21 May 2002

Ministry of Education
FY2002 Committee of Supply Debate
21 May 2002 12.30 p.m.
Speech by Minister on Schools

1. First, let me thank Members for contributing their views and suggestions to improve our education system. Allow me to start with a broad overview of the progress we have made, and where we are headed, in order to place this discussion on education within the larger context of what we are working to achieve.

2. Much has been done over the last five years. We have moved the school system forward in a number of critical areas, including major enhancements to the teaching service through EduPac, trimming the curriculum to allow more time to develop creativity and thinking skills, strengthening citizenship and values education, devolving more authority and responsibility to schools and school clusters, renewing our school buildings, and introducing IT into all our schools.

3. Mr Magad has just asked for an update on the IT Masterplan. The Ministry is completing its evaluation on the current Masterplan which is nearing completion - it has been 5-6 years. And will unveil its second IT Masterplan for the period 2003-2007 in a few months' time. So, I request Mr Magad to be just a little patient. When we wrap it all up, we will give him a full report.

4. Sir, we have made much progress, but the Ministry of Education is not resting on its laurels, and I am sure Members of this House would not allow the Ministry of Education to do so. Dr Wang has suggested that the Ministry should leave no stone unturned. Indeed, the previous improvements I have enumerated have merely been made within the existing structure of the education system. And going forward, our emphasis would be on structural issues. We will look at what structures in the education system may need to be changed. The major thrusts in the coming years would be, first, the review of the upper secondary and junior college sector; and second, the restructuring of the university sector.

5. We will consider a new JC curriculum, better integrated upper secondary and JC programmes, alternative qualifications, and private schools at the secondary and JC levels. We will also consider specialised schools in Science and Mathematics, and in the arts, like the sports school, which will cater to students with different aptitudes and interest, as Mr Low desires. At the tertiary level, the upgrading of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the La Salle-SIA College of the Arts, funded by the Ministry of Education, as well as the establishment of the Music Conservatory in NUS will provide more opportunities for those with the talent and interest in these areas. The polytechnics and ITE will continue to expand, and we will also provide more university places in the relevant fields, and also possibly allow private universities to be established.

6. Taken together, these initiatives will provide more opportunities and options to our students at the upper secondary and tertiary levels, building on a very strong foundation which we have today, providing a good solid basic education to our children in our primary and secondary schools.

7. Let me now address some of the specific issues that Members have raised. First, streaming.

8. First of all, I would like to thank Members for agreeing with the principle of streaming.

9. Streaming provides opportunities for educational advancement to all students according to their aptitudes and abilities. It is not that we have not tried a system without streaming before. That was a system I grew up in, and also many of the Members of this House. But that left many members of our society by the wayside, and that is why we have, today, such a large problem in the age group, 40-50, who have not completed their secondary education. Our streaming differentiates curriculum and the pace and method of learning, so that each student can proceed at his or her own pace and gain a sense of achievement and motivation to learn. Members have emphasised the need for the education system to maximise the potential of our students. This is precisely what streaming attempts to do. This is the strength our system has, and is a major reason for the high achievement levels of our students.

10. The alternative to streaming is mixed ability classes, where teaching has to be targeted at the average. In such classes, the more academically able will languish as they lose interest in the curriculum, while the less academically able students give up, as they cannot keep pace with the curriculum. This was what we found previously before streaming was introduced. There is a tendency for us to look back in history with rose tinted glasses. We should take an objective look and see whether we are doing better for the broad majority of our students today than we did in the past.

11. Mdm Halimah has asked how we address the issue of school dropouts. We do so by trying to make sure that as few of them do so as possible in the first place. Through streaming and giving those who need it a lighter curriculum or more time, we have reduced educational wastage and successfully raised the educational attainment of our students. In 1980, before streaming was introduced, only 58% of our Primary 1 cohort completed secondary school. By last year, the proportion had gone up to 93%. This is because we have been able to provide a differentiated curriculum for the students. Through streaming, we have, therefore, been able to sharply reduce dropout rates due to educational reasons. Students may still drop out for a variety of personal, family or social reasons. To address this, we work with the VWOs and MCDS.

