27 August 1999

PRIME MINISTER’S NATIONAL DAY RALLY SPEECH,1999 FIRST-WORLDECONOMY,WORLD-CLASS HOME – Extract E. EDUCATION

The underlying strategy to build a first-world economy is to create a first-rate

education system. Our students must know how to use existing knowledge, but that is not enough. They must also learn how to create new knowledge. That is why I have put a strong team of Ministers in the Ministry of Education (MOE).

We already have a very good education system. It helps every pupil to develop to his potential, and equip him with the knowledge and skills he needs for life. Singaporeans, especially parents, often complain about their children’s difficulties in school. But internationally we compare very well with other countries.

When Teo Chee Hean first went to MOE, he and his team decided to visit other countries to look at their education systems. They found these countries doing things very similar to ourselves – reviewing curricula, re-looking university admission systems, introducing IT into schools, re-emphasising holistic development.

They also found admiration and respect for the Singapore education system. For example, their counterparts in California asked them for our Mathematics syllabus and textbooks for reference. They wanted to learn how such a small country could achieve such good performance in Mathematics and Science.

While we can be proud of these achievements, we cannot rest on our laurels. There is much to do to improve the education of our children.

One key MOE policy is to give more autonomy to schools and school clusters. We must support and empower principals and teachers. We must give them the authority to make their own decisions, and the resources to try out new ideas and bring out the best in their students.

This is working. We have unleashed the collective energies and enthusiasm of our teachers and students. The schools and educational institutions are buzzing with activity. They are coming up with new and better ways to teach Science, Mathematics, English, and the Mother Tongue Languages. One primary school has installed a solar power system to power its garden lights, and teach its pupils Science in a fun and practical way. A secondary school has transformed its Science workshop into a corporate enterprise, where students had to design useful products with the limited resources provided.

We are providing not just a good basic education, but also enrichment programmes. Every school has an annual Edusave grant, which the principal can spend at his discretion. So the schools are hiring specialist instructors to coach students in dance, music, and life-skills. These activities are not in the exam syllabus, but they help schools to turn out more rounded students.

It is not just the top schools which have enrichment programmes. Neighbourhood schools are doing remarkable things too. For example, when Teo Chee Hean attended the 10th anniversary celebrations of Loyang Secondary School in his constituency in Pasir Ris, they put up a Dick Lee musical! The musical may not be quite Broadway standards, but the effort and enthusiasm of the students, the teachers, and the theatre community who helped them, was outstanding.

In music too, many schools are doing well. The top 5 secondary school bands at the Singapore Youth Festival this year were one Independent School (RGS), one autonomous school (Tanjong Katong Girls’), one SAP school (River Valley High), one aided school (St Andrew’s Secondary) and one neighbourhood school (Yuhua Secondary). It just happened like that – there were no quotas.

Having won the band competition here, the Yuhua Secondary School band will be representing Singapore in the Symphonic Band International Competition, in Thailand.

So although our children study hard in school, they are no bookworms. I only wish schools had had such programmes and facilities when I was a student. Then at least I might have learnt to play the drum, or if that was too difficult for me, the cymbals. Now I play nothing.

Our IT Masterplan for our schools and junior colleges is progressing well. The response has been overwhelming. Initially, some schools and teachers were sceptical and fearful of IT, and quite willing to let others be the guinea pigs. Now, the schools not yet on IT are asking anxiously when their turn will be. They do not want to lose out.

Teachers and pupils in IT-enabled schools are discovering whole new worlds of learning. They are using IT to teach Mother Tongue Languages, including Chinese and Tamil, which do not use the Roman alphabet. They are applying IT far beyond the usual places, including Chinese brush painting. Pupils of Radin Mas Primary School collaborated with pupils from Hawaii to create a virtual zoo. Luckily for Mandai Zoo, the virtual zoo cannot replace the real animals. And in fact the pupils still need to make field trips there to collectinformation and ideas. One of the most IT-savvy schools is Kranji Secondary School, a young,neighbourhood school which started in 1995. Every student has an Internet account. The school delivers assignments and reading materials to students via the Internet, encourages parents to keep in touch through e-mail, and has just launched its e-commerce web-site. It received the National IT Award for Excellence in IT Training.

While our students interact with students from other countries and expand their horizons using IT, there is nothing like face-to-face interaction. Education is a human enterprise. Top schools like RI and RGS are distinguished not only by good teaching, but also by the quality of their students. If we can have more outstanding students, they will partner, challenge and motivate other students to excel. So we should attract bright foreign students to study in Singapore. It will help us to build more good schools.

Top students from overseas do know about the excellent schools in Singapore and want to come here. Currently, 1,800 foreign students study in our schools. They add to the intellectual vibrancy of our schools, and enrich the educational experience of Singaporean students.

Chinese High School has many students from China. When I opened the school’s enhanced campus in March this year, the Principal introduced one boy to me. When this student first came from China, his English was perhaps a Primary Two standard. But within two years, he was scoring distinctions in English in Secondary 4.

