FY 2006 Committee of Supply Debate - 1st Reply by Minister on Educational Policy & Recommendations of the Polytechnics-School Review Committee

FY 2006 Committee of Supply Debate
1st Reply by Minister on Educational Policy and Recommendations of the Polytechnics-School Review Committee

1. Let me thank Dr Amy Khor, Mr Ang Mong Seng, Dr Loo Choon Yong, Dr Tan Cheng Bock and Professor Ong Soh Kim for their comments and questions. Dr Khor has asked how we can offer more choices to our students today – more choices of subjects and pathways that they can take. I will focus on this in my first reply. Several other MPs who spoke during the Budget debate also asked how we can better engage students who are less academically inclined, and how we can reduce the number of students who drop-out from schools. I will address these latter questions later – what we can do to strengthen the non-academic or vocational pathway, and to reduce drop-out rates.

2. My colleagues and I will take up some of the specific questions posed by Mr Ang Mong Seng, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, Dr Loo Choon Yong, and Prof Ong Soh Kim in our subsequent replies.

3. First let me address the issue of expanding choices. It is an important direction we are taking in education. Step by step, we are introducing more choice, and more diversity. New types of schools, and niches of excellence in all our schools, that differentiate one school from another. This diversity and differentiation of schools is essentially our strategy for developing talent – it is how we are developing not just top talents, not just the best academic talents, but every talent. It is developing every Singaporean talent, discovering unique strengths and abilities in all our students and taking them as far as possible.

4. But let me emphasise that the diversity we are bringing into our schools builds on common foundations – the national system that gives our school system its strengths. Our success in education will in fact continue to rely on these strong, common foundations – a rigorous national curriculum and system of meritocratic progression, well trained teachers in all our schools who have many opportunities to grow and take on responsibilities across the school system, and school leaders who are systematically developed, moved around the system from time to time, and held to high standards. All our schools provide facilities that are of a very high standard by any international comparison, and allow for richness of experience that is virtually unmatched . And our schools also provide the common educational experience for our young, that was totally lacking 40 years ago – the common education that brings each new generation of Singaporeans together and gives them a shared identity as Singaporeans.

5. We will keep strengthening these common foundations and experiences, give Singapore students a high quality education in every school, and keep levelling up. It is what differentiates Singapore from others. We avoid the huge variance in standards that we see in many other developed countries, particularly those which lack robust national curricula. In the US, for example, the best schools in America are exceptionally good – possibly the best in the world. But a large proportion of their public high schools are in bad shape. According to the US Department of Education, less than half of all US high school graduates have the mathematics and science proficiencies that they need to progress beyond high school. Reading scores for 17 year-olds have remained flat since the early 1970s, more than 30 years. So, the Bush administration is putting in place major reforms – introducing clear and rigorous set of standards for what every child should know and be able to do, and testing students against these standards annually in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once again in high school.

6. It is like what I heard Khaw Boon Wan saying this afternoon when he referred to the Canadian and US systems of healthcare – exceptional quality in a few areas, but impoverishment of standards elsewhere.

7. So we have to keep a sense of balance as we go forward. We are shifting the balance in education towards diversity. We are encouraging and entrenching diversity in schools, so that we can develop our individual talents to the fullest, and develop talents in every area. I heard Dr Loo’s concern about our wanting to develop talents. We should not be embarrassed about this. It is a strategy to identify all talents and take them as far as we can, to take Singapore forward. It is not an elitist strategy but a national strategy to take us forward.

8. But we also have to ensure that we retain and improve the common foundations that we have built up over the years, that gives all Singaporeans, whichever school they go to, a high quality education and a solid preparation for further education in our ITE, polytechnics and universities. We will keep the rigour of curriculum that holds up our school system and makes Singapore education different from others.

9. This sense of balance is at play in our latest moves to introduce more choice in the secondary school curriculum. As Dr Amy Khor has raised, we will introduce a richer range of options for applied learning in secondary schools.

10. We are not shifting from the core curriculum that all schools provide. We continue to believe that students should undergo a 10-year comprehensive and broad-based education. A secondary school education should not be overly specialised, and should provide a good foundation in the fundamentals that prepare students for further studies at the JCs, polytechnics and ITE. This is why all secondary school students are required to take a core of subjects including English Language, Mother Tongue Language, Mathematics, one Science subject, and one Humanities subject. Social Studies is also taken by all secondary students, to give them an appreciation of Singapore’s unique circumstances as a city-state.

