8 June 2004

2ND TEACHERS’ CONFERENCE 2004

1.      The Teachers Network of the Ministry of Education is organising a two-day Teachers' Conference for 2000 teachers on 8 and 9 June 2004. This year’s conference is the second to be held as part of the professional development provided for teachers. The first Teachers’ Conference was held in June 2001.
  
2.      The Conference will be opened by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Acting Minister for Education. The theme of the conference, “The Teacher As Edupreneur: Exploring New Frontiers”, will highlight the critical role that the teacher plays in schools to nurture the spirit of Innovation and Enterprise (I&E) among pupils.  Entrepreneurs are, by definition, unconventional people who may start from the accepted norm, but invariably break out of the mould and move ahead to succeed.  In a similar vein, the teacher can develop an enterprising spirit to become an Edupreneur, explore new frontiers in teaching and learning, and be the impetus for change.

3.      Conference highlights include:

 •      a keynote session delivered by Mr Gary Marx, President, Centre for Public
Outreach, Vienna, Virginia and author of “Ten Trends, Educating Children for a Profoundly Different Future”,

•      a plenary session delivered by Dr Andrei Aleinikov, Founder and President of Mega-Innovative Mind International Institute  and School of Geniuses, Montgomery, Alabama and author of “Mega Creativity: Five Steps to Thinking Like a Genius”,

•      a plenary session delivered by Professor Peter Atkins (DSC), professor of Chemistry, University of Oxford and fellow, Lincoln College, Oxford and author of “Galileo’s Finger: The 10 Great Ideas of Science”, and many other books on Chemistry and other sciences.

4.      The Conference will feature 90 concurrent sessions presented by teachers who will share their innovations in teaching.  Towards the end of the conference, the guest speakers will join the conference delegates for an open discussion on the “Teacher as Eduprenuer”.

5.      Preceding the two-day conference will be a one-day Pre-conference Institute on 7 June 2004.  This will take the form of several workshops focusing on Innovation & Enterprise which will be conducted by the two plenary speakers and The Idea Factory.  Teachers from the pioneer batch of participants of the Teacher Work Attachment (TWA) programme in November/December 2003 will also be sharing their experiences with fellow teachers, who will be brought on learning journeys to visit two of the participating organisations – The Singapore Zoological Gardens and Qian Hu Corporation.