COS Debate 2007 - 1st Reply by Minister on Preparing Students for a Global Future

FY 2007 Committee of Supply Debate
1st Reply by Minister on Preparing Students for a Global Future

1. First let me thank Dr Lily Neo and Dr Ong Seh Hong for their very useful comments and questions.

2. I agree with the thrust of their remarks. In this first response, I will focus on the broad question they have addressed -- how we are preparing our young for the challenges of the future - a globalised future, or as Dr Ong put it, a flat world, but also a future in which the largest opportunities for Singapore and our greatest advantage will come from our being a global city.

3. Some of the challenges we face are no different from those of any other developed society. We know we have to work smarter, rather than work cheaper, in order to thrive amidst the competition from China and India, and before too long from new players like Vietnam.

4. Working smart means that we have to prepare our young to think for themselves, so that they can kick-start new ideas and solve problems as they come up, including problems that they haven’t seen before.

5. Working smart also means playing in first class teams -- teams which use every talent and strength to come up with new solutions, and teams which stay resilient in the face of challenges. And working smart means being able to communicate clearly, and to be totally comfortable with IT skills.

6. These are key skills for the future, in any industry and at every level of the organisation. It’s what employers everywhere, from the US to India and Europe are saying now. They need more people who can think for themselves, play in a team and communicate effectively with each other, real time.

7. There is no single solution in education for developing these skills of the future. As Dr Lily Neo and Dr Ong have said, this is also something that doesn’t end when students leave school. We need a plethora of opportunities for life-long learning, for developing young Singaporeans who can think and communicate on their feet, work well in teams, and meet set-backs with confidence. It does not mean doing many more things in education. A good part of what we want to do is already there in our schools, it just needs to be done better or given sharper focus.

8. It helps to have a more holistic and well-rounded education. That’s why we have been taking meaningful steps in that direction – towards a broader and more flexible approach in the way our students go about their academic learning, and also a better balance between training the academic and non-academic skills. MOS Lui will say more about this later.

9. We are also investing in ICT for learning, first to make the whole learning experience more innovative and engaging, but also because essential ICT skills and knowledge must become second nature to our young.

10. There is a further, critical dimension to educating our young for the future, and which matters more to us than to most other developed countries. For Singapore to be a global city, we need to have a global outlook in our people. The whole tenor of our society has to be about looking outward, and welcoming new people into Singapore to live and to work. It will give us a big advantage in Asia. That’s why we have to groom young Singaporeans who feel quite comfortable working and collaborating with people who come from all over the place, looking for opportunities in new markets outside Singapore, and working in places quite different from Singapore. A good understanding of Asia, where the opportunities are the largest, will also give them advantage.

11. Developing a global outlook in our students is therefore an important strategy for MOE. We want to nurture Singaporeans who are culturally versatile, but confident of their own identity.

12. The first way we are doing this is by providing more overseas opportunities for our students so that, from young, they get a sense of the complexities and opportunities in the region. As Dr Ong also noted, these opportunities will also give them a better understanding of different cultures.

13. Our schools are keen to provide this, and are moving quickly. [Over 200 of them now have links of one sort or another with schools amongst our ASEAN neighbours. Over 100 have links with Chinese schools. And almost 30 have links with Indian schools.]

14. Last year, about 22,600 students and 4000 teachers from our schools and junior colleges went overseas, either on school twinning programmes, overseas community involvement programmes or study trips, of one form or the other. This year we will see many more. Next week alone, ie during the March school holidays (which usually sees far fewer trips compared to the other 3 vacation periods), about 3300 students from 60 schools will be going abroad - more than six times the number in last year’s March holidays, when 500 students (from 10 schools) went overseas. So the schools are keen and the momentum is building up.

15. We are encouraging schools and helping them through the Opportunity Fund and the School Twinning Fund, so that they can help less well-off students go on such trips.

16. We are also exploring opportunities for a few of our schools to establish satellite campuses in overseas cities so that our students can spend a longer time immersing themselves and interacting with their counterparts there, while benefitting from a Singapore curriculum. Hwa Chong Institution already plans to establish a satellite campus in Beijing this year, so that students in the Bicultural Studies Programme (Chinese) and other interested students can have more sustained exposure to contemporary China. Not just a one or two week study trip, but being able to spend a few months there.

17. Our tertiary institutions are also linking up with partners abroad, through student exchanges and internships, and in the case of our universities, through collaborative research projects and joint degree programmes. This is the way to go for our universities. Overall we aim to provide opportunities for up to 50% of our tertiary students to have an overseas stint during the course of their studies.

18. Our universities are also developing elective modules on Contemporary China and India, for students who are not majoring or specializing in these fields.

19. We will continue to expand on these initiatives, both in schools and JCs, and in our tertiary institutions. No other Asian city is making as determined a move to nurture in its young citizens a global outlook, a sense of the opportunities outside. We have to do more of this than others, because we can only succeed by being a global city. And if we do this well, it will give us advantage in time to come.

