29 September 2001

SPEECH BY RADM (NS) TEO CHEE HEAN, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND SECOND MINISTER FOR DEFENCE, AT MOE EXCEL DAY 2001, HELD ON SATURDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 2001, 9.00 AM, AT TOWNSVILLE PRIMARY SCHOOL, 3 ANG MO KIO AVE 10

1. I am delighted to be here this morning to officiate at the MOE ExCEL Day 2001.

2. I would first like to extend my heartiest congratulations to the officers who will be receiving the 96 ExCEL related awards today. These awards are in recognition of their innovative efforts and for striving for continuous improvement. Their excellent efforts in contributing towards our vision of "Thinking Schools, Learning Nation", is indeed a cause for celebration.

3. I still recall the first WITs Carnival, at which I officiated two years ago. The focus then was on WITs and the objectives were to develop MOE officers to be active team players and to be involved in problem solving. I am proud to say that we have done well in this aspect. MOE fielded 149 teams at this year's National Quality Circle Conventions and received 12 gold, 64 silver and 73 bronze medals. We should maintain the high standard and continue to encourage and support one another in using WITs to help solve problems.

4. This year, the MOE WITs Day has been renamed MOE ExCEL Day. This is to highlight the point that WITs is part of a broader PS21 ExCEL framework, which aims to develop a holistic approach towards organisational excellence in the public sector. In celebrating our successes in WITs and ESSS, it is good to revisit and reflect on the broader objectives of the ExCEL movement, which are to promote teamwork, continuous learning and improvement, openness, adaptability and innovation.

5. This year's ExCEL Day theme, "In Celebration of Innovation" highlights our desire to increase our capacity for innovation, creativity and experimentation. This is in line with PM Goh's recent Teachers' Day Rally speech, where he called on MOE HQ and all teachers to be innovative if we want to "shape lives and mould the nation".

6. Our "destination" of Thinking Schools, Learning Nation is a moving target because the global environment and our society are changing rapidly. It is no longer enough to rely on our traditional strengths of efficiency and incremental improvement in existing processes, products and policies. Though still important, these are no longer enough to provide us with a sustained advantage in competitiveness. In today's globalised economy that permits rapid spread of information and technology at low cost, efficiency is only an entry-level requirement. There is also a limit to how much existing processes can be improved before the law of diminishing returns sets in. Innovation is therefore needed to give our Ministry and schools that "extra edge" or capacity to be able to constantly meet the changing needs of our children in a fast-moving world.

7. Our education system, with its unique characteristics, has evolved beyond the stage where we can simply move forward through benchmarking and adapting what others have developed in their education systems and implementing it. We need to be innovative; to be able to "think out of the box" and be on the look out for new ideas of our own and new ways of doing things. Only then, can we achieve success in making that unique shift towards Ability Driven Education.

8. Innovation can occur everyday in our lives. It could begin simply by questioning the "why" and "how"s when we do the things we do. Some people think that innovation is about introducing a completely new product you can sell like Microsoft Word or a new technology. Innovation is more than that. It also means new ways of doing things and new techniques to achieve the same goals. As MOE officers and teachers, you can innovate in terms of the policy, process or service that you come up with, that will add value and lead to an improvement in the delivery of education to our pupils.

9. Innovation is not just about having good ideas. You have many good ideas, as can be seen by the high number of staff suggestions we receive. But it should not stop there. The challenge is in seeing through the implementation of those good ideas. Ultimately, innovation is about coming up with good ideas or creative solutions, and seeing through their implementation to harvest value for the organisation.

10. Fortunately for MOE, we are by no means embarking on innovation starting from scratch. Innovation is something we can naturally graft onto our existing ExCEL movement. The core elements of ExCEL, such as our Staff Suggestions Scheme and WITs, provide us with an existing platform from which to promote and sustain innovation. Today, we can see the innovation element in some of our top WITs projects.

11. Take for example, Haig Girls' School's WITs project, which led to the organisation of a biennial month-long Festival of Arts to encourage pupil participation in the Arts and transform the school into an Arts Hub. During this festival, external professional performing arts groups were invited to stage assembly performances, arts-related educational trips were organised for pupils and upper primary pupils were given an opportunity to express their creativity by busking during their recess period. This project was one of the 12 MOE WITs projects awarded the gold medal at this year's National Quality Circle Convention. We must strive to come up with more of such good WITs projects, which involve officers coming up with fresh ideas or solutions, and seeing through their implementation to harvest value for education.

