Parents, if you think a baby born in the Dragon Year (according to Chinese Lunar Calendar) is good for the baby in terms of education and career, you are sorely mistaken.
If anything, it's the opposite. The baby will grow up to suffer the effects of "overcrowding".
It has been well established that in Chinese societies like ours, many kids are born in the year of the Dragon. Maybe too many.
There's nothing bad about the Dragon year
per se. In fact, fortune tellers and "cultural experts" believe Dragon years are prosperous years when people harvest the fruits of their labour.
It's believed that fortunes soar and careers make an upturn in those years.
However, this is not the case for school going kids. They struggle with "overcrowding" - too many children in classes, and too many children vying for limited places in good schools and universities.
Is this good for their education? I doubt so. How about their career? Dragon year-born fresh graduates will also need to compete harder for jobs. Not good.
The
Straits Times recently reported that a girl who scored A, B, E, and C for General Paper got rejected by all 3 local universities -
NUS,
NTU and
SMU. She's born in the Dragon year.
In fact, from today's ST, we learn that See Shiying actually scored an A for English Literature, a B for Economics, and an E for Geography. Also, she only applied for the Arts and Social Science courses in the local universities, not the popular courses like Business.
An interesting observation is the differing views of the universities and
Ministry of Education on the "Dragon Year effect".
On page H6 of the ST print edition, it said:
Quote:
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"... all 3 varsities say rise in application numbers partly due to Dragon Year effect."
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But on page H30, in ST Forum, the Director of Higher Education in the Ministry of Education said:
Quote:
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"... the effect of the Dragon Year cohort ... made it more difficult for average students to gain admission to the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU). This is not the case."
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Er, why the contradiction?
http://www.salary.sg/2007/bad-for-dragon-babies/
Bad for dragon babies
