SPEECH BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, ACTING MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AT THE SENIOR EDUCATION OFFICER PROMOTION CEREMONY 2004 ON SATURDAY, 10 APRIL 2004 AT 10:00 A.M. AT THE GRAND COPTHORNE WATERFRONT HOTEL

Leading Schools in a Broad-Based Education

Good morning Colleagues, Ladies & Gentlemen

1. First of all, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the 2442 MOE officers promoted on 1st April 2004.  Amongst you, 455 officers have been promoted into and within the Senior Education Officer grades and 1987 officers promoted within the General Education Officer grades.  62 Executive & Administrative Staff have also been promoted.  Another 1088 Education Officers will be promoted later in the year on 1 Oct, assuming their continuing good performance.

2. I am also glad to announce that we will appoint another 2 Master Teachers this year, bringing the total number of Master Teachers to 8.  The 2 Master Teachers appointed this year are teaching experts in the subject areas of Malay Language and English Language & Literature.  In addition, 80 teachers have been promoted to Senior Teachers this year.  With this year's promotions, we now have a total of 617 Senior Teachers.  I am confident that our Master Teachers and Senior Teachers will play an important role in helping drive innovations in teaching methods within their schools and clusters.

Broadening the Educational Experience

3. Innovations in teaching are part of the broader changes that we are taking in the education system.  We have taken a thorough look at our policies, structures and systems, and made selective changes to gear ourselves for the challenges ahead.  Basically, we have been able to make these changes because we are confident in the fundamentals of our system, and want to ensure that our advantages in education are sustained in the world that lies ahead of us.  We are acutely aware of the challenges we face in a globalised world, and the qualities and attributes that we must nurture in our children.

4. But the changes that we are making are not initiatives that were suddenly pulled out of our hat.  Some are ideas that we have been mulling over for a few years.  Under our Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN) vision, we have been looking into four broad areas  -  the school environment, curriculum and assessment, training and development and the structure of the education system.  We have made good progress in all these areas in recent years.  We have engaged in physical renewal of schools through PRIME, infused thinking skills into the curriculum and assessments, revamped pre-service and leadership training, and introduced a broader mix of educational pathways for students.  In addition, the organisational capacity of the Ministry itself has been built up over the last few years.

5.  The improvements we are now making take forward an already strong and rigorous Education system.  They aim to encourage teachers and students to broaden the school experience, pursue different and customized approaches to learning, and develop the sensibilities and skills that our young will require in future.  Thus, we have refined our Mother Tongue Policy to open the doors to students who wish to learn the subject at different levels or advance at different speeds.  With the enhanced scope for students to take Higher Mother Tongue, we have also changed the way Primary School Streaming is done, and removed the distinction between EM1 and EM2.  We are providing secondary schools and JCs with greater room to select pupils with abilities and talents that are not captured in their examination scores, and have accepted the recommendations of the University Admissions Committee to do likewise for NUS and NTU.  And to reinforce our schools’ desire to provide a holistic education to their students, we are broadening the school ranking system, and moving from ranking to banding of schools.  This move will also give schools more room to innovate, to try out new teaching approaches and develop new skills, without feeling too constrained by their rankings.

6.  These improvements are ultimately aimed at giving our young a more varied range of learning experiences, and providing them greater choice.  They are being matched by a continuing devolution of responsibility and decision-making to school leaders, the empowerment of teachers within the school, and enhanced professional development opportunities.  They will help us to instill the spirit of Innovation and Enterprise, or I&E as it is now more familiarly called.

7. I&E is not of course a new idea in Education.  At its heart is the need to nurture the traits which will hold our students well when they go out into the working world  -   an inquiring and questioning mind, a willingness of take initiative and try a new way, and strength of character.  They are part of our Desired Outcomes of Education.  Many of our schools have been ploughing the ground for some time and nurturing new shrubs, sometimes with strikingly different flowers.

8. Examples of innovative activities abound.  In Jiemin Primary, a teacher led 20 pupils to build a working prototype motorised wheel chair for Mr Stephen Yeo, a disabled person, at a cost of only $195.  (They were in the EM3 course.)  North View Primary School has instituted a Waste Management programme where pupils  turn garden waste and vegetable scraps into useful garden fertiliser.  They learnt about the importance of conservation, and also had the opportunity to work with school canteen vendors.

9. There are numerous other interesting and novel experiments sprouting and shooting up in our schools.  It is the new flora and fauna of education, that we will encourage and admire, and be inspired by in coming years.

Supporting Innovation in Schools

10. We will continue to review our policies and programmes to ensure that our schools are supported in their efforts to innovate and to deliver a holistic education to our students.  We recognise that schools need support, to create the time and space for teachers to innovate, to reflect, and help each other as they embark on new approaches.  The Ministry will provide schools this support where feasible, whether it be in the form of more teachers, additional financial resources, or special guidance.  It helps that we have seen continuing strong interest in joining the teaching profession.  We have indeed seen a significant increase (20-30%) in the number of applicants for the profession in our current recruitment cycle.

11. The Ministry will continue to review and enhance its schemes to support Education officers in their efforts to continue learning and developing during their careers.  Already, we have enhanced the Professional Development Leave scheme to provide our officers with greater freedom to choose the types of professional development that meet their needs and career aspirations.  This need not always be in the form of formal courses, and could include more informal training like attachments to schools abroad, to workplaces outside the school, or action research.  These learning experiences will help to broaden perspectives and diversify the Education Service, and can only benefit our students.

