1                     We are seeing a new quality in education, across the board. It is rippling across our schools, and through our tertiary institutions. ITE created a big ripple last week, when it was named by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government as winner of the global IBM Innovations Award.

2                      Our schools are moving up together, but it is not because they are doing the same things. They are in fact more diverse now than they have ever been, since the time we brought the four language-based school systems together into a national education system.

3                      We are moving up in quality because each school is taking ownership, crafting its own approaches, and bringing its own passion to play. School leaders and teachers are looking out for their students, spotting talents to be nurtured, and finding their own ways to get children of all abilities to move up.

4                     This is our approach to giving every child a first rate education. As PM put it in his National Day Rally in August, “whichever school you go to, whatever your home background, we will help you develop your talents to the full.  The ladders are steep, but we will provide you many ladders to success and help you climb up as high as you can.”    

5                     We have to keep up the momentum of change that we began a decade ago, keep taking it forward in meaningful steps.  It is not a one-shot change. But it means several changes over time, because there are many facets and many parts in our education system, and we want the ripples to flow in the same direction, and not come up against each other and lose energy. That is why, for example, we introduced direct admission into secondary schools and gave our universities and polytechnics leeway to select students on their own, broader criteria. It  has supported schools’ efforts to develop both intellectual and other talents, and has encouraged students who want to take their interests seriously.

6                      The changes reinforce each other, and we can already see teachers,  students and parents responding. New peaks emerging across the school landscape, a new and more diverse crop of Singapore talents coming up, and new quality across the system. We should keep education moving forward this way, and keep Singapore’s edge in Asia and the world.       

Nurturing Talents Everywhere

7                     We see surprises every day in education, surprises that come up when schools provide opportunities for our young to discover themselves – to find their interests, find what they are good at.  We keep seeing real talents spring up when students try their hand at something new in school.

8                     Take Cheston Tan, who is in Primary 5 in Fuchun Primary.  He started playing the violin in Primary 3 in Fuchun. He had seen a group of violinists perform in the school, and decided to join the string ensemble. He topped the ABRSM Grade 1 exam last year -  next year he is taking the Grade 8 exam.   All in 4 years at Fuchun!   Cheston is on the MOE financial assistance scheme. Father is a taxi driver, mother a homemaker. No headstart in music, no Yamaha lessons. He is where he is because Fuchun provided the opportunity, and discovered a remarkable talent.        

9                     That’s how it’s being played out across the system –  schools providing opportunities and surprises  everywhere.

10                  We are pushing for all schools to do something special. Every school can be above average in something. MOE will provide resources to schools that have yet to establish a track record, but who are seeking to develop an emerging area of excellence.  By 2012, we hope that half of all our schools will achieve and be recognized for their niches of excellence.

11                 We will also provide support for schools that aspire to achieve excellence at the international level - for instance in the various Olympiads or by developing programmes that will put them on par with the best schools internationally in specific fields.  

Making Streaming More Fluid

12                 We are injecting fluidity into our ability-based system of education.  The fundamentals of our school system are sound.  We recognise different abilities and have students take different courses of study so that they can do well, and do not get demotivated in school.  That’s a strength of the Singapore school system, and it has allowed our students to perform at a higher average level than most others.     

13                 But we also want to blur the lines between the different streams and maximise the interactions between students so that they do not get the sense that they are separate from each other, and do not box their aspirations in.

14                 In primary schools, we have moved from streaming at Primary 5 and 6 to a system of subject-based banding, which will apply to all students from next year.  At the secondary level, we have opened more bridges between the courses. What it does is help students who develop later than others. It also helps many more students recognize that they can be strong in some areas, even if they lack prowess in other things.

15                  This year, 1200 Normal course students switched streams, benefiting from the provisions we have made for lateral transfers.  Over 20% of all our Normal (Academic) course students are taking one or two O-levels at Sec 4, together with their Express stream counterparts.  And this year too, 850 N(A) students will also be skipping the N-levels at Sec 4, as part of their 5 year through-train to the O-levels.     