11. There is a lot of sense in keeping this core curriculum for secondary schools. But we will provide for more free play around the core curriculum to encourage students to find and develop a range of talents.

12. The way we are rolling out choice and diversity in the system is by allowing some schools to develop curriculum niches of their own. They will provide different subject choices or new modules, besides the core curriculum that they share with all schools.

13. This is the most practical way to offer choice, rather than require all or most schools to offer new subject options. This way too, schools take ownership. They want to differentiate themselves, and they are most likely to deliver quality. It is ground-up initiative owned by the schools, with MOE providing top-down support.

14. Some of the choice and diversity we have introduced is highly visible. Like the introduction of the Integrated Programme (IP) in 11 schools at the secondary level, specialised schools like the Sports School, NUS High School for Maths and Science and the coming Arts School.

15. But there is also a lot that’s bubbling in the mainstream. From primary schools to JCs, schools are developing niches of excellence in a whole range of areas. New subjects, new ways of teaching students and many centres of excellence in the sports and arts. And we are giving schools more discretion to select students on their own criteria, and recognise a wider range of Singaporean talents.

16. Take primary schools. MOE has given 24 primary schools awards over the last two years (under the Programme for School-Based Excellence) to develop quality programmes in niches of their own. Like Telok Kurau Primary School which is using team-based project work from Primary One upwards, to help young children develop communication and social skills, deepen interactions between students of different races, and learn about Singapore through their projects. Or Maha Bodhi School, which puts every child through a comprehensive aesthetics programme from Primary One, exposing them to a range of music, dance, drama and art, and all our ethnic cultures.

17. Nineteen secondary schools are offering three new ‘O’ level subjects from this year – Drama, Computer Studies and Economics. It is part of the differentiation in the mainstream secondary school curriculum that we have been developing over the years. If a student wants to start dabbling seriously in computing before he leaves school, there will be a few schools offering computing as an O level subject as a niche of their own.. Just like if he is good with his Malay Language and wants to go further in the culture, he can try to get into one of the schools with EMAS (Elective Programme in Malay Language for Secondary Schools).

18. The Normal course is also seeing innovation. 58 secondary schools have introduced a total of 135 Elective Modules (EMs) for Normal course students, to give them exposure to practical, hands-on learning.

19. JC students are taking our new ‘A’ level curriculum from this year, which is broader and more flexible, and will allow those with the talent and interest in particular areas to pursue them in greater depth. The JCs are offering students more choice, and students are doing subjects that interest them. In fact, the JCs have more than doubled the number of subject combinations they are offering this year compared to last year.

20. In addition, some JCs are developing more advanced electives (what we call H3 programmes) in collaboration with our universities. For example, VJC and NJC have tied up with NUS and A*STAR to offer science research programmes. Students from these colleges will carry out individual science research projects in their JCs or at A*STAR research institutes, with NUS serving as the examining authority.

21. We are now taking another step to enrich our secondary school curriculum, by expanding the range of options for students to engage in applied or practice-oriented learning . There is growing interest in applied learning amongst our students. If you take Design and Technology as an example , more than 5,000 students took the subject as one of their ‘O’ level subjects, up from 4,000 two years ago.

22. MOS Gan Kim Yong chaired the Polytechnic-School Review Committee that we set up in October last year. His committee consulted a wide cross-section of people, including students, teachers, principals, and parents, through group discussions and getting feedback through online channels. It has made a set of significant recommendations aimed at introducing more diverse applied offerings in secondary schools. The Government has accepted the recommendations in the Committee’s report, which we have circulated to Members.

23. Several schools are working with the polytechnics to develop new applied modules and subjects in areas such as electronic product design and computer animation. We will also introduce a Direct Polytechnic Admission exercise, similar to the recently introduced Direct Admission exercise for secondary schools and JCs, which will allow a certain number of students to be offered places before their ‘O’ levels, based on a range of talents. We will start with a small number of students at first, and then expand this later as we gain experience.

24. I will leave MOS Gan Kim Yong to spell out the Committee’s recommendations more fully and address specific queries.

25. Let me just highlight a few broader implications of these school-based, applied learning experiences that we are introducing.

26. First, I want to emphasise that the introduction of new applied options is not in essence about training students earlier in skills or specialisations, but about developing innovative minds. The idea is not just about providing early exposure to applied subjects like electronics or digital media, or about gearing up students who are set on going to the polytechnics to study such fields.