A Positive School Climate

12. While the structures, policies and curriculum provide the framework for a sound, forward-looking education system, it is visionary and innovative school leaders, and talented and dedicated teachers that really make the difference.  It is the quality of our people on the ground that gives parents, students and the community at large confidence that the system does not just look good, but delivers good.

13. Senior education officers and school leaders, people like yourselves, nurture the teachers under you and create the school culture and environment.  Your responsibilities are great.  Let me highlight three issues in school leadership that deserve continuing attention as we move towards a broader based education system.

14. First, creating a school climate that values every teacher and encourages each of them to take initiative and try out new techniques of teaching.  The school climate is extremely important in motivating our teachers, and giving them a real and tangible sense of the part they play in moulding the future of the country.  If we are to succeed at all in I&E, school leaders will have to place great importance on keeping the school climate positive, and teachers satisfied with their jobs.  Take the time to coach them and point them in the direction of new possibilities.  Stretch them with challenging tasks and give them opportunities to develop as professionals.  Help them to balance their professional and personal or home commitments.  Making them know that their leaders care for them as individuals will go a long way towards motivating teachers to work as a cohesive, committed and enduring team.

Balancing Priorities in a Broad-Based Education

15.  Second, school leadership requires a thoughtful balancing of priorities.  There will be many new ideas and plans that you will want to implement, especially when each of  these is beneficial your pupils.  And in an environment where new ideas are always encouraged, there will be no shortage of ideas and suggestions from within the school, from the community and even from the Ministry.  But it will not be possible, and indeed not desirable either, to try and run with all these ideas and suggestions at the same time.

16. As leaders, it is important for you to know your students' and teachers' needs and strive for realistic goals, given the constraints of time and resources.  This will mean prioritising and making trade-offs.  Some things will have to be done first, while others will have to be done later, or reevaluated later to see if they are still of benefit to the school.  A school leader will therefore have to form a consensus with his or her teachers on the areas to focus on, areas that will give play to the strengths of your students, while giving all them a broad and holistic education.

17. No school can achieve it all, just as no student will be a scholar, decathlete, artist, dancer and leader rolled into one.  We will have to bear this in mind as we strive to position our schools to provide for a more flexible and broad-based education.  A broad-based education does not mean doing everything at once.  And attempting to do everything will often be at cost of the depth in learning experiences.  A sensible balance of activities is therefore necessary, to ensure that we deliver real value in the school, do not overstrain our teachers, and do not have shallow outcomes amongst students.

An Integrated, Whole School Approach to Innovation

18.  Third, it pays to take a whole-school approach to innovation, and to integrate various initiatives, so that the sum of what we achieve is greater than the parts.  The whole-school approach is evident in many of our schools.  It happens where both school leaders and teachers take a step back, prioritise, and collaborate and synergise their efforts to develop the skills and attitudes that they want to see in their students.

19. There are again numerous examples, each impressive in its own way.  Let me recount the case of Bukit View Primary, which I visited recently, and which illustrates how an innovative spirit is running through the school system, not just amongst schools that are near the top of the academic ladder.  Like many of our schools, two thirds of its pupils’ parents have a secondary school education or less.  It has taken a whole school approach in its efforts to make Bukit View Primary an achieving school, where pupils are self-disciplined and self-motivated, and imbued with a spirit of innovation and enterprise.  Every pupil from P3 is required to enrol for a CCA.  All P4 pupils go through a 10-week swimming programme.  The school focuses on dances and the band as its niche areas, and last year won two Golds, a Silver and a Bronze in the Singapore Youth Festival, and was Overall Champion in the National Chinese Song and Dance competition.  Its teachers have devised interesting ways of enthusing students in their learning, and integrating learning objectives  - such as by learning English in P1 through Puppet plays; inculcating values like discipline through song and rap; and engaging in physical education through music and dance.  Its PSLE results have improved, scoring above the national average in a number of subjects last year.  It has forged a close relationship with parents, who help out regularly during the week in reading programmes and  other school activities, and help supervise the students on diet and table manners during recess.  And it participates actively in activities organised in the community around the school, so as to give its students greater exposure and pride in what they are doing, and to strengthen links to the community.  Most importantly, its teachers are a committed and imaginative lot, under a strong school leadership.  They have gelled together, and collaborate with one another and share ideas frequently  - sometimes even by doing skits for each other to bring out the lessons in the books they have read.

20. I cite the case of Bukit View in some detail not because it is unique, but because it represents the inspiring way in which many of our schools are thinking afresh, broadening the educational experience in a thoughtful way, focusing on priorities, and delivering value to their students.

Conclusion

21. At the end of the day, nurturing a spirit of I&E and delivering a holistic education will require us to inculcate new attitudes in both our students and teachers, and giving them space to do things differently.  Changing the way we teach and interact with students will remain key to the whole endeavour.  As leaders and senior professionals, you play a critical role in guiding your teachers into a cohesive and enterprising team.  I have every confidence in your ability to do so.

22. Let me finally, once again, congratulate all those amongst you who were promoted this year.  Keep up the good work.

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