From ‘Pre-school concert too costly, say parents’, 3 Sept 2012, article by Melody Zaccheus, ST
PARENTS have sent an open letter to a kindergarten asking why they have to pay $65 for their children to attend a graduation concert. At least 30 of them have signed the document imploring the principal to reduce the price.s
Ms Irene Lum, whose daughter attends the kindergarten, wrote to The Straits Times last month complaining about the cost of the event at Kallang Theatre. “Graduation is an important part of our children’s education journey,” said the 38-year-old. “It doesn’t make sense for the school to charge so much and make it difficult for families to afford.”
The kindergarten is run by the Punggol North PAP Community Foundation (PCF). Its vice-chairman Lily Hugh sent an e-mail to Ms Lum to say the price included snacks, lunch and transport to and from rehearsals, and on the actual day of the concert.
…Five other PCF branches told The Straits Times that parents are charged between $40 and $50 per child. Most of this goes towards paying for costumes….Montessori for Children, which has campuses at Broadrick Road and Newton Road, has booked ballrooms at the Conrad, Sheraton and Swissotel hotels for its graduating pupils.
At Pat’s Schoolhouse, founder Patricia Koh is usually busy at this time of year, putting the finishing touches on the script. This time, the children will be staging a concert based on Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory at Raffles Hotel Jubilee Theatre. Tickets are $50 each.
Pat’s Schoolhouse’s $50 ticket only grants you ENTRANCE to the show. In 2010, the same preschool could charge you up to $270 which includes a bundle pack of two tickets (Mommy and Daddy), calendar, video, photo and costumes; an astonishing amount that’s worth more than a front row seat to watch Jay Chou live($228 in 2010). The fact that Pat’s can actually score a ‘Distinction award’ for Group Performance by the London College of Music just goes to show how much pride and effort is spent on posh extravaganzas, though how such an accolade benefits the preschool as a centre for LEARNING and its ‘graduands’ baffles me. It’s a KINDERGARTEN, not a theatre company. If I had wanted my kid to be the next Phantom of the Opera I would have enrolled him in drama nursery or cast him in Drypers ads right away. For a kindergarten performance, my expectations would be along the lines of draping my kid a caterpillar costume that’s made out of a green sleeping bag and have him wriggle around a bit, not recite Shakespeare in a junior toga or giving Mediacorp Channel 8 a run for the money.
Red Cliff: The Next Generation
But perhaps kids like such outlandish, over-the-top theatrics these days, and wouldn’t settle for anything less than sweeping period drama and intricately designed plastic spears. In my time we pranced around in recycled props lip-syncing to nursery rhymes like Old King Cole or Hickory Dickory Dock, where crowns were made of rings of cardboard strips and giftwrap, not an actual headpiece with velvet cushioning inside. There wasn’t any ‘choreography’ to speak of, but now parents part with their money to see their little thespians perform historical epics that they won’t be reading about until at least a decade later, just to humour preschool teachers with closet ambitions to write grand musicals and win Tony awards. Yet not all preschools charge ridiculous admission cum costume fees for their concerts. NTUC’s My First Skool made it free for parents in 2010, where the kids didn’t have to put on silly make up or trudge around in furry robes playing the Last Emperor of China.
Still, I wonder why parents are complaining about a one-off concert ticket when they’ve no qualms paying for enrichment classes IN ADDITION to preschool. Some parents prefer to just have their kid wear an oversized frock, go on stage, grab a scroll and walk off without the entertainment, a rite of passage that even schools like PCF Pioneer dispensed with to make way for the MAIN event of the night; a multi-ethnic, magical spectacular where the actors will grow up to become embarrassed teenagers who wish they had taken the role of the coconut tree in the background rather than the gyrating hula boy or girl. Other than charging for concerts, Montesorri organises preschool camps which cost at least 1K, in which failure to participate would mean your kid not graduating with the rest of his class. Either way, parents will be sucked dry before the REAL test of primary school even begins. With enough luck, your kid may be inspired from his award-winning performance to want to pursue his TRUE calling, that of a fearless, concubine-collecting, Mongol warrior rather than, you know, studying for PSLE.
Perhaps our ministers had something to do with this whole graduation concert ‘tradition’. VIPs started making special appearances in the early seventies to attend ‘costume parades’ at PAP kindergartens. In the eighties, kindergartens went all out to impress guests of honour such as Goh Chok Tong and Yeo Cheow Tong, a time when PCF was already holding such concerts at the Kallang Theatre instead of community centres of the past. To entertain Tony Tan, PAP Sembawang had kids crooning the rousing number ‘Count on Me Singapore’ in 1986, and it wasn’t even NATIONAL DAY. Since then, you may no longer settle for Jack and Jill went up the Hill anymore. Someone on stage must play superstar, there must be exploding glitter at the finale, even an INTERMISSION if need be, parents will erupt in thunderous applause with their camera-phones in one hand, overpriced memorabilia in the other, and pockets as empty as the memories that their kids will have of the entire event.