27. What we are really trying to do is to provide more opportunities for students to develop inventive minds by doing practical things – minds that are able to look for problems, invent solutions, and make them happen. We want to expand these opportunities for practical application of knowledge across the spectrum of schools and students. In fact, even schools which offer the Integrated Programme, all of whose students go on to Junior College, are keen to introduce applied learning options in their curriculum.

28. This is also the thinking behind the motto for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (or MIT). ‘Mens et Manus’ in Latin, literally meaning “Mind and Hand”. MIT believes passionately in the cooperation between knowledge and practical science – in training students who not only understand issues conceptually and to a very deep level, but are able to apply concepts to find practical applications and solutions. It is also what lies behind MIT’s entrepreneurial culture – why MIT has spawned more than a thousand companies in the last decade alone.

29. Some very good high schools abroad also provide their students with these opportunities. An MOE team visited a top high school in California early this year, the “High Tech High School”, which emphasised practical learning. For example, instead of taking an exam, students were asked to present their science projects in an exhibition. The team met one of the students who already had a patent to his name, and was working on another patent for his latest invention – a glove to allow people to type into their computers without a keyboard (the glove is wired so that you can form the letters and symbols of a keyboard by tapping various combinations of fingers on a surface). The student was confident of getting into MIT based on his inventions, without having to worry about his SAT scores.

30. Some Japanese schools do the same. I visited the Tokyo Tech High School, which collects very bright students from all over Japan. They made it compulsory for students to take an applied subject, because as they put it, they wanted to help students go beyond being “book-smart”. Some students were doing mechanical engineering, wearing factory overalls and working with lathes. They were not just learning new skills, but applying their minds to problems in a different way. The Japanese still produce top minds in technology and innovation.

31. These benefits are being experienced by our students in subjects like Design and Technology. Not just picking up skills, but developing a knack for making things, and developing something of an innovative mind. We want to expand these opportunities, and appeal to students with a broader range of interests.

32. Another implication of the new applied subjects that some of our schools will offer is that we are allowing for a system of school-based curriculum and assessment. Schools will develop the assessment methods for the subjects they introduce, jointly with the polytechnics. There are advantages in this, because schools will be able to assess what students have learnt and demonstrated more authentically. Assessment would be shaped by what schools teach, rather than teaching being shaped by what is to be assessed.

33. However, MOE will ensure standards are maintained. We will work with the polytechnics to establish an Academic Panel to ensure that the curriculum and standards of assessment for the applied subjects remain high, comparable in rigour to existing ‘O’ level subjects. This framework will therefore allow schools greater autonomy to customise their curriculum to meet the interests of their students, without compromising on standards. It is a meaningful innovation, a way to preserve the core elements of our national system while allowing schools to develop niches of their own.

34. The third implication of these new applied modules and subjects is that they will bring new types of teachers into some of our schools. MOS Gan’s Committee recommended allowing instructors who are trained and qualified in their specific fields to teach applied subjects in our secondary schools.

35. They need not have been trained by the National Institute of Education (NIE), if they have requisite experience, knowledge and skills to teach the applied subjects. It will enrich the expanding pool of teaching expertise in our schools. Over time, we may also see some synergies, some cross-learning, between teachers of existing subjects and the instructors who are hired by the polytechnics to teach the new applied subjects. It can lead to useful innovations in the way some other subjects are taught in schools.

36. Mr Chairman, Sir, the expanded choices and opportunities that we are bringing into our schools is the way we are developing a mountain range of diverse talents among our young. Wherever there is a talent, we want to do whatever we can to ensure that it can be developed to the fullest. Talents like Stefan Tseng of the Sports School, who as some of you would have read today, just won the Under-17 boys triple jump title at the UK Amateur Athletic Association Indoor Championships over the weekend, broke the record (by 0.31m) which had held for 25 years – and even exceeded the Under-20 record by a good margin.

37. But it will be a mountain range of peaks where even the foothills are well above sea level. We will keep high average standards, and improve the quality of education that every school delivers. We will keep our robust national curriculum framework. We will preserve the core curriculum in schools while allowing for more free play, and encouraging schools to differentiate themselves. And this new balance, between what is common and what is diverse in education, will remain founded on meritocracy. A meritocracy that is more lively but also in many ways more authentic in the way it recognises a full range of Singaporean talents and helps them go as far as possible.