Republic Poly - good school?

Republic Poly, in some ways, has its goods and bads (or rather, flaws).

I can proudly say that Republic Polytechnic lecturers (we call them Facilitators) are excellent. They are friendly, supportive, and knowledgeable. You will never get tired or bored with them, they know how to teach and communicate with their students (except for one facilitator whose name is Cynthia C. whom teaches database. She's one biased biatch whom doesn't grade by work or knowledge, rather by favouritism. She has graded several of my classmates and me a 'C' grade all because she had a bad impression of us despite we have never offended her and have worked hard in every lesson. Although I must confess she's beautiful on the outside, but not on the inside.)

And not to mention, the facilities - a huge library with all sorts of books you can find, musical instruments in the library, an Xbox and Nintendo Wii at a room for students to play, good cafeterias and cafe which you would definitely enjoy the food.

Yes, these are the pros or rather, good things of Republic Poly.

But if you would to ask me about the "bad side" or flaws of the school, there's a few.

Firstly, the school adopts the Problem Based Learning (PBL) system to teach their students. Basically, you will not be given a textbook where you would learn beforehand, memorizing everything, and using the knowledge you've acquired in exams/tests.

In the PBL system, you are first encountered with the problem, and you will learn to find information via the internet/library to get the solution. You will learn to think and create multiple solutions to a problem. Yes, that's good in a way.

But the flaw of the PBL system is, it's way too time-consuming.

If you're a student from ITE or other polytechnics like Temasek Poly, your time schedule varies. Your monday's time schedule could be 2pm-4pm, Tuesday's would be 9am-2pm, .etc.

But in Republic Poly, because we adopted the PBL system, the time schedule is fixed - 8.30 am to 3.30pm, or 9.15 am to 4pm, or 9.45am to 4.30pm.

And for just one whole day, you will only learn one topic of the module/lesson.

The other flaws that most Republic Poly students even raised is, PBL isn't appropriate for all modules. For instance in Year 1 students, regardless of the course you've took, you will be learning the same modules. One of the modules would be about programming (Computing). So it's quite absurd to use PBL in programming.

In my opinion, PBL is something very new to Singaporeans because, in my knowledge, Republic Poly is the first school to adopt the Problem Based Learning education system.

And Singaporeans has always been learning straight from the books (since Primary 1 till our O' levels or ITE graduates), therefore it could be an initial obstruction that first year students would face.

Republic Poly should have a semi-PBL system instead. Using PBL for certain modules (like Business), where students will learn to think and find multiple solutions; but use traditional learning ways to learn programming, mathematics, .etc.

But please do not let the above statement make you feel demoralized or avoid Republic Poly as your choice. It is still a good school, but this is a point that most RP students would raised. Still, you will learn something in the end of the day and be an independent learner.