16                 We are also seeing greater interplay between the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) and the rest of the school. The Integrated Programme (IP)  schools are running talent-focused programmes at the secondary level, enabling both GEP and other students with a talent in a particular field to work together. We are moving towards the same arrangement in our primary schools,   creating more opportunities for GEP students to learn and interact with others, and develop rounded characters from young.                                                                                

More Free-play in the Curriculum   

17                 Schools are also making use of the greater free-play we have allowed to introduce variations around the national curricular. Many have already taken off from MOS Gan Kim Yong’s review last year which proposed that we enrich the secondary curriculum with options in applied learning. They have worked with the polytechnics to develop some 36 Advanced Elective Modules (AEMs), and with another 20 to come by the end of this year, in areas such as wireless communications applications, journalism and pharmacy. Some schools are going further, by working with the Polytechnics to begin teaching new, examinable subjects in applied areas next year.   

18                 The students who take these applied modules and subjects are not just picking up new skills, but developing something of an innovative mind, by doing practical things.  That’s the real idea – developing minds that want to create things or look for something that has not been tried before.

19                 Three secondary schools – Si Ling, Shuqun and Bedok Town will pilot fresh approaches to the Normal (Technical) curriculum. They will develop their own programmes to help their students engage better in their learning, with  greater opportunity for practice-based learning and attachments in industry.            

20                 Greater free play in the curriculum is also about allowing more free play for teachers. ‘Teach Less, Learn More’ (TLLM) is well under way in our schools.  We are freeing up time and space for teachers to develop more engaging teaching approaches of their own.  And we can already see how it is helping students learn better.          

21                 In Marsiling Secondary, for example, a group of teachers developed their own Environment Education Module (EEM) – 4 periods a week for a semester - for lower secondary students. Students do problem-based learning, and work in teams on projects which help them understand the environmental challenges facing Singapore and the world.  The teachers are now setting up an interactive Environment Education Hub to support their curriculum, which neighbouring schools will also have access to.   

22                 The examples are many and they keep growing -   teachers working out good programmes to help their students move beyond a cut-and-dried approach to knowledge. Our mother tongue teachers are taking advantage of the flexibility and space they have been provided following the major reviews of the four languages in the last few years. They are designing new approaches to match the different abilities of their pupils, and developing novel ways to make the languages come alive in their classes.  

23                 But it is useful in all of this to remember that TLLM is a journey.  We are not rushing it, or pushing teachers through it. Our whole approach is to provide the space and resources to let teachers take charge of their teaching, and drive the quality in education. And as we notice an initiative working out well in one school, we spread the lessons to others to see how they can benefit. 

Building Bridges and Ladders

24                 We are investing heavily in Education, because as PM put it in the NDR, it is our fundamental approach to uplift all Singaporeans. We want to give our young the best start, the best education possible through our schools, ITE, polytechnics and universities.  

25                 By investing in quality across the board, we make sure that Singapore remains a place where it is your ability and effort that determine success, not who your parents are or where you start off from. We must remain a place where education is a path for social mobility, from one generation to the next.

26                 It’s a key challenge everywhere. In most developed societies, the mobility in the system has petered out. In the UK, opportunities for bright children from poor homes have declined, as successive Governments have prevented either selection or streaming of students in state schools. The gap in quality has grown bigger between the state sector and private schools which select students and often provide an excellent education, but are restricted to those who can afford to pay for them.

27                 In the US too, the divide is stark between well-funded private schools and poorly-funded urban state schools facing high teacher turnover. Few students from poor backgrounds make it into the better universities. Business and government leaders are also greatly concerned about large drop out rates before children finish high school, and the fact that many who do complete school are short of the basic knowledge and skills required to compete in a global workplace.

28                 So too in Japan, once thought of as a bastion of egalitarianism. There is increasing polarization in education. With most state schools being unable to select or stream pupils, and hampered by centralised rules on what and how they teach, brand-name private schools are gaining in popularity. There is growing  inequality of opportunity.

29                  The French do not have a private school sector. But an egalitarian insistence on a uniform education for all pupils has led to manifestly non-egalitarian outcomes. 38% of French pupils repeat a year at school by the time they are 15. One in five in fact finish secondary school with no qualification at all. The new Government under President Sarkozy has begun hinting at the prospect of streaming children by ability so that they can stay within their age-group and progress, but the unions are opposed.

