Bandar Seri Begawan - The first secondary school to go on the four-day School Immersion Programme(SIP) to Singapore arrived safely at the Brunei International Airport, yesterday.
Glad to be home, the students from PJN Pengiran Hj Abu Bakar Secondary School came back loaded with experiences to share with their peers particularly on the subject of leadership.
The President of the Student Council and Head Prefect, Siti Nurasnani Hj Nayan compared the similarities and differences between her school to the two schools they visited in Singapore, namely the Henderson and Xinmin Secondary Schools.
‘Their uniforms are really different from our schools here. They wear (short) skirts and we use tudong," said Siti. "Mandarin is also compulsory there."
One of the characteristics of the Singaporean students which Siti noticed was the high level of self-confidence they displayed. She said she learned a lot on leadership skills from observing the Singaporean students.
"It‘s how they talk. They don‘t use scripts. Usually Bruneian (students) read from the script," she said.
To Siti the similarities between the two schools lie mostly on the subjects that the students take. "They take similar subjects such as Combined Science and the pure Sciences," she said.
However, one major difference was that the students had the opportunity to take their GCE O‘level examinations in Secondary Four, a year early. "It is offered to the fast learners," said Siti.
Singapore has no natural resource, she said. The people are their most important resource, so Singaporeans invest a lot in their education.
Another area which they were briefed on is the National Service programme.
"We don‘t have this in Brunei and when you look at Singapore, I think we should also have it to improve on our discipline," Siti said who feels that the schools in Brunei should also offer courses on public speaking to increase the students‘ confidence level.
"I think other schools should have trips like this to learn about the schools systems in other countries,"she said.
One of the accompanying teachers, Hj Mohd Yura Faizal Hj Mohd Yusof was struck by the differences in school system and administration particularly on the vast facilities available and the autonomy the staff has to make and implement changes for the benefit of the school.
"It makes decision making faster. They do not have a lot of procedures to go through to make changes(within the school)," he said.
He was also fascinated with Singaporeans determinations in studying and working. Brunei is still far behind in terms of capabilities and we need to improve on this, he added.
Source: www.bruneitimes.com (13 September 2007)