20. The second way we are preparing our young for this future as a global city is by training them in the languages. I agree with Dr Lily Neo and Dr Ong Seh Hong that we need to build up capabilities in this area.

21. Our bilingual language competency, and our diverse range of languages, must be a key strength for Singapore. Competence in English and a Mother Tongue Language (MTL), amongst the majority of young Singaporeans, will give us a competitive edge over any other Asian city for years to come. It also gives us our distinctive identity as a people, sharing a common cultural heritage with many other Asian cities, but unique in the openness and vibrance of our multi-cultural society.

22. MOE is taking steps to consolidate and add to Singapore’s language advantage in three areas. First, by improving the effectiveness of bilingual language learning, including providing greater support for the small, minority mother tongues as second language options. Second, we will introduce more third language options like Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic, so that we can reach out to emerging areas outside Singapore. As PM mentioned at his NDR last year, we have to do more to keep our immigrant cultures alive, and also make it easy for Singaporeans to learn third languages, new foreign languages that will help them link up with opportunities outside.

23. Third, we will provide opportunities for more students to learn languages other than their own mother tongue at a conversational level, so as to enhance interaction among Singaporeans of different races, and strengthen our social cohesion even as we embrace the world.

24. Over the past three years, as Members know, MOE has conducted comprehensive reviews of each of the four official languages - English and the three main mother tongue languages (Chinese, Malay, Tamil). The implementation of the changes arising from these reviews will be a key focus for MOE and our schools over the next few years. We are already seeing some results in the MTLs, with language learning coming alive through a more flexible curriculum, creative teaching methods and an increased emphasis on oral skills so that students keep using their mother tongues after they leave school.

25. More of our students are pursuing higher levels of excellence in their mother tongues. In fact we are seeing, from this year, the full impact of the relaxation of the eligibility criteria for students wishing to offer Higher Mother Tongue Languages (HMTL), which we started a few years ago. Today, 34% of our Secondary One students (in Express/Special) are taking Higher Chinese, compared to 21% in 2003. For Higher Malay, the proportion has risen from 11% to 19%. And for Higher Tamil, it is an increase from 17% to 36%, or more than double.

26. We will take further steps to help students in learning their mother tongues. To broaden access to Tamil (TL) instruction, eight more secondary schools will offer TL within curriculum time from next year. This will bring the total number of such secondary schools from 81 to 89, well distributed across the island. It will enable over 90% of all TL students to attend TL lessons in their own schools, within regular curriculum time. In the remaining secondary schools, there are very few TL students, making it impractical to conduct TL classes within the school. Students at these remaining schools will be able to take their TL classes in the afternoons, at one of the 12 centres around the island (Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre and 11 school-based centres).

27. MOE will also work with our primary schools to provide pro-active advice to parents of their graduating classes (P6 classes), to send their children to secondary schools which offer TL within curriculum time, so that they need not travel to attend classes in the afternoons. With more students enrolled in these schools which offer TL during curriculum time, they can practise the language with their peers, and benefit from a richer learning environment for the language.

28. I will now touch on the Non-Tamil Indian Languages (NTILs), which are the mother tongues for the smaller Indian minority groups. These languages are not new to Singapore. But we must keep them alive so that they remain a vibrant part of Singapore’s cultural landscape. Like Tamil, they allow our communities to link up to different parts of South Asia.

29. The number of students learning Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu as their second language has grown by about 20% over the past five years, to about 4800 students today. The respective communities have done a commendable job in organising instruction for their children. The Board for Teaching and Testing of South Asian Languages (BTTSAL) currently oversees the delivery of NTIL instruction by the various communities, as well as overseeing the standardisation of the examinations they conduct.

30. Since the first half of the 1990s, MOE has provided for the five NTILs to be part of our national examinations at the PSLE, ‘N” and ‘O” levels , and at the ‘AO’ levels as well. To help the communities keep their mother tongues alive, we have decided to provide funding support for the Non-Tamil Indian languages. MOE will now provide a total grant of about $1.5 million each year to enable BTTSAL and the community groups to provide subsidies for students taking these classes.

31. In addition, MOE will work with the Board to effect the necessary processes to facilitate the recognition of grades in these languages, for students’ level-to-level progression within schools, before they get to the milestone years where they take the national exams that MOE conducts. It will also allow them to use their language grades to count towards their eligibility for Edusave awards such as the Good Progress Award and Edusave scholarship. I hope this encourages them to excel in their mother tongues.

32. Our third languages currently include Chinese (Special Programme), Malay (Special Programme), French, German and Japanese. We have five of them. We will add new third languages to broaden our offerings at the MOE Language Centre.

33. Bahasa Indonesia is one of them. As Dr Lily Neo and Dr Ong Seh Hong highlighted, having a pool of young Singaporeans who are well versed in the culture and languages of the region is crucial for our long term engagement with our closest neighbours.

