DJ SHAN WEE: ACCEPTING 'TUITION CULTURE'

This was the year that Shan Wee, music director and DJ at One FM 91.3, accepted "tuition culture" like most parents here.

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Wee, who is half-Irish and half-Chinese, was born in Northern Ireland and moved to Singapore about two decades ago. He turns 43 in January and has three kids - Ciaran, 12, and Ruan and Arya, both 10.

Arya is his stepdaughter with his Singaporean wife Mona, 44, a headhunter, whom he married in 2022.

Ciaran and Ruan, who are from his previous marriage, live in Bali with their Indonesian mother and would visit them during their school holidays.

"I'm sure there was a point when I would have said, 'Oh, I'm never going to be part of that Singapore culture of tuition. But this is the year when Mona and I accept that it's just the way for many children here."

Wee, who hosts The Music Mansion on weekdays from 10am to 1pm, adds: "I didn't grow up in Singapore, but I always knew that the Singapore education system was rigorous. I cannot remember doing mathematics, for example, at such an advanced level when I was 10."

Arya will be in Primary 5 in 2025 and takes higher Chinese for her mother-tongue subject.

"Mona is Punjabi. Both of us do not speak or understand Chinese.

Despite that handicap, Arya has been doing pretty well," says Wee.