Opening Address by Minister for Education Mr Desmond Lee at the NIE Professorships Summit

Professor Tan Ooi Kiang,

Professor Liu Woon Chia, Director of National Institute of Education,

Panellists, colleagues, and distinguished guests,

Good afternoon.

1. I am pleased to join you all today at the Professorships Summit, held to commemorate the National Institute of Education (NIE)'s 75th anniversary. Congratulations to NIE on this significant milestone!

NIE's Distinguished History

2. As the national teacher education institute, NIE is an integral part of Singapore's education system. You ensure that our teachers are well-equipped with the disposition, values and skills to be education professionals. All our teachers bear testimony to the good work you do. I was at a school visit this morning, and spent many hours in different classrooms, in dialogue with teachers, counsellors, and special needs officers. I felt a deep, abiding passion and sense of mission, regardless of whether they were beginner teachers or more senior teachers.

3. In turn, our teachers play a crucial role in bringing Singapore to where we are today – by shaping the next generation, and nurturing a well-educated population that is a pillar of Singapore's success.

4. NIE's roots can be traced back to the founding of the Teachers' Training College in 1950. It was Singapore's first permanent, full-time training college for English-medium school teachers, and later expanded its training to Chinese, Malay, and Tamil teachers.

1. The College played a key role in our drive to provide every child with a good education, in the early years of our self-government. It allowed us to significantly expand school enrolment, by making a major push to ramp up the number of teachers.

5. In 1973, the Institute of Education replaced the College. With demand for teachers stabilising, the Institute aimed to improve the quality of teacher preparation and enhance the professionalism of Singapore's teaching service, to help bring out every students' full potential.

1. It conducted courses not only for new teachers but also for in-service ones, and undertook pedagogical and education research – enabling teaching practices to be informed by evidence-based research.

6. In 1991, the Institute of Education merged with the College of Physical Education, and became NIE – part of the newly founded Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

1. NIE's establishment in NTU further raised the teaching profession's standards, and allowed NIE to develop rigorous undergraduate and post-graduate programmes, as well as strengthening its research efforts.
2. Indeed, research at NIE has been a key enabler for innovation and reform in the teaching profession over the past decades, helping our educators to identify effective new ways of teaching and learning.
3. So it is apt that NIE's year-long celebration for your 75th anniversary is themed "Charting New Horizons: Beyond 75 Years of Innovation in Teacher Education".

Looking Ahead: Strengthening Singapore's Education System

7. This year, as we also celebrate Singapore's 60th birthday, our society faces new changes and challenges.

1. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are advancing rapidly, the international system is in great flux, our people have more diverse aspirations, and risks of inequality and social stratification, as well as climate change, are keenly felt – to name just a few.

8. We must transform our education system to prepare our next generation well, so that they can overcome the challenges on the road ahead.

1. So I am glad that today's summit is on "The Future of Education and Education Research", and that our distinguished academics are speaking on this important forward-looking topic.
2. Allow me to briefly share some of the directions for educational reforms that we want to take over the next few years, here in our city-state.

9. In today's world, education is not just about learning and preparing to do well in milestone exams, believing that these will unlock entrance to university or job placements.

1. We must equip our children with important skills such as critical thinking, the agility to keep on learning all through life, and communications and empathy skills – that are not so easily replaced by technology.
2. And just as importantly, we must inculcate empathy and the right values – so that our young people care for one another and society as a whole.
3. Our education system must also be broad enough to enable all our young people to develop based on their unique talents and strengths, catering to different learning needs and speeds. We want to give space for our children to love learning and be creative, rather than chasing a narrow definition of academic success.

10. We have made significant moves in these directions over the years – for example, the implementation of Full Subject-Based Banding, removing some primary school exams, and teaching values and life skills through CCAs as well as our Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) curriculum.

1. But as Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said two weeks ago in Parliament, our society has not entirely moved away from seeing education as an academic 'arms race'. Many parents send their children for extra tuition classes and hothousing, and take leave from work to help their children prepare for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).
2. But in fact, we all want our children to develop holistically, with good character and values, a capacity for deep learning, and other non-academic skillsets too, which are equally, if not more important. And we know this excessive fixation on academic results is counterproductive, taking away time for our children to take part in activities that develop them in these other important aspects.

