Speech by RAdm (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, Minister of State, Ministry of Education, at MOE ExCEL Fest 2006 at Catholic High School, on Friday, 7 July 2006, 2.30 pm

SPEECH BY RADM (NS) LUI TUCK YEW, MINISTER OF STATE. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, AT MOE EXCEL FEST 2006 AT CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL, ON FRIDAY, 7 JULY 2006, 2.30 PM

Good afternoon colleagues,

1. I am delighted to join you today, to celebrate the efforts of our educators in igniting the passion for learning in our students. Let me first extend my warmest congratulations to the worthy recipients of the ExCEL-related awards. I am impressed and heartened by the proliferation of innovative teaching practices in today’s classrooms. I know that the ExCEL fest over the next 2 days will be a proud showcase of the stimulating learning environment that is fast becoming the norm in our schools.

2. We were encouraged by the response to last year’s ExCEL Fest, when for the first time it was open to the public and more than 20,000 people came. Building on this success, we have taken another bold step this year to expand the scale and the reach of the event. For the first time, Excel Fest will take place in 22 venues across the island. In doing so, we have significantly increased the capacity of the event to cater to all 26,000 teachers to participate in peer sharing and learning. The number of classroom experience sessions has multiplied from 60 last year to more than 1200 this year. The number of exhibits has also increased from 100 last year to more than 600. More parents are expected to join us this year and they will have a greater spread of exhibitions and talks to choose from. Almost every school will be contributing to either the exhibition or the classroom experience session at the Festival.

3. The way Excel Festival has grown over the years is a reflection of a culture of innovation, sharing and learning that is taking shape in our schools. The event has also become a platform for MOE to reach out to our key stakeholders - the parents. We want to share with them the development of teaching practices in the classroom as well as the philosophy and thinking behind current education policies. With this in mind, the theme for this year’s ExCEL Fest is “Touching Hearts, Engaging Minds”. It reflects the Ministry’s focus on enhancing the quality of interaction between teachers and learners to foster engaged learning, which is the very essence of “Teach Less Learn More” (TLLM) philosophy.

4. For this to succeed, “ground-up” innovation, particularly in the area of school-based customisation of curriculum and teaching practices is important. They must be shaped to meet the diverse needs and maximize the talents of our students. The many projects showcased in this year’s Excel Festival attest to the wide-ranging efforts that our school leaders and teachers have made. I would like to highlight a few here.

5. In Canberra Primary School, there is a high percentage of Primary One students from non-English speaking environments. Ms Betty Chan designed a comprehensive programme using songs, dramatisation, and role play to alleviate the tedium of grammar drills. Using familiar songs such as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, the children were better able to identify and understand the use of prepositions and other grammar components. In fact, I have heard that the students have created 24 songs and the school has commissioned a company to design and publish them as a series of posters with an accompanying CD. It is equally noteworthy that these materials are being used not only by other local primary schools, but also by educators in the region such as Malaysia and Taiwan.

6. Next, I would like to share with you an enviable problem faced by the teachers of Yumin Primary School: students who are so enthused about the lesson it is hard to get them to off task. The students do their own excavation of toy fossils in specially designed pits after being taught simple excavation skills. Excavation requires students to use a series of process skills; they have to observe the physical characteristics of dinosaur fossils, compare the different kinds of dinosaurs, and draw inferences from their research on dinosaurs as they carry out the construction of fossil imprints and excavation. Students learn through the thrill of fieldwork and fossil discovery. I have been told that the students in this programme come to class with much gusto; teachers are taken aback by the knowledge that students display about the origins of the fossils through their own reading.

7. I have named my final example, “Why Tamil Tigers are named tigers and not some other member of the feline family”. This title is modified from an authentic question asked in the classroom by a Normal Academic student at Mayflower Secondary School. Ms Frances Ess surprised her students in Social Studies class when she devoted entire lessons to fielding questions from the students instead of teaching from the textbook. She created a safe and inclusive environment that encouraged students to query and debate. Because no question is seen as “silly”, even the most reticent student was eventually prompted to participate in class discussions. These are but a few examples of what is taking place across many schools throughout the island. They illustrate different ways of reaching out and engaging the hearts and minds of the students. Often done with a touch of creativity, it strengthens the bond between teacher and pupil and supports our objective of engaged learning.

8. To empower our school leaders and teachers in expanding such “ground up” initiatives and innovations, MOE provides funding support, curriculum expertise as well as greater autonomy to enable school based customisation of curriculum to take place. Over the past 5 years, MOE provided more than $17 million. In 2005 alone, about $5.7 million was provided, an increase of more than 3 times compared to 2000. In addition to funding, let me mention 2 schemes as examples to how MOE provides support to schools.

9. First, the TLLM School Curriculum Innovation. This scheme is created to support schools to realise their innovative new teaching approaches. It starts with the schools identifying the specific needs of certain groups of student and proposing ideas that will enhance the way they learn. MOE will then pair them with relevant HQ Officers and lecturers from NIE. These curriculum partners work alongside the school staff on curriculum design, teaching approaches, assessment and evaluation recommendations. Selected teachers from the schools can also spend up to 6 months on attachment to MOE to further research on their innovations. Over time, we hope to build up a spectrum of such promising school-based initiatives that will allow for good practices and new knowledge to spread throughout the system.

10. Since Jan 2006, we have conducted two exercises inviting schools to submit their school-based curriculum innovations for this scheme. The proposals we received were very encouraging: they showed us not only that the spirit of Innovation & Enterprise (I&E) was very much alive in our schools, but also that our schools were focusing their innovations on many different aspects of holistic education.

11. In March 2006, MOE identified in the first Wave 8 schools which had started to adopt new school practices. Their creative approaches ranged from integrating the curriculum to promote students’ interest and love of the aesthetics to designing new modules to promote enquiry-learning in Science, to the use of a set of school-developed classroom principles to engage pupils in every class. Since March, these 8 schools have been working closely with their HQ partners to bring these ideas to fruition.

12. In the second wave of proposals submitted by schools, a further 21 schools, comprising 9 primary, 11 secondary and 1 junior college, have been identified. These schools are trying out exciting new approaches which include flexible and individualised curriculum to cater to learner differences, leveraging on an ICT-platform to encourage collaborative learning, new methods like case studies for character development and values education, and redesigning curriculum to facilitate more interdisciplinary perspectives and understanding of issues. This brings the number of schools that MOE will be partnering to a total of 29. All 29 have been identified as vanguards of new or innovative customised school programmes.

13. The second MOE scheme which I would like to briefly mention here is FlexSI. The Minister for Education, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, announced the FlexSI Framework on 29 Dec 05 to provide school leaders more flexibility in the design of school infrastructure for supporting teaching approaches that better engage students in learning. I am pleased to announce that 10 pilot schools have been selected for this purpose. These schools will be retrofitted with facilities such as modular classrooms to support new pedagogies and outdoor learning trails for experiential learning.

14. These are exciting times in the field of education. To all in the teaching community, I commend you for your innovative ideas, that will make learning more fun and exciting. But above all, as a parent, I thank you wholeheartedly for your dedication and passion in moulding lives, developing character and shaping values and convictions. Some say that teaching is a work of art. That is true but it is more than that – teaching is a work of heart. The impact and influence of a teacher on a student can extend well beyond those few short years they have together. I know because much of what I am was shaped by someone just like you 3 decades or so ago. My wish for all of you is that someday, you will have an ex-student come back and say the same to you.

15. On this note, let me wish you all an enjoyable learning experience at ExCEL Fest 2006 and a fulfilling life-changing experience as a teacher.