Speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Finance and Minister for Education at the Launch of the Khoo Teck Puat Education Fund on Tuesday, 18 December 2007, at 3.30 pm at Institute of Technical Education (Headquarters)

SPEECH BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, MINISTER FOR FINANCE AND MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AT THE LAUNCH OF THE KHOO TECK PUAT EDUCATION FUND ON TUESDAY, 18 DECEMBER 2007, AT 3.30 PM AT INSTITUTE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION (HEADQUARTERS)

Ms Mavis Khoo, Trustee of Estate of Tan Sri Khoo Teck Puat
and members of the Khoo Family

1. It gives me great pleasure to be here this afternoon at the launch of the Khoo Teck Puat Education Fund. Today’s gift is a substantial one for Education. The Estate of Tan Sri Khoo Teck Puat had prior to this also made significant donations to other educational causes in Singapore and abroad, such as to the Duke-NUS Graduate School of Medicine, Peking University and St Joseph’s Institution (International). The $25 million Fund that we are launching today will support three different programmes in education, each of which will add value.

2. The three programmes are not aimed at developing new educational infrastructure. They are angled at individuals - students in our tertiary institutions, and educationists from the region. The programmes will help these individuals develop skills and capacity, so that they too can add value in future. The programmes will also strengthen the web of people-to-people links within the region.

3. This gift is also an excellent example of how private philanthropy can work hand in hand with the public sector to achieve common objectives, in today’s case in Education.

4. The Estate’s generous donation complements MOE’s efforts to provide more opportunities for students to gain international exposure, and get a first hand sense of the way the world outside Singapore is changing. A global outlook will be a key skill for Singaporeans, and it should be cultivated from their youthful days.

5. We have introduced various initiatives to help our students develop these skills. MOE is supporting schools’ efforts to provide students with overseas enrichment activities such as student exchange programmes, international competitions and community service projects. Within 5 years, we aim to have one third of our secondary school students having the opportunity of some exposure overseas. In Singapore itself, we are extending opportunities for students to interact with their counterparts in Foreign System Schools in Singapore, in areas such as camping, sports and music. It all adds up to developing a sense of comfort with people from other parts of the world, a certain cultural flexibility that will hold Singaporeans well in future.

6. At the post-secondary level, our polytechnics, ITE and universities are collaborating with foreign institutions and companies to provide their students with opportunities for exposure abroad. Many students also go on overseas community projects to help the less fortunate in other countries. The experience to date amongst students who have gone on these stints abroad, even relatively short stints, has been very positive.

7. Our post-secondary institutions are supporting deserving students for overseas immersion programmes. The Estate’s donation will be a valuable boost to their efforts to level up overseas enrichment opportunities for students from low-income families.

8. Besides boosting MOE’s efforts to internationalise our students, the Khoo Teck Puat Education Fund also supports our ongoing collaborations with countries in the region to help build up their capabilities in education. The Singapore system is in demand, and a key area in which we can help our regional partners is in the training of educators. More foreign teachers and school leaders are now coming to Singapore for training programmes conducted by our National Institute of Education.

9. The Fund we are launching will include a programme to ‘train-the trainer’ in the area of English language teaching. This is an important priority across the region. Vietnam alone has set itself ambitious goals to revamp and upgrade English language learning amongst its students, by training up a cadre of capable English language teachers in every province. We are working with the Vietnamese Ministry of Education to develop a programme to train their trainers in Singapore, and to develop a strengthened curriculum for teacher training in the English language in Vietnam.

10. Each of the trainers that we train will act as multipliers in their own countries. This is a practical and meaningful way in which Singapore, a small country, can help its larger neighbours. Together with the flow of students from around Asia into our schools and universities, these interactions will contribute towards building a certain resilience over time in people-to-people linkages, and add to the strong bilateral relations that we have between Singapore and other countries in the region.

11. In closing, on behalf of the Government, I would like to thank the trustees of the Estate of Tan Sri Khoo Teck Puat and family members of the late Tan Sri Khoo for their generous donation. I hope this fine example will inspire more such acts of private philanthropy not just in support of education, but also other meaningful causes.