30                 We have to keep a system in Singapore where every student is motivated to put in his best effort, and is given the best opportunity to move up through education. From the secondary level up, we allow schools to select students, and students to choose the schools they want. Selection is by  talent and ability. It is a rarity in state school systems, in fact quite incorrect politically in most countries. But it is what motivates and gives opportunity to every bright and talented  kid from a less advantaged background.  

31                 We must also continue to recognise differences of ability, and different learning styles, so that we give every student the flexibility to tailor a course that allows him to develop at his own pace and blossom. If we did not do this and do it well, we will face the problems that beset most of these other countries  – non-egalitarian outcomes despite the best of egalitarian intentions.

32                 We have an ability-based system, but it is one that opens up ladders all along the way, so that it is driven by each student’s aspirations. We are not saying “this is what you are capable of, and this is as far as you can go”. What we are saying is “let’s help you find your strengths, and help you get to where you want to go”.

33                  We must keep enough flexibility in the system, keep open the bridges and ladders and make sure there is always space for aspirations, so that every Singaporean feels encouraged to try hard and go further. Some will take a longer path to get to where they want, but they often end up stronger.   

34                 Social mobility will get harder to sustain over time. It is more difficult than a generation ago precisely because education has succeeded in helping many Singaporeans who started from poor backgrounds to move up in life by working hard and doing well in school.  Their children no longer start from poor backgrounds.

35                 But still, we see significant mobility taking place through education today,  and more so than in most other countries. Students who come from the bottom 1/3 of home backgrounds (in terms of housing type and parents’ education levels) have a 50% chance of making it into the top 2/3 of PSLE performance in our primary schools. They also have a 50% chance of being in the top 2/3 of performers at the ‘O’-levels in our secondary schools.

36                 This is a great credit to our schools.  We have to keep this going as best as we can.

37                 We are redoubling our efforts to help every child aspire and succeed. First, we are strengthening our efforts to engage at-risk students in their learning, and engage them more actively in the life of the school. SPS Masagos is leading a committee to promote this. Within five years, we aim to halve the proportion of students who drop out at some stage from our school system, from the current 3% to 1.5%.             

38                 At the primary level, we have enhanced our early intervention programmes like the Learning Support Programme (LSP). This year we rolled out to all schools an enhanced LSP programme, which provides a more focused approach to building basic language and reading skills. We also extended Learning Support for Math to all primary schools this year.    

39                 We are also putting more specialist expertise into schools to help students with special learning difficulties.  10% of teachers in every primary school will be trained in special needs by 2010.           

40                  Second, we have expanded our financial assistance schemes, and provided Opportunity Funds to all schools so that they can level up enrichment opportunities for students from lower income households.  More recently, we enhanced the financial assistance scheme for students entering the Independent Schools, to ensure that no student is discouraged from applying to any school of his choice.

41                 Third, and most critically, we have good leaders and teachers in every school, not just a few brand-name schools. Schools across the island, with principals and teachers who feel they can change things, and are trying out their own ways to help every child learn and succeed. That’s the real buzz in Singapore education.  Good people, good ideas.  That’s how we still get 50% of students from the bottom 1/3 in social backgrounds ending up in the top 2/3.   

42                 It is also how we get surprises everywhere, with talents being discovered in every school.  Like Cheston Tan at Fuchun. Or like Vivien Too, a Primary 5 girl I met at Ahmad Ibrahim Primary, who recently published her own Chinese comic book called “The Comic Garden”.  She must be the first primary school student to publish her own book. She told me - "it takes only a few minutes to read a comic book, but a whole year to create one." Vivien’s talent in art was first discovered by her Pri 1 form teacher, Mdm Tan Su Hui, and later by the school’s HOD for Mother Tongue, Ms Lim Siew Gek. They encouraged her on. Vivien is working on her second comic book now. I presume it will come in at a higher price.      

43                 Or like the debaters from Loyang Secondary, who surprised everyone in the Arena competition earlier this year when they clinched a spot in the semi-finals. All because Loyang Principal Mrs Lu Kheng Lui believed every student should develop the confidence to speak well, put them all through a public speaking course  -  and challenged them to speak like her on stage.   

44                 So we see surprises everyday. But they are not miracles, because real people are behind them. They are about inspired and committed teachers and leaders in schools, helping their students discover strengths they never knew they had.