12. Perhaps the best indicator of the success of streaming is how well it has served our less academically inclined students. Prior to the streaming system, and the articulation of the EM3, normal technical stream and ITE, we really had very few educational opportunities for students like these. They would drop out of school and enter the workforce with no specific skills.

13. In 1994, we introduced the Normal (Technical) course in secondary schools. These students did not use to go to secondary schools. They would go to primary school, spent a few extra years in primary schools as over-sized students, and then go on to VITB. Those pupils who will do better in a practical rather than academic setting, who previously went to VITB after Primary 6, now have a chance to shoot for secondary education, to develop the foundation for acquiring a higher level of skills at the post-secondary level. Simultaneously, we upgraded the VITB and restructured it to become a post-secondary institution, the ITE, to provide such students with further post-secondary opportunities for education. This has lifted the level of these students. With the expansion of places at junior colleges, polytechnics and ITEs, 8 out of 10 of our students now go on to post-secondary education compared to 1 out of 10 in those rosy days of 1965. This percentage is at least as high, if not higher than even those achieved by the most developed countries today.

14. Mdm Halimah asked how our less academically inclined students do after they leave school. They do very well. ITE graduates are sought after by employers who pay them very well. Even in the midst of the recession last year, 88% of ITE graduates found employment within three months of graduation. In comparison, there were university graduates who were still looking for jobs after half a year. In particular, the average monthly salary for fresh ITE graduates range from $1,100-$1,400 a month. This compares well with fresh polytechnic graduates, whose monthly salary ranges from $1,500-$1,900 a month.

15. Mr Singh, Mdm Halimah and others, said that streaming is done too early. Dr Ong asked if streaming could be done later to take into account late-developers. Sir, it is precisely because we have late-developers that we need streaming. Otherwise, what do we do with the late-developers? Whatever the reason for their poorer academic performance at that point in time, forcing them to learn at a pace that they cannot or are not ready to cope with will simply push them out of the system. Streaming allows them to continue to learn at a pace comfortable to them.

16. Even after students enter a particular stream, there is a well-structured progression route for them through to post-secondary education, and a net of "ladders and bridges", that allows students to go as far as they can, and even across streams. It is wrong to say that our education system provides no chance for late bloomers. It is our previous system, before streaming, that did not provide chances for late bloomers. That, as I said, is a major reason why so many of our 40 and 50-year olds today, people who went to school with you and me, have not completed secondary education. They had no opportunities and, after failing, staying back a few years, they left school, without any specific qualification or skill. In contrast, our system now provides students of all abilities, the opportunity to get a solid foundation of at least 10 years of primary and secondary education, with 8 out 10 of them, going beyond that, to further education.

17. Late-developers still have opportunities for self-improvement. Those who do well, and can benefit from going on with their education, can do so. Every year, about 1,000 ITE graduates go on to the polytechnics, and 1,000 polytechnic graduates go on to our universities. Without streaming, late-developers would have been nipped in the bud instead.

18. I had a discussion with polytechnic students at a Poly Seminar three years ago. One student stood up and lamented that the system did not provide second chances. It turned out that he was 29 years old, and in the Polytechnic. He was in the process of getting his second chance. Last year, the Lee Kuan Yew Award winner in the ITE was a not so young man, called Simon Foo, from the Navy, I am proud to add. He was the top graduate of ITE for the year, and has been offered a place to study in the polytechnic. He is now 27 years old and married. Without the Normal programme and the ITE, he might never have qualified to go to the polytechnic.

