Sorry, Mr President

"Teach less, learn more" has to be the ultimate oxymoron. The idiots who implemented the policy in 2005 cut up to 20 percent of content in the syllabuses at primary, secondary and pre-university levels. Thanks the trimming of knowledge base, we now have senior civil servants who  can't spell the name of Singapore's first President correctly.

Ravi Menon, managing director of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), may own up to the embarrassing gaffe, but he had a whole staff who must have had half a chance to proof read the booklet which accompanied the issue of the SG50 commemorative notes.

"This should never have happened, is not acceptable, and I take full responsibility. I apologise on behalf of my colleagues who worked hard to prepare the notes and folders but are deeply disappointed that we made this most unfortunate mistake. We will put this right."

The education system has to be blamed if officers at that level (read income tax bracket) are so careless, and disrespectful of our history. According to Heng Swee Keat, the systematic reduction "include content that relies on recall or focuses on technical details not critical to students' understanding". Thanks to the debasement of instant recall, "Yusof" was spelled "Yusok". Instant recall would have prevented the other gaffe of cockles being mistaken as an ingredient in mee-siam.

And the Education Minister wants to cut school content further - and pay the teachers 5 to 9% more for the exorcism - this time purportedly to focus on critical learning. Asked by Fareed Zakaria about encouraging creativity, Tharman Shanmugaratnam said, "The toughest question to ask ourselves... is not what we add to the education system, but what we subtract." Indiscriminate use of the scissors can only lead to a sanitised version of our past, and mislead a whole future generation that only one name needs to be remembered. And spelled correctly.