Out of the mouths of babes

For any bosses from the Singapore education department reading this, I have a message. It comes from (I’d guess) most of your schoolchildren. They detest their education system. They burn with resentment at the way their schooling tries (they think) to shackle their imaginations, their individuality, their free spirit. They hate being forced to compete, and are made miserable about what they see as learning by rote.

That’s the bad news. But the good news is this. However they may chafe at the way they are taught, these children are anything but broken reeds. Imaginative, rebellious, thoughtful, original, poetic, these winning boys and girls (often of Chinese origin!) write English like little angels. How do I know? Because this year I joined the judges of the junior section of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.

This annual contest, born in imperial times — 1883 — is the world’s oldest international writing competition for schoolchildren. This year some 12,000 children from across the Commonwealth took part. HRH Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the vice-patron representing the Queen, has overseen the competition; and the Duchess was at Buckingham Palace at the end of last month for the presentation. So was I. And so were all the young winners, wide-eyed at the splendour. They had been flown over from Pakistan, Canada and Singapore for the awards ceremony. I felt lucky to meet them, and proud to be among the judges as part of this vigorous-feeling institution. The children read extracts from their winning entries; and the Duchess seemed genuinely involved, staying for ages afterwards, chatting to children and schoolteachers.

But my pleasure at being involved was tinged with sadness. In order to choose the winner and runner-up of the junior competition, my fellow judges and I had been given the whole ‘shortlist’, which was anything but short. I had read every word of more than 70 essays from all over the world — Canada, Kenya, Tanzania, Singapore, Pakistan, Jersey… — and with every essay the heart sank.