19. Sir, the oldest student doing a full-time diploma in our polytechnics is now 50 years old. The oldest doing a part-time diploma is 68 years old. The ITE is the biggest provider of continuing education programmes in Singapore, with 34,000 students enrolled, and another 20,000 on ITE accredited courses conducted by industry training partners. We should applaud the chances and opportunities that ITE is, in fact, giving to many of our students, to many of our mature Singaporeans, opportunities which they might not otherwise have got.

20. Finally, a word on streaming. It is important to note that for streaming in schools, at primary level, there is a parental option when students are streamed at the end of Primary 4. Parents have the final say. Parents can choose not to put their child in the EM3 stream at Primary 5, or if they feel that they are too stressed, they can choose not to put their children in EM1. But very few parents opt their children out of EM1 and many parents opt their children from EM2 to EM1.

21. Mr Singh suggested that we have a hybrid system where children are kept in the same class in primary school, and break up for specific subjects to cater for children of differing abilities. The idea is not a bad one. The issue is one of practicality - whether it will, in practice, achieve the objectives that Mr Singh has stated. In the primary schools, there are basically 4 subjects being taught, mother tongue being one of them, with the children already split up. This means that if we split up children for other subjects, they would be breaking out of their classes, perhaps 75-100% of their time. This would have implications on resources, time-tabling, etc., and, of course, it will mean that the children do not get to spend most of their time together and just split up for some lessons, which is what Mr Singh's objective was. However, if schools wish to pilot or try this out, I have no objection to them trying.

22. Mr Singh also said that students of different abilities should interact with each other, and I agree that this is important. Students have opportunities to build bonds and friendships outside their classrooms. For instance, CCAs provide avenues for students from different backgrounds to engage in the same activities. The drum-major in the band, the basket ball captain, or the star in the football team may not come from the fastest stream in the school. And they learn to work together and appreciate each other's strength and weaknesses. It does not have to be, as Members of the House say, only in academic activities. And, in the process, they get to know each other better and learn to support each other in common endeavours. I should add that it is because we have streaming that we pick students from three different queues to enter the same schools, that we have good mixing in our secondary schools. If we did not have streaming, and students were posted to schools based on one linear list, based on their PSLE t-scores, then all the academically weakest students would probably be grouped in say, 20 or so schools, rather than distributed among more than 120 secondary schools with students from other streams.

23. Dr Khor mentioned that streaming is unpopular among teachers. I have frank discussions with teachers and principals regularly, several times a month, either during school visits or in dialogue sessions at the Ministry of Education headquarters, in groups of a dozen or so teachers. Teachers generally recognise children learn at different paces, and that it is not helpful for children to be give a curriculum that they cannot cope with. They are supportive of a stream, like the EM3, that caters for slower learners. Contrary to what Mr Singh says, they also do not dread taking on EM3 classes. Some of our most highly motivated teachers derive great satisfaction, and a sense of mission, from teaching less able kids. I think Dr Wang may well have interviewed some of them for the Outstanding Teacher and President's Teacher Awards. But they, like my colleagues in this House, do feel for these kids, and wonder how best to help the kids cope with the issues of labelling and stigmatisation, and to help them build up their self-esteem.

24. These concerns have been expressed by Dr Khor and Mr Singh. Such labelling is really a social phenomenon. From a purely educational standpoint, I think Members in this House would agree, that streaming is the correct approach, as it tries to maximise the potential of all students by providing them with programmes as well suited to the students as possible, so that as many of them as possible can be successful in their own right. I am not sure really which is more damaging to self-esteem - to consistently fail because the curriculum and pace is so fast, or to perform comfortably well, achieve success in small bites every year, make steady progress in a less demanding stream, and eventually attain a qualification that employers attach value to.

