Tag Archives: Singapore math textbook

The Aftermath of Singapore’s Unethical Math Publishing Industry

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out. —Proverbs 10:9.

The sins of Singapore’s educational math publishing by unscrupulous personnel of all sizes and shapes are pretty known in the industry, but the aftermath of their unethical practices are less commonly discussed in the open. Let’s look at a number of these unspoken consequences that affect publishers or editorial staff for taking crooked paths in trying to be a Who’s Who in local educational publishing.

imageOne of the first signs on the veracity of the above biblical verse in Singapore’s educational publishing industry is the rejection of manuscripts submitted to the Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE). Local or foreign publishers’ titles are rejected, in spite of the companies having a larger editorial team and a bigger bank account, as compared to the smaller, nimble family-owned competitors—which may not necessarily be less unethical, though.

Many reasons are understandably being conjectured by the top management as to why the MOE had rejected their “decent” manuscripts; yet, it doesn’t require someone with many years of publishing experience to “see” why their titles didn’t deserve a stamp of approval.

2. Bleeding Investment

Another common sign is getting a book approved by the MOE, but the adoption rate of the title is disappointingly low. The publisher reluctantly has to fulfill its obligation as part of its agreement with the MOE to come up with teachers’ resources, as part of the package promised by the publisher to adopting schools.

Indeed, an approval with a low adoption figure is more often a curse than a blessing—the publisher has little choice but to spend money in developing the teachers’ resources, often at a loss, especially when editorial manpower could be better utilized to publishing more profitable titles.

3. The Art of Blundering

An unhealthy number of mistakes and errors continue to plague the publisher and its editorial team, in spite of securing a decent adoption rate, and often long after the book has been used by thousands of students and dozens of teachers for a few years. From typos to editorial blunders to conceptual faux pas, these editorial ills never cease to haunt editors and their managers—and to continually stress the authors.

4. Peter’s Principle

Editorial staff are unhealimagethily stressed, as they’re constantly looking for opportunities to get promoted to their next level of incompetency to cover up their present editorial ineptitude.

The hardworking skilled editors infrequently get appreciated and promoted, while the office politicians-bosses never stopped conniving or scheming to go further up the publishing ladder. Indeed, authors and writers often selfishly feel that this is a less unsatisfactory publishing deal, where these bogus senior editorial staff are least likely to cause conceptual damage to their manuscripts—in authors’ eyes, seniors mismanaging editors is deemed to be a less “undesirable exercise” than allowing them to mutilating their manuscripts.

5. A Travesty of Publishing Knowhow

That nagging sense of job insecurity, and the poor sales figures as a result of low school adoption rates, both locally and overseas, are never off the mind of the insecure or unethical editorial staff.

What if we have to print out a few errata pages? What if teachers or parents complain about my poor command of the English language, or editorial or/and conceptual blunders?

The list of rational (and irrational) fears haunting editors and their editorially naked managers doesn’t end even after the book might have garnered a decent adoption rate in the first year of use.

6. Job-hopping Isn’t an Option

Those of us, writers or/and editors, who have been in the publishing industry (or involved in the writing game) for a while know too well that often times, the management moves from one level of hell to a seemingly less fiery one, to avoid being caught for unethical practices and faux editorial skills, even for a short period of time. Most manage to flee before the house is set on fire, while a few unlucky [often the less unethical] ones are too focused on their work to smell any smoke in their midst—they’re eventually either forced to leave or fired based on some lame top managerial excuses.

7. Death by Extension and Hijacking

Pseudo senior editors, managing editors, and publishing managers are notoriously known to recruit editors who are as incompetent as them, or less so.  Because of their poor publishing experience and their inability to recruit or spot decent editorial talent, it’s common practice for these senior staff to ritually apply for an extension of MOE deadlines. Moreover, it’s also not uncommon for semi-competent editors and their managers to resign in the heat of deadlines to join a competitor for a senior position, albeit they’re well aware that they’d be working under even more unscrupulous bosses, or ill-equipped to handle the new half-edited assignments.

The management find themselves editorially helpless, as they feel hijacked by their half-baked editors; and they’re always extinguishing more and bigger fires—most have little or poor understanding on the timeframe or difficulty of the editorial process: from receiving and reviewing authors’ manuscripts to editing and rewriting them; from typesetting and printing them to marketing and promoting the promo copies to school teachers.

Situational Ethics Is a Constantimage

Since I joined educational publishing in the new millennium, the one thing that hasn’t changed over the one-and-half decades is the lack of ethical practices in the industry. Writers and authors, especially the new ones, continue to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous publishers. It looks like Singapore is stuck to remaining a third-class educational publishing industry in a first-class economy for some time.

While our students’ and teachers’ mathematical standards have risen over the last two decades (assuming we do have some faith in TIMSS and PISA scores), our unethical index in educational publishing has remained disturbingly constant, if not worsened, if the rising number of legal cases between authors and publishers would serve as some gauge in revealing the unethical climate permeating the educational publishing landscape in Singapore.

Redeem the time, because the days are evil. —Ephesians 5:16

© Yan Kow Cheong, April 10, 2015

You Might Be an Editor if …

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With some training, almost anyone can be a decent editor, but few can be good editors. Being a good editor requires something special—that X-factor which we all need to pray for. Ask and it shall be given unto us. Yes, let’s ask Him for editorial knowledge and wisdom.

Editing is like striking a balance between forest and trees. Most of us focus on the trees, but the good ones specialise in the forest, too.

An average editor uses mostly her left brain (an eye for logic and organisation), but an above-average editor uses her right brain as well (the ability to read the manuscript while not actually reading it). Indeed, the dozen odd family-owned publishing houses in Singapore need editors of the second kind.

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You might be an editor if…
you couldn’t resist pointing out grammatical errors in your colleagues’ “edited” titles;
• you used mark-up symbols when you read a periodical;
when reading your church bulletin every week, you found yourself thinking, “This could be tighter”;
• you knew the names of the big shots of your competitors;
you complained of the poor quality of a preface or blurb;
• you felt sex ranks a distant second to the thrill of editing your Acting CEO’s e-mail;
you unfailingly read the imprint pages of every new book you find in your local bookstore;
• in a fire, you would save your complimentary copy of your edited textbook, then your travel document;
you could recite the rules of punctuation like the catechism or the national anthem;
• you decided a few sentences on any manuscript that the writer is bogus;
you could tell which similar title your “writer” had plagiarised;
• you got upset when a semi-colon should have been used instead of a comma;
you could still copy-edit your company’s newspaper advertisement for a new managing editor;
• your spouse sent a long-winded email which could have been tightened in five sentences;
you nearly fell off your chair when you read the formal correspondence of your seniors;
• you were shocked at the kind of “editorial pornography” seeping your company’s published titles;
you refused to resign even though you’re working for a socially irresponsible publisher;
• you had complained for the nth time about the questionable quality of your company’s writers;
you still dreamed of working under a capable managing editor and an ethical general manager in a-not-too-distant future;
• you would rather read “How to Speed-Edit”* than watch “Singapore Idol”;
you have spotted at least three linguistic faux-pas while reading this post.

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The art and science of editing

Editing is both an art and a science. The mechanics of editing may take a year or two to master, but the aesthetics of editing is a lifelong learning journey. Until Singapore maths editors consciously use their right part of the brain to nurture their creative side, Singapore will continue to have a second-class educational publishing industry in a first-class economy.

* Speed-Edit may sound like an oxymoronic, editorial activity; but rest assured, cohorts of “moronic editors” have almost perfected this grey art of editing.

© Yan Kow Cheong, November 28, 2013.

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