There is a young woman I met in Seldorado. Her parents took her out of main stream education quite early. She was sent away to board at an International School across the sea. Things did not work out, she came home to struggle on her self education online for quite a few years.
She has two other siblings who went through the Australian tertiary educational system. Most people would expect her to make it to university. It is a little surprising that she instead qualified for nursing college.
Considering the fact that she didn't get a satisfactory grade in the national language and needed to do an extra year before Form 1, I wasn't surprised that she has had great difficulty qualifying in English. Yes, I would agree that Mandarin is important for this generation. I know that Saudi Arabia introduced Chinese as a compulsory second language in the kingdom. Yet we must be realistic that not every student from Chinese Primary school would transition into English tertiary education with ease.
Personally I am surprised that her parents would put her into nursing. Even if getting an Aussie resident permit is paramount, nursing for an ethnic Chinese girl in a white country would not be exactly a bed of roses.
One of my childhood friends qualified as a nurse when her children were grown. The statistics she quoted of health, mortality, family life ... of nurses who rotated on shifts in Australia is troubling at best. She herself opted to practise as a private day shift nurse, happily foregoing the night shift allowance. As soon as she is qualified to care for the aged, she works in nursing homes specialising in weekends and holidays to maximise her income.
Call me pessimistic, but I really think this couple is tempting fate by placing their only daughter into nursing. I think of the nurses who died in Hong Kong, Singapore and Johor during the last SARS outbreak.
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