25. The Ministry has consistently sought to lift the level of all our students. Members, like Dr Ong and Mr Singh, have suggested that there should be additional support for weaker students, and this is being done. At the primary school level, the Ministry has a Learning Support Programme (LSP) and the Encouraging Achievement and Better Learning (ENABLE) programme to give additional support to pupils who are weak in literacy or numeracy skills. At the secondary level, the Normal (Technical) students were among the first to have access to computers in their schools, before students from any other streams, when computer laboratories were specially set up for the teaching of Normal (Technical) subject Computer Applications. At the post-secondary level, the Ministry has devoted great efforts to upgrade technical education. Sir, this is a segment of our education system that I am particularly proud of. Some Members of this House were able to accept my invitation to visit the ITE, after the debate on the President's Address, and I would like to extend an open invitation to other Members of this House, to see ITE for themselves, and how well the students are doing. Come and have a look.

26. Sir, I have visited many countries in the past five years, basically to study their education systems, to see how we can adapt the good things that they have done, to our system. They all have to deal with the issue of how to cater to the different educational needs of the whole spectrum of students.

27. The Singapore education system does this better than most. And what is the evidence? In the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (1999), 93% and 80% of our secondary 2 students were above the international average for Mathematics and Science, respectively, for students of that age group. Sir, I am not surprised that the US needs to come up with new initiatives like the one that Mr Inderjit Singh pointed out, because a large proportion of their students fall well behind.

28. The advantage of a good solid foundation carried through into post-secondary education, which benefits 8 out of 10 of our children, provides them further opportunities in life. And it places a vast majority of our students on the correct side of the knowledge divide that divides this world into the knowledge haves and the knowledge have-nots. And our education system has been able to provide a vast majority of Singaporeans with that leg up for the future, in engineering, bio-sciences and information technology, not just in the universities, but in the polytechnics and in the ITEs.

29. Sir, ultimately, it is better to recognise that different students have different needs, and to explicitly provide different streams and educational opportunities for them, than to work on the premise, the hope, that they are all the same and fail to provide for their different needs, or provide for them in an ad hoc way, and then lament later when they do not make it.

30. Parents and schools need to work together so that educational features like streaming and other forms of additional support that are meant to help pupils, do not become a cause of stigmatisation. Ironically, people who oppose streaming are often the same ones who perpetuate the labelling of our students - I do not call them failures, and I am not so sure why so many Members do - by viewing the provision of a more moderately paced curriculum and a sound technical education for students is something desirable, and we can encourage them to achieve their potential. This attitude of labelling and calling them names is something which we should change, and not streaming. I welcome suggestions from Members on how we can encourage these students, and discourage labelling.

31. Dr Wang suggested that we should also review school ranking. The introduction of school ranking has had a salutary effect on our schools. It has raised standards and allowed parents to make more informed choices, especially as to which are value-added schools. We only rank the top 50 secondary schools, and not all the secondary schools, nor do we rank the primary schools.

32. Sir, school ranking is increasingly being adopted in the United Stakes and in the UK, where often all the schools are ranked from top to bottom. And it is often in response to demands from parents to know how well schools are educating their children, because parents want to know. I have no doubt that if we did not have school ranking and did not provide information on how schools are doing, there will be parents who will ask us, and I think it is their right to know. There is nothing to hide.

33. In the US and the UK, teachers do not like ranking - Dr Wang is quite right - because the teachers are now held accountable to standards when, previously, they were not. But should we hold our schools and teachers accountable for standards? I think the answer is yes. Sir, I am open to ideas on how ranking can be improved, and suggestions from Members of the House are welcome.

34. Two years ago, I informed Members of this House that we introduced a new appraisal system called the School Excellence Model, where schools do self-evaluation on not just their outputs but also their internal processes. I have given out awards for Best Practice and Sustained Achievements since 1999, to recognise schools for a wide range of areas, from CCA to staff development. However, these awards have not attracted nearly as much attention from the public and the media as school ranking. But I do hope that, over time, the public will learn to recognise that a good school is more than just an absolute ranking, and consists of a whole host of other things.

35. Mr Yeo has suggested that our system is too stressful and puts too much pressure on students. It is true that our students study hard in school, and that our schools seek to ensure that students do their best. However, the strong foundation that our Singapore children have acquired from the hard work that they put in, and the strong work ethic, are important qualities that will help them to succeed in life.

