23 October 2001

Speech by RADM (NS) Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence, at the LEP Graduation Ceremony at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel on 23 Oct 2001 @ 7.30 pm

1. My warmest congratulations to the graduands for successfully completing the Leaders in Education Programme. I am delighted to be present this evening to share this special occasion with you.

2. Your graduation from the Leaders in Education Programme marks a significant milestone both in school leadership training and in your personal growth as leaders. I am told that you have exhibited a high level of energy and enterprise in the Leadership In Education Programme. I am sure that you will bring this spirit of high energy and high enterprise into your job as you apply what you have learnt.

3. Innovation was the key emphasis of the programme that you have gone through. Over the last 6 months, you studied how major innovation is managed in different contexts as well as learned how to create cultures that encourage entrepreneurship and build competencies across boundaries. Classroom sessions in the LEP have dwelt on how principals can enable their teachers to be innovative and drive achievements to higher levels.

4. This emphasis on innovation is vital because future principals will have to manage schools in a future driven and shaped by innovation.

5. Singapore's continued success will depend on our ability to generate, develop and apply new ideas and techniques within existing industries and to create new enterprises. Innovation is no longer simply encouraged; it has become an imperative of all professional endeavour in business, government and education.

6. Everyone will need to engage with innovation because it encompasses all aspects of our children's and our country's future. Innovation is not just about technology, or new economy businesses. Innovation is also a social phenomenon. It is about people in exciting enterprises, people in every walk of life doing new things, and doing things in new ways. It means developing an entrepreneurial spirit embracing risk-taking, creativity and imagination.

7. A new mindset and new strategies are needed to foster innovation, and all organisations, especially schools, will have to respond to the imperatives of innovation at work around us.

8. Schools are knowledge organisations at a time when knowledge and access to knowledge have never been more important. They must therefore serve as catalysts for learning and discovery, and the wellsprings of the knowledge society. Schools will have to help students develop the love for learning, the ability to adapt, and the personal confidence to take risks for change whether they go on to work in business, industry, or the community.

9. Schools need to be innovative, to respond effectively to the demands of a rapidly changing knowledge-driven world and do the best for their students. To remain relevant in changing circumstances and needs, schools need to mobilise their capabilities in different ways, develop new capabilities and learn from others.

10. Innovation in education can take place in school organisation, use of technology, or physical organisation of instruction. This may involve discovering better ways to integrate new technologies into conventional teaching; or trying out models different from conventional one teacher classrooms such as teaching laboratories, team teaching, and multi-disciplinary teaching; or introducing new international collaboration projects that instil greater breadth of outlook among students and teachers. Schools can also be innovative in how they form close school-community linkages with employers and corporations, and how they leverage on their stakeholders as an important extension of the school.

11. MOE has been supporting such innovation in schools. In 1999, we set up the School Innovation Fund to encourage school practitioners to try out new ideas in teaching and learning, pupil development and school management. The progress made since then has been encouraging. To date, 38 projects have been approved and over a million dollars has been disbursed. In Nov last year we also launched the $1 million MOE Innovation Fund to serve as another source of funding for the testing of new innovative ideas. This year, we introduced the INNERGY awards to recognise individuals and teams that have come up with innovations which made significant contributions to MOE's mission. 13 awards were given out this year.

12. Many of our schools are now actively engaged in innovation. One good example of innovation in teaching and learning, funded by the School Innovation Fund, can be found at the Holy Innocents Primary School. The school uses Game Cards to develop pupils' ability in recognising Chinese characters and in constructing sentences. Teachers make creative use of these game cards in their Primary One lessons; pupils are encouraged to play the game at home with their families, and the school organises Game Cards Competitions as well. The school has since expanded on the idea of using games to arouse pupils' interest in Chinese and build up their vocabulary. It is producing activity-based workbooks, character "cubes" and even interactive CD-ROMs.

13. There are also schools which have engaged in innovative practices that are less visible, but which are significant nonetheless. To better manage teaching resources and avoid relying on relief teachers, Jurong Secondary has an arrangement where each teacher is given one fixed period a week in his timetable for relief teaching. By having a system that anticipates such needs, the school has been able to manage more smoothly and predictably events which may be individually unforeseen. The benefit for the teachers is that the $50,000 saved from not having to hire relief teachers, has been used to provide additional administrative support for teachers.

