I sympathise with Mr. Anthony Lim and his sons' plight as highlighted on Thursday ("Right policy, unrealistic approach"). He agrees with Dr. Lee Wei Ling that bilingual policy implementation should be amended, and that a year's delay would cause a cohort of children to suffer unnecessarily.

While I agree schoolchildren growing up in a predominantly English-speaking environment will have problems picking up Mandarin, even Dr. Lee believes it is still the more logical language, with fewer encumbrances from a grammar standpoint, and that the converse, learning English from a Mandarin background, is harder.

As an ethnic Chinese who grew up speaking more English than Mandarin, I still have more trouble navigating media in Mandarin than in English, but I would put this down to lack of practice. Written Mandarin still poses a considerable challenge, sometimes even more so than German which I began learning at 13.

I am not suggesting, of course, that Mr. Lim's children do not put in the requisite effort to do better in Chinese, but I believe the problem cannot be solved by tuition alone.

A student of any subject, be it physics, chemistry or biology, will benefit from understanding concepts rather than rote memorisation, as formulae that are purely memorised may not stick around long enough for the examinations if they are not understood.

Language requires even more effort, as Dr. Lee mentioned. "As in any language, continuing competency in Chinese requires continuing exposure." Not just in the lessons, but on television, on the Internet, on newspapers, on the radio and in conversation.

To accomplish this in the midst of preparing for all the examinations can be difficult in an increasingly English-dominated environment, and expensive tuition sessions are not necessarily the answer, as Mr. Lim has found out. Perhaps it is time not to look at just the implementation of the bilingual system, but the education system itself?

It is one thing to lament that schoolchildren are missing out on the joys of childhood, but to suggest that bilingual policy is largely responsible for that is ignoring the overly pragmatic mindset we are forcing on the current and future generations.

Assessment is a crucial part of education, but allowing self-esteem, ambition and chances for personal development to hinge on examination scores, as early as the age of 10, is a recipe for unhinged adults in the future.