36. Incidentally, Members who feel that our children are over loaded should be strong advocates of streaming, as it addresses precisely their concern by differentiating the pacing and content of curriculum according to ability. Mdm Halimah and others have said that children are more concerned about their examinations than they are about their parents dying. Frankly, Sir, I think we are fortunate to live in a country where children are focused on their studies and examinations, and not on their parents dying. I have no doubt that if we live in a war-torn country or a country which is rife with terrorism and so on, then children will be worried about their parents dying everyday, rather than their schools and examinations. I would not like to live in a country like that.

37. The problem of excessive pressure arises when there is a mismatch between expectations and achievement. Schools, parents and society need to understand that while we want the best for our children, we should not push them beyond their limits. One example is streaming at primary 4. There is really no point overloading children with higher mother tongue in EM1 if they are unable to cope. Yet, many parents opt in to EM1 stream for their children, and few opt out from it.

38. The movie, I Not Stupid, reflected quite starkly how some Singaporeans have chosen parochial definitions of success and imposed them on their children. Mr Yeo mentioned a serious moment in the movie where one of the characters wanted to commit suicide. Sir, I happen to think that this is an excellent movie. It provides a mirror for our society and for each of us, and allows each of us to see how we might actually be behaving and how this behaviour may even, with the best of intentions, have a negative effect on our children and on others. It is a useful movie for principals, parents and teachers to watch. I should point out, though, that in the movie, the student wanted to commit suicide, not because he could not cope with his school work, but because he could not live up to his mother's unrealistic expectations that he attain more than 90 marks in his test. We need a broader definition of success. Being all that we can be should be counted as success.

39. When Mr Singh said that the Ministry should set performance targets on the number of lateral transfers from what he calls a lower stream to a higher stream, he is, in fact, narrowing the definition of what it means to be successful, to whether a student is able to move from EM3 to EM2. The Ministry does not have targets for lateral transfers, because setting such targets means that we will be forcing students to learn at a pace that they cannot cope with. This is not the best thing for them. This may result in pushing them out of the system. It is more meaningful to provide an appropriate programme with adequate and proper support to weaker students to maximise their potential and provide them with avenues of progression. EM3 students can progress through the system. Nobody has given up on them, and this has been our approach.

40. On counselling, the Ministry has a programme for addressing the social and emotional needs of students. Counselling is available through the entire age range of students. All teachers are given basic training in counselling, and there are teacher counsellors of which there are two in each school, but they are part time. We also have trained some 30 retired education officers as counsellors. And by July this year, they will be deployed to schools and to clusters. But this is an area in which I will be the first to agree that we can do with more assistance. Schools work with VWOs, Family Service Centres and self-help groups. Incidentally, that is one of the reasons why since 1997-1998, the Ministry of Education, together with the Ministry of Health, has been promoting the support services such as those provided by the Institute of Mental Health, resulting in an increase in attendances.

41. While schools provide support for the pupils, the support from home is of paramount importance in helping students to cope with stress, and when they face distress. Mr Gan suggested that there might also be a need to counsel parents. Yes, that is so, and where there is a need for parents to be counselled, I suggest that they be referred to Family Service Centres for the necessary support. The Ministry and our schools will be happy to work with other agencies and organisations on this issue, as it is an issue which the Ministry itself is not particularly well equipped to undertake.

42. Sir, education seeks to provide Singaporeans with the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Because the potential of our students is multi-faceted, our education system has to provide opportunities to different programmes and different types of institutions. The way forward is to provide greater diversity in the school system and allowing for more educational routes and models, not just to consider one route or one model as the success paradigm, as many in this House seem to have the orientation towards. Such an approach will allow us to more fully develop the different abilities of our students.

43. As mentioned earlier, the Ministry is currently carrying out a review of junior college and upper secondary education, and I will ask the Senior Minister of State, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, to update Members on that.