paper recently when we visited the family at  their three-storey home at Parry Terrace. "Chinese has always been difficult for us. My friends used  to laugh at me for speaking Mandarin in a weird accent. "I am a "kiasu" mum. So I started sending Trystan for tuition  when he was only four years old." Now, for $600, Trystan goes for Chinese tuition twice a week. Read more .....