11. So we will do more to move away from this unhealthy dynamic. By studying how to:

1. Reduce the high stakes of exams, while maintaining our children's motivation to learn and to strive,
2. Strengthen character education and social-emotional learning,
3. Amplify our students' diverse strengths, while further strengthening their independent learning and adaptive thinking skills;
4. Provide opportunities for all children, regardless of their educational needs, or their parents' incomes and backgrounds,
5. And allow our children to interact with peers from different backgrounds in all our schools, to prevent societal divides.

12. At the same time, we will transform teaching and learning to prepare our students for the age of AI – so they know how to use technology as a tool, without being overly dependent on it, and continue to learn deeply.

13. These are major moves, and we will work closely with our teachers, researchers, students, parents, and stakeholders to study and develop them carefully.

1. We will need our whole education fraternity on board – including tapping NIE, with your strong research capabilities and ability to connect this to pedagogy in practice.

Supporting Our Educators

14. As we refresh our education system, we must also continue to support our educators.

15. We are fortunate that our founding generation of leaders recognised the importance of teachers and the education fraternity, and made early sustained, long-term investments in teacher development over these decades. We have a high-quality education workforce that we can all be proud of. And we are building on a strong system of continual professional learning for our teachers – both before their service, and throughout their careers.

16. In fact, just yesterday, the OECD released the results from its 2024 edition of the Teaching and Learning International Survey, or TALIS. TALIS provides internationally comparable data for countries to review their policies on developing a high-quality teaching profession and teaching environment. And I am glad that Singapore teachers showed strong results in key areas.

1. For example, the findings show that our Singapore teachers are forward-looking and responsive to educational transformation and change. Teacher adoption of online and hybrid teaching methods, as well as the use of AI at work, is amongst the highest in the world.
2. Teachers also felt valued by society, and well supported in their professional growth. And more teachers reported that they enjoyed working in their schools, compared to the previous TALIS survey back in 2018.
3. Most importantly, our teachers showed high job satisfaction, with over 90% reporting that teaching is meaningful, challenging and satisfying.

17. These findings show that, overall, our teaching profession in Singapore is forward-looking, adaptable, and well-equipped to nurture and develop our students.

18. This strong education fraternity is one that we must continue to grow and tend to. So we must redouble our efforts in the areas we know we have to improve.

1. For example, the TALIS findings remind us that our teachers have a high workload compared to other systems, especially on non-teaching tasks.
2. And while we have made progress in encouraging our teachers to stay in the teaching practice as a life-long career – with sustained low teacher resignation rates of around just 2 to 3% per year from 1995 to 2024 – we must continue to do more.

19. We recognise these issues, and have made moves to better support our teachers, including to manage their administrative workload. For example, some early moves include:

1. Strengthening school administration teams to relieve teachers of their administrative load.
2. We have made AI and other digital tools available to teachers, so that they can complete tasks more quickly. For example, using AI to help draft letters to parents and prepare initial first-cut drafts of students' testimonials.
3. We are also piloting procurement approaches to make it easier for teachers to organise cohort camps and make small value purchases. These will be rolled out to more schools once ready.

20. This is the beginning, and we must do more.

21. MOE and our school leaders will continue to do more to support our educators – for example:

1. Finding more ways to manage your workload, and balance work,
2. Better supporting you to grow professionally,
3. And redoubling our efforts to retain and attract good educators so that we have a strong education fraternity.

Conclusion

22. NIE will play a key role in these efforts. As we transform our education system and continually work to better support our teachers, NIE's research and evidence-based practices will be even more important to help enhance the quality of our teaching and learning, while building our teachers' growth mindsets and professional competencies.

23. So as we look to the future, and chart new horizons for the future of education, let's all work together, to:

1. Strengthen and support our teaching profession;
2. Help our students learn and grow well so they can rise to the opportunities and challenges of this uncertain future;
3. And collectively bring out the best in our students.

24. Congratulations once again. Happy 75th birthday and thank you.