I spoke to him in English. I asked him how he managed to do this. He said that he spent a lot of time reading, listening and practising English. I then asked him how much time he spent on mathematics. "Hardly", he said. Mathematics was easy for him. So was Chinese.

Then I asked him what he intended to do after finishing his ‘A’ levels. He said, "Try and get a scholarship to study in the United States." An alarm bell rang in my head. He may not return to Singapore.

I then asked a Singapore student what his plan was. He too wanted to get a scholarship to study in the United States. So we have a problem. Not only may we not get the bright Chinese boy back, we may even lose our own bright Singaporeans.

Looking across the road at the new Nanyang Girls' High School, an idea struck me. I suggested to the Principal to hold joint activities between his boys and Nanyang Girls’. If his boys have girl friends in Singapore, that may pull them back to Singapore! But what if the girls too go overseas?

One important part of our education system which we are very proud of is our technical education sector – comprising the four polytechnics offering Diploma courses and the Institute of Technical Education offering certificate courses in engineering, technology and business areas.

Early this year, MOE invited a small team of distinguished educators from Germany, the UK and the US to take a look at these institutions. The visitors, including university heads, were highly impressed by the "can-dream, can-do" attitude of our polytechnics and ITEs.

These institutions are truly "best in class". Collectively the polytechnics and ITEs admit two-thirds of the cohort. They will be the source of many technopreneurs, technologists and managers. Sim Wong Hoo, of Creative Technology, is an outstanding example. He graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in 1975. There are many others.

We also want to make NUS and NTU first-rate universities. NUS and NTU have already achieved high standards. They do not lack facilities and resources. Their constraint to doing better is talent.

Top universities in the US like Harvard and MIT recruit from the top 0.25 percent of a cohort of nearly 4 million, taking just over 1,000 students each per year. Only the brightest students have a chance. Furthermore, they recruit not just from the state they are in, or even the whole of the US. They draw outstanding students from the world over. So they attract top-rate professors, which in turn makes more top students want to enter these universities.

Harvard and MIT can do this because they are private, not state universities. They do not have to look after all the students from the state of Massachusetts. They also have the advantage of long histories, and huge endowment funds from alumni and well-wishers. There are other state universities, which take the many other good students who do not make it to the elite institutions.

NUS and NTU are state universities. They have a responsibility to take in all Singaporeans who qualify. They admit about 20% of every population cohort, thus catering to a wide range of talent and ability. Together they take in 8,000 students.

To upgrade themselves, NUS and NTU must systematically enrol bright students from the region. Though they can never match the academic excellence of Harvard and MIT, they can emulate Harvard and MIT, and try and attract top students from Asia.

Not every bright Asian student can afford to go to Britain or the US. Singapore is cheaper and closer to home. We do not expect all these students to stay on in Singapore. Many will go back and contribute to their home countries. Over time, they will form a regional network of old school ties, people who are well disposed to Singapore and whom we can do business with.

Last year, foreign students made up 16% of the total undergraduate intake in NUS and NTU. The two universities will increase their intake of foreign students to 20%. This increase in foreign students will not be at the expense of Singaporeans. We will always provide enough university places for local students who meet the admission standards.

We have also set out to attract top foreign universities to set up branches in Singapore. Our goal is to make Singapore an education hub, like Boston. Boston has many good universities besides Harvard and MIT. It has become a centre of excellence for higher education, attracting students and talent from far and wide.

INSEAD, the European institute of business administration based in France, and the University of Chicago Business School, are setting up branch campuses in Singapore. Another top US business school, Wharton, is collaborating with the new Singapore Management University to set up the Wharton-SMU Research Centre.

For engineering, MIT will conduct postgraduate courses in Singapore jointly with NUS and NTU. The Georgia Institute of Technology has linked up with NUS to set up the Logistics Institute – Asia to undertake research, industry consulting, education and training. The medical school in Johns Hopkins University is setting up Johns Hopkins Singapore, a postgraduate medical research and education centre at NUS. All these institutions will help us prepare Singapore for the knowledge-based economy.

If we want to be an education hub, attracting good students from the region, then we must provide a good English-speaking environment, i.e. one where people speak standard English, not Singlish. Our schools must teach standard English, and our children must learn and speak standard English.

Most of our pupils still come from non-English speaking homes. For them, English is really a second language, to be learnt almost like a foreign language, and not their mother tongue. For them to master just one version of English is already quite a challenge. If they get into the habit of speaking Singlish, then later they will either have to unlearn these habits, or learn proper English on top of Singlish. Many pupils will find this too difficult. They may end up unable to speak any language properly, which would be a tragedy.

