OELP Pre-Task Trip Task #2: Education in YangZhou

Education in Yangzhou, Jiangsu

Yangzhou has well instituted compulsory primary education system, nearly all of school-age children are enrolled in schools.

Jiangsu’s education system is based on the national system for the public education, which includes primary schools, middle schools, and universities. Nine years of education is compulsory for all Jiangsu students.

Jiangsu is the province in China that owns the largest number of institutions of higher education with 105 universities and colleges and an annual student enrolment of close to a million in 2007.

Jiangsu's international co-operation programs have been well established in the past years. Its universities and colleges have accepted international students from over 100 countries, and have had extensive exchange programs with more than 300 universities internationally. The number of higher education institutions funded by private sectors nationally and internationally are on the rise and they offer youth alternative educational pathways for career attainment.

Shuren School of Yangzhou Middle School Education Group

扬州中学教育集团树人学校成立于1999年6月，经过十六年快速、健康的发展，已形成“一校两区三部”的格局，即九龙湖、南门街两个校区，初中部、高中部、国际部三部。同时，接受委托管理扬州市经济技术开发区实验中学。现有117个教学班，在校学生5374人，教职员工393人。自创办以来，一直秉持“人文与科学相融，全面与特色并重”的育人理念与育人模式，坚持“树人为本，服务社会”的办学宗旨，逐步形成了“立德树人，自强不息”的校风、“教书育人，精益求精”的教风和“快乐学习，健全成长”的学风。一直坚持“三全”质量观，坚持走“质量立校、科研强校、文化兴校、特色亮校”发展之路，教育教学质量稳步提高。中考屡创辉煌，正取扬中、达四星级高中以上人数等多项指标稳居市直第一。高考成绩不断超越，本科以上及重点大学录取人数逐年攀升，深受家长赞誉和社会好评。我们相信，在扬州市委、市政府的关心支持下，在上级教育主管部门的直接指导下，在全校师生员工的共同努力下，树人学校定能建设成为“扬州著名，江苏一流，全国有影响” 的人民满意学校。

Three questions

What is the difference between the education in Yangzhou and Singapore?
What can we learn from their education system?
What is the difference between their students and our students?

OELP Pre-Task Trip Task #1: Cost of Living

1. Find out from your parents or online the cost of a standard 4/5 room HDB flat (around 90 - 100 sq m) in Punggol.

$393 - 460k

2. Find out the current cost of a brand new Toyota Vios.

$127 888

3. Find out from a local supermarket the prices of the following
- cheapest 10kg packet rice

$15.30

- cheapest 1 litre drinking mineral/distilled water

$0.95

- cheapest fresh whole chicken (refrigerated not frozen)

$6.60

- do we provide plastic bags and how are they used

yes, they provide plastic bags. They are used for packing food to make it more convenient to carry.

- who are the cashiers (age, nationality) and what kind of service do they provide

malays and chinese (20 & 50 years old). They scan our items and calculate our the total amount. They also separate our food and daily necessities in separate bags.

- cheapest one litre of cooking oil

$3.20

4. How much is your school fee?

$15

5. How much is one litre of petrol (95 unleaded)

$2.170 (as of 7 May)

6. How much is one movie ticket on a weekend

$12.50

7. What is the average salary of a Singaporean

$5040

8. One Big Mac

$7.50

Singapore VS Chinese Youth Culture

Singapore Youth Culture

Chinese Youth Cuture

Social Media

In Singapore, most youths usually use social media like facebook, whatsapp, instagram and tumblr.

Facebook - to connect with our friends and keep in touch
Instagram - to capture nice moments and share photos to our friends and family
Whatsapp - to message our friends and family easily
Tumblr - (similar to blog) to post about anything we want

From what we know, youths in China use Weibo, Wechat, QQ as well as Youku.

Weibo - it is a Chinese microblogging website similar to Facebook 

Wechat - to message friends and family (similar to whatsapp)

QQ - it is an instant messaging software which also offers a variety of services, including online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, platform of games and group and voice chat.

YouKu - for people to watch videos (it is like a Chinese version of Youtube)

Singapore youths use mainly English based social media platforms while Chinese youths use mainly Chinese based platforms. Although Singapore and Chinese youths use different social media platforms, we use social medai for the same reason which that it is a platform for us to connect with our friends or even to re-connect with people we went to school with years ago. Some of them might not even be really close friends at the time, but via social media, we can connect in new and interesting ways. Also, these social medias are actually similar in many ways, just that the language is different.

Games

In Singapore, youths nowadays play games like League of Legends, Crossy Road, Flappy Bird etc.

League of Legends (a.k.a LoL) - it is a multiplayer online battle arena where the players play the role of a character with unique abilities, battling with a team against other player or computer-controlled champions
Crossy Road - it is a mobile game where players have to get past obstacles
Flappy Bird - it is a mobile game where the player controls a bird and attempt to fly between rows of green pipes without coming into contact with them

And from what our group know, youths in China also play LoL and also 赛尔号.

赛尔号 - 是一个网页游戏，由上海淘米网络开发制作，适用年龄为6岁以上，游戏口号为“英勇赛尔，智慧童年”。赛尔号原是智制作的掌机游戏然后各种改变剧情与平台破解。
赛尔号是一款集合了精灵培养、收集、战斗等多种玩法的养成类游戏。

From this, we can see that youths in Singapore and China both play similar games, like multiplayer battling games, and the reason why people play games is that we can enjoy ourselves when playing games and at the same time relieve some stress from our hectic lives. 

Shows

In Singapore, the film 'Ah Boys to Men’ is really popular among the youths since it is a comedy show and also, its has many local jokes or slang in it. Therefore, it is really unique to us and only we Singaporeans are able to understand. As compared to us, we feel that Chinese youths would watch the show 步步惊心 and also 非诚勿扰 which are very famous even in Singapore therefore we believe that the Chinese youths would watch them. Although the youths in Singapore and China both watch different shows, we believe both parties enjoy watching shows as it is a form of entertainment and we can relieve some stress from it. 

Music

In Singapore, the youths tend to incline towards...anything. In a classroom, you will definitely find people with vastly different tastes in music. There are some who likes Korean music, some who likes Japanese music, and some who likes English music, and of course, some who likes Chinese music. 

In China, however, we believe that, though there are people who likes English, Korean and Japanese pop, Chinese youth tend to incline more towards Chinese music

However, though the youths may listen to different kinds of music, and their tastes might be very different, they all listen for the same reason- to relieve stress. After all, there is a saying "Music is a language of its own"

Sports

In China, they play many different sports, like soccer and badminton, as well as leisure sports like waveboarding. Some are also talented in freeline skating, a sport that is not so commonly seen in Singapore.

Mobile Phones

Mobile phones are a big part of a Singapore youth' life. So much so that the mostly, the only sport we play are the ones on our phones. And thus the term “低头族” is formed.
We also feel the need to keep up with the "mobile phone trend", which means buying the latest mobile phones the moment it is released.