14. Innovative ideas, whether big or small, whether product or process-based, create new value and significant improvements to schools' delivery of education. Some ideas, like Jurong Secondary's, optimise resources and do not even cost money. In fact, I would encourage the quietly innovative schools like Jurong Secondary to submit their innovation projects to HQ and be considered for next year's INNERGY Awards. This will allow us to recognise their efforts and enable other schools to learn from their ideas.

15. For innovation to extend across the school system, autonomy is necessary. Autonomy gives greater scope for the imaginative and responsive school to think of a different and potentially better way of doing something that has become staled by custom or tradition. Schools can then inventively fashion and evaluate new educational designs that can later be disseminated through the system where appropriate.

16. We have devolved greater autonomy to schools and clusters, and will continue to explore further possibilities for doing so. Schools now have more say over how their resources and physical spaces are used. We have accorded autonomous status to 4 more schools in the last two years, which will bring the total number to 22. Schools are also encouraged to develop their own niches of excellence so that they will have a distinctive character of their own. In addition, our curriculum and syllabuses have progressively become less prescriptive, to give more flexibility to how teaching and learning can take place.

17. By giving adequate freedom to schools and teachers to act in a climate of confidence, we hope to build a flexible and diverse system in which every school has its excellent niche and plays to its strengths, and where schools learn from each other and are free to innovate.

18. Autonomy however is only a threshold requirement for developing the innovative schools we need for tomorrow's world. Much will depend on our school leaders.

19. As you take on positions of responsibility, you will have to provide the necessary leadership for innovation. Innovative schools require strong and enlightened leadership as well as a strong middle layer of management.

20. Increases in the delegation of funding and responsibility to schools, and changes in the external environment have made schools more complex organisations to run. Principals also have to manage the difficult process of knowledge creation. The understanding of how to manage knowledge based organisations and knowledge workers is nascent. There are no clear road maps to follow. However, school leaders can best steer their schools towards the rewards of innovation, by keeping in mind three basic principles.

21. First, school principals and teachers will have to be calculated risk-takers to generate innovations, improved schools and better educational practices.

22. Second, school leaders have to seek out ways to foster creativity and risk taking. The challenge is that creativity cannot be mandated and it cannot be planned, directed or controlled. Different structures and management processes will be required. Strong regulatory regimes which limit risk, where performance management rewards the well behaved and punishes those who make mistakes will not lead to new ways and new creativity. The management framework must be enabling and supportive, where people can be creative, take risks and be rewarded. By providing such an environment where people can foster new ideas, we also work towards the responsibility of meeting the work and personal aspirations of our people.

23. This leads me to my third point. To ensure that innovation thrives within your schools, you will have to invest time and resources in your people. This includes ensuring greater communication of a vision for innovation to your staff, providing teachers with new skills and outlook that will empower, enable and foster creativity, and building a culture that supports mutual respect, interaction and sharing.

24. Innovation carries within it the potential of what is to come. Beyond this it expresses a will to change and the promise of a better world. Today an opportunity presents itself - Singapore can become a player in the new economy and be held up as an example of a small country transforming itself through innovative ideas, commitment and co-operation. To become a truly innovative country, government, schools and community must work together.

25. Schools are a vital part of the economic and social innovation infrastructure. We provide knowledge for jobs. We provide skills like teamwork, interpersonal communication skills and entrepreneurial skills. We provide confidence for personal growth. We give our students a love of learning and a repertoire of skills to enable them to continue learning.

26. We have a better chance of nurturing innovative schools than ever before. We have a promising generation of teachers, a far better understanding of what works in the class room, support from the wider community and a government that has delivered on its commitment to invest.

27. We also have school leaders like yourselves who understand the critical role of innovation in Education. I congratulate you once again upon your graduation from the LEP. As you take your places as future leaders of education in Singapore, work in creative new ways to lead your fellow educators in moulding the future of our nation.