12. The role of the teacher is crucial in our efforts to develop an innovative and creative mindset in our young.

13. In the last few years, MOE has implemented many approaches in the education system to develop an innovative mindset in our young. For example, the curriculum has been streamlined to encourage creative and critical thinking, and problem solving. We have introduced inter-disciplinary project work in all schools from last year to help pupils appreciate the inter-connectedness of disciplines, acquire problem-solving skills and learn to work in teams. We have also reviewed our assessment system to encourage pupils to exercise their thinking skills and innovative spirit and come up with different solutions for the same problem.

14. The point I want to make is that without innovative teachers, these approaches will be in vain. As teachers, you hold the important responsibility of encouraging your pupils to be more innovative. The pupils see you as role-models in the way you approach idea-generation and problem solving in the classroom. For example, if you accept only one fixed answer to problems and do not encourage pupils to "think out of the box" and generate new ideas or new perspectives to a problem, your pupils are unlikely to develop a creative and innovative mindset.

15. As teachers, you must question accepted techniques, and see if there is a better way of achieving your objectives. Ask yourself if what you are teaching now could be done more effectively to help pupils learn better. For example, PM Goh in the Teachers' Day Rally speech mentioned the challenge of coming up with a better method of teaching Chinese to pupils who come from an English-speaking background.

16. As teachers you could also exercise initiative in customising the curriculum and method of instruction to fit the unique profile and learning styles of your pupils, so long as you work towards MOE's broad policy goals. If you have sound reasons why a particular instruction by the Ministry is not appropriate for your pupils or school, you should take the initiative to voice your concerns. This way, both MOE HQ and schools will work hand in hand to continuously improve the quality of teaching.

17. In November last year, MOE launched the "i-DEAL package" comprising initiatives like the MOE Innovation Fund and Innergy Awards, to kick off the start of a highly innovative culture in MOE. In addition, there is the School Innovation Fund, which provides funding for innovative projects in schools.

18. Both the MOE and School Innovation Funds have been set up to encourage innovative ideas, to fund experiments and to learn by doing. I would like to encourage all schools and HQ divisions to make use of these Funds to embark on innovative projects. I hope that you will not view Innovation as a one-off project, to be taken up only if there is time. My challenge to you is to make innovation a part of your every day work, such that it becomes a way of life.

19. The first batch of 5 gold and 8 silver Innergy Award winners who will receive their awards today, are examples of schools that have taken up the challenge. In Chongfu Primary, space constraints due to PRIME have led the school to devise a competition for teachers and pupils to design Mathematics Floor Games, which integrated the learning of Maths with fun physical activities. In Jin Tai Secondary, a solar-powered aquaponics and automated sprinkler system was developed. This has reaped savings in electrical energy, water and manual labour. These are just some of the many examples of innovation in our schools. I hope that schools within each cluster and across clusters, will continue to share best practices, bounce off ideas and excel in the innovative spirit.

20. I understand from the organising committee that today's activities are aimed at inspiring you to embrace the innovation agenda wholeheartedly. For example, later this morning, we will witness the innovative spirit of the 41 classroom decoration teams from HQ and schools. These teams have been tasked to be innovative in creating an inviting classroom environment, which would signal to pupils that learning is fun. We can only imagine the smiles of delight on the faces of Townsville pupils when they enter their newly decorated classrooms next week. That, I believe would be the true reward for the officers participating in the classroom decoration competition.

21. In addition, the pupils and teachers of 65 schools from the various clusters have come together to set up interactive art and craft stalls at the art and crafts carnival. They will display the spirit of innovation in a creative way as they explain how they have come up with their unique interpretations of art. I hope that all of you will have an enjoyable time participating in these fun-filled activities. Do, however, take some time to reflect on some of the positive learning experiences that you will glean from these activities.

22. I invite all of you to join me in looking forward to the day when we can declare confidently that "Innovation is a way of life for all of us in MOE HQ and schools". If we can imagine it, we can do it.