34. We will also introduce Arabic. The Middle East is a fast growing region, with opportunities for Singaporeans. According to recent news reports in the last week, a growing number of Singaporeans are already taking up Arabic. 200 people have signed up for Arabic classes at Jamiyah Business School, four times the enrolment two years ago. At least half are non-Muslims. At Pergas Institute of Islamic Studies (PERGAS), enrolment in Arabic 101 for non-native speakers is expected to double this year, from the 100 students enrolled last year.

35. From 2008, MOE will offer Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic at the MOE Language Centre, bringing the number of Third Languages that MOE offers from five to seven. Greater emphasis will be placed on oral proficiency and reading skills, so that students emerge from the programme with working knowledge of the languages and a basic understanding of Arab and Indonesian society and culture.

36. Finally, let me come to the area of conversational languages. Our third language policy extends to the Chinese (Special Programme) or CSP, and the Malay (Special Programme) or MSP. These are full examinable subjects for students who do not take Malay or Chinese as a second language.

37. Since last year, MOE relaxed the eligibility criteria for these two programmes. We are building on a small base of student enrolment, but the response has been encouraging. About 350 students take each of these two third language subjects.

38. However the number of students who take CSP or MSP, will not be significant. We will therefore do more to promote Conversational CL and ML as enrichment programmes for students who are not native speakers of these languages.

39. As MM observed two years ago, few of our non-Malays now understand Bahasa. He felt we should get some 10-15% of our non-Malay population conversant in Bahasa.

40. There is also growing interest amongst our non-Chinese students to learn Chinese for conversational purposes. It is a useful skill for the future.

41. The conversational CL and ML programmes have taken off well in our schools. Last year, about 58 primary schools and 47 secondary schools conducted conversational ML and/or CL lessons. They do so in a variety of ways – in many schools the mother tongue teachers conduct the lessons when they are free; other schools choose to engage external vendors or rely on parent volunteers and even student coaches. For instance, in Lianhua Primary, interested Primary 4 Malay students have the opportunity to learn conversational CL from the Chinese language teachers and Chinese students help out as peer-tutors.

42. We will encourage as many schools as possible to offer conversational CL and ML. MOE will provide them with additional resources to do so. Besides their own teachers, schools can work with the private sector, parents and the community or outsource the programmes. MOE will also set up a scheme to engage instructors to teach conversational ML and CL, somewhat like how we engage instructors for the arts, that schools can then tap on and use in a flexible manner. So we will continue with the current approach of giving schools the flexibility to use a variety of teaching methods. We don’t want to bog this down with a formal curriculum that every school should follow. We will keep it flexible, and allow for a variety of methods at play.

43. Teachers too can benefit from these enrichment programs if they are interested. Tampines JC for example includes teachers in the conversational language workshops that it conducts for students. Some teachers on their own accord, are in fact learning conversational languages on their own. Miss Fa’izah Bte Osman, a Physics teacher at Bedok North Secondary, started CL lessons while at NUS. She completed Level 1 Basic CL at NUS. When she started teaching, she felt the need to continue, so that she can communicate better with parents. So she completed Level 2 and 3 of Basic CL at NUS Extension last year.

44. The additional resources that MOE will provide schools will allow students to sustain their exposure to these conversational languages while they are in the school, instead of taking classes for just a year, as is usually the case at present.

45. We envisage that within five years, all primary schools will offer Conversational CL and ML as enrichment programmes. We hope that two thirds of our secondary schools will also be able to do likewise within five years.

46. We will also provide our students with opportunities for continuing exposure to these conversational languages as they move up through the school system and into the post-secondary institutions. They can start with beginning modules in primary school (which will help them use everyday phrases such as greetings or asking for directions or prices) and, depending on their interest and aptitude, move on to intermediate and higher modules at the secondary or post-secondary levels, which allow them to have a short conversation for example. We will make it easy for students to come on board at any point and to progress as much as they wish.

47. Over the next three years all our tertiary institutions will also offer conversational CL and ML as enrichment options for interested students. ITE already does so, and last year, about 300 students signed up for conversational CL and about 100 took conversational ML.

48. To help students track their progress in these conversational languages, MOE will also introduce an optional oral proficiency certification for students. This will not be part of the national examinations framework. Those who have completed a conversational CL or ML programme in secondary school may opt to take the proficiency certification tests. We expect some students will be keen on this, just like piano students want to see what they can achieve in their piano grades. MOE will be working with reputable partners such as the Regional Language Centre to conduct this proficiency certification.

49. Let me conclude. Our education strategies are a key part of how we secure Singapore’s future as a vibrant global city. We are providing Singaporeans with opportunities from young to develop a global outlook, and to get a flavour of the opportunities that are emerging in Asia. We are doing more to keep our mother tongues alive. We are also helping interested students learn new third languages that will help us reach out and engage with emerging Asia. And we are providing more opportunities for students to pick up conversational Chinese and Malay. Together, these initiatives add up to something. They will strengthen our identity as an open, diverse and cohesive society, unique in Asia.