Gurmit Singh can speak many languages. But Phua Chu Kang speaks only Singlish. If our children learn Singlish from Phua Chu Kang, they will not become as talented as Gurmit Singh. We learn English in order to communicate with the world. The fact that we use English gives us a big advantage over our competitors. Parents send children to English language schools rather than Chinese, Malay, or Tamil schools, because they hope the children will get jobs and opportunities when they grow up. But to become an engineer, a technician, an accountant or a nurse, you must have standard English, not Singlish. We don’t have to speak English with British, American, or Australian accents.

Most of us speak with a Singaporean accent. We are so used to hearing it that we probably don’t notice it. But we should speak a form of English that is understood by the British, Americans, Australians, and people around the world.

Straits Times [1 Jun] which hit the nail on the head. He had been criticised because Ronnie Tan did not speak Singlish. His reply was that the programme Under One Roof was shown overseas as well as in Singapore. Programme series are very expensive to make. If they are only shown in Singapore, they will surely lose money. If the characters spoke Singlish, viewers overseas would not understand it. Nicholas Lee cited one local production, "Forever Fever", which could not be released in the US market because American audiences would not understand the Singapore English. So now they are considering removing the Singlish, and dubbing "Forever Fever" in English that Americans can understand. His conclusion was: "We should all be aware that the only way forward is to look outward, and if the future of Singapore entertainment lies in ‘Beng culture’, then I am afraid it is a very bleak culture." What Nicholas Lee said about sitcoms applies to many other activities. Whether we are publishing a newspaper, writing a company report, or composing a song, does it make more sense to do so for a 3 million audience, or for the hundreds of millions who speak English around the world? We cannot be a first-world economy or go global with Singlish.

Singapore is not unique in having a local flavour to the English it uses. Local types of English often sprout up in places where non-English speakers come into contact with English speakers, or where people speaking different tongues use simple English as a common language to communicate with each other. These languages are called pidgin English, or Creole. Eventually pidgin develops into a new language, which uses many English words, but mixed with non-English words, and using different grammar.

Different kinds of pidgin English or Creole is spoken in Africa, in the Caribbean, and in the South Pacific. For example, in Jamaica they say: "Him go a school every day last year; now sometime him go, sometime him no go" [Jamaican Creole]. In Samoa when a person is very ill, he says "Mi siksik" [Samoan Plantation Pidgin English]. These examples are not to make fun of anyone. This is simply the way people speak in these countries. The examples have a serious lesson for us: if we carry on using Singlish, the logical final outcome is that we too will develop our own type of pidgin English, spoken only by 3 million Singaporeans, which the rest of the world will find quaint but incomprehensible. We are already half-way there. Do we want to go all the way? We would be better off sticking to Chinese, Malay or Tamil; then at least some other people in the world can understand us.

I know that many of us do not speak English perfectly. We studied in Chinese, Malay or Tamil schools, or came from non-English speaking homes even though we went to English schools. We cannot help it, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. But we should nurture the next generation to have higher standards of English than ourselves. We can help them by discouraging the use of Singlish, or at least not encouraging it.

Schools already organise many programmes and activities to encourage the use of proper English. They have Speak English Campaigns, they fine pupils caught speaking Singlish, and they run speech and drama programmes to promote good English. MOE has been working hard to upgrade standards of English in schools. First, it is revising the English Language syllabuses, to make them more rigorous and to strengthen the teaching of grammar.

Second, MOE will conduct a 60-hour course for 8,000 teachers who teach English Language in primary and secondary schools, to strengthen and update their skills. The course will lead to the award of the Singapore-Cambridge Certificate in the Teaching of English Grammar.

Third, MOE is working with the Regional Language Centre to produce a handbook on common errors in English usage in Singapore.

MOE gave me some examples of improper written English found in schools: "He is very sporting." to mean "He is very active in sports." "I became boring." when the writer meant "I became bored." "He turned into a new leaf." instead of "He turned over a new leaf."

As for spoken English, how about this: "Quick, quick. Late already. You eat yourself, we eat ourself".

One of the problems MOE has getting students to speak standard English is that the students often hear Singlish being spoken around them, including on TV. So they learn wrong ways of speaking.

Teachers complain that their students are picking up catchphrases like: "Don’t pray, pray." and using them even in the classroom. The students may think that it is acceptable and even fashionable to speak like Phua Chu Kang. He is on national TV and a likeable, ordinary person. The only character who tries to speak proper English is Phua Chu Kang’s sister-in-law Margaret, and she is a snob. Nobody wants to be a snob. So in trying to imitate life, Phua Chu Kang has made the teaching of proper English more difficult.

I asked TCS why Phua Chu Kang’s English is so poor. They told me that Phua Chu Kang started off speaking quite good English, but as time passed he forgot what he learnt in school, and his English went from bad to worse.

I therefore asked TCS to try persuading Phua Chu Kang to attend NTUC’s BEST classes, to improve his English. TCS replied that they have spoken to Phua Chu Kang, and he has agreed to enrol himself for the next BEST programme, starting in a month’s time. If Phua Chu Kang can improve himself, surely so can the rest of us.