PM Lee on Education

PM Lee: For all Singaporeans, whether you are local-born or whether you're new arrival, education is one of our most important priorities.

We all want to give our children the best start in life.

We already have a very good system of education which gives our kids a strong foundation, esp in maths and science, and makes them effectively bilingual. And when they leave school or college or university, they are competent and employable.

But we can do better. Every child is different.

Every child has his own interest, his own academic inclinations and aptitudes and our aim should be to provide him with a good education that suits him, one which enables him to achieve his potential and built on his strengths and talents.

And talent means talent in many dimensions, not just academic talent but in art, in music, in sports, in creative activities, in physical activities.

And it's a system which must work not just for a few top students, but catering to all our students.

Stretch the brilliant ones, but also help those less academically inclined, and all those in between.

Give each one a tailored and holistic upbringing. So you get academic education, moral education, physical, art, and a sense of belonging and identity.

We aimed to build a mountain range with many tall peaks but with a high base, not just a single pinnacle where everybody is trying to scramble up one single peak. And we're realising this vision.

All our schools are well equipped with modern facilities, well staffed with good teachers, each one with its own specialties, whether it's in arts or the band or uniformed groups or sports, so that in any neighbourhood school a student can find subjects, enrichment programmes and CCAs which will excite him, opportunities to travel to overseas on exchange trips or study visits and a learning environment that will enable him to grow and do his best.

Let me show you a few examples. of the interesting things which our schools are doing. I've taken them from schools all over Singapore.

There are art activities, there are music activities, there are dance activities, there are adventure activities, science, a whole range of things done in many schools all over Singapore.

The first one is art.

The first group is art,.These girls are not doing graffiti. They are drawing a wall mural which they have designed, which is quite beautiful. Kids also get a chance to practice batik painting.

This boy is obviously very pleased with his creation. And they also do art in other unusual forms For eg, foral displays. This Naval Base Sec School, they had a floral club and they participated in the Singapore Garden Festival which was held recently.

They put in an entry. Here you see the girls putting it together. And they won a 3rd prize.

In music we have unusual activities too.

This one is a fusion orchestra or called the Nusantara Orchestra at Siglap Secondary School.

The teacher responsible travels around Indonesia to find the right instruments to fit into the orchestra.

And they've got the Anklong here, they've got the gamelan instruments here which are called Bonang and Kulintang.

And then you have the bells and some Western instruments as well. And all these in Siglap Sec Sch.

Primary schools start early.

This primary school is performing "Mulan" adapted from the Disney musical. They can almost go to Broadway.

In dance, you see hip-hop, which I am told in this school doubles as a PE lesson. Or cross-cultural dance.

This group was good, so they went to Hong Kong Disneyland and performed there. Or traditional Balinese dance.

In Bali, Bukit Panjang government High. This is for students on the Imas programme, the immersion programme for Malay language, and they went to Bali and they're learning Balinese dance.

The NCC does exciting things.

It's not just carrying a rifle around marching and square bashing.

This is not the Singapore Zoo. It's Rajasthan desert in India. and they are going camel tracking. And every year we have an expedition because we have an exchange programme with the Indian cadets.

In science, our students do lab work. These girls are doing DNA profiling as part of Life Sciences.

They make robots.

This is primary school children.

If you look at the pieces you will not know what they are trying to do but it's meant to be a robot which can pick up a ping pong ball, follow a black line, climb obstacles and then deposit the ping pong ball somewhere and win some kind of robotic championship.

And you can see the robot going through its paces. So these are mostly neighbourhood schools which I've picked from all over Singapore doing good work.

not just doing extra-curricular or co-curricular work.

They are paying attention to the academic studies too.

And one of their principals said to me, I asked him what can I tell Singaporeans about you and your school, he says:

"Give us a chance to show what we can do for your children, because not everybody knows that the schools are doing this kind of work, that in every school, you have caring teachers, you have nurturing environment, and you have the chance to do well and be your best."

But being Singaporean we're never satisfied and we must still do better.

What can we do?

In the primary schools, I think we should do more to nurture the whole child, develop their physical robustness, enhance their creative, shape their personal and cultural and social identity so that they are fit, they are confident, they are imaginative, and they know who they are - I am a Singaporean.

We will maintain our strengths in maths and science, but we need to strengthen "soft skills" like oral expression, like presentation skills, so that we can raise their language proficiency and confidence, so they can speak up whether it's English or mother tongue, but give a good account of themselves.

We need to pay more attention to PE, to art and music and get teachers who are qualified to teach PE and art and music.

So we will continue to improve the teacher-student ratios, train more, recruit more, train more specialists and make sure that they get a good foundation in primary school.

At the end of primary school there's a big examination called the PSLE. Everybody knows about it.

In many cases the parents take the exam together with the kids.

I think it's right that the students take exams seriously and the PSLE seriously because it's a basis for how you're admitted into secondary schools and it's a fair and meritocratic system but I think we should also see exams in perspective.

Whether it's the PSLE, whether it's the 'O' Levels, whether it's the 'A' Levels, an exam is not meant to be a do or die test, it will not determine the whole future of your child.

If you do well, that's good, if you didn't do quite as well as you expected, there will be opportunities later to do better and to prove yourself again.

And in the PSLE you may or may not get into the particular school which you choose or hanker for but if you can't get into that one, there will be other good choices for you and may good choices.

So if you do less well in PSLE than you expect, than you hope, there will be opportunities later to catch up, to prove yourself and to enter competitive programmes later on.

That's how we designed our system, that's what we are going to make happen and already does exist to some extent. It's not easy to convince parents. I've met parents who come to see me and they particularly want to go to one school.

So I said, "But...", you know, in Ang Mo Kio we have quite a number, so I named them a few which I commend to them and they look at me and say, "Please, please write for me."

So I will try but I can't write for all of my residents and if I could write for all of my residents, MOE couldn't say yes to all of my requests.

So I think we have to see it in perspective and we should not put so much pressure on our kids which can be counter-productive.

But we can do things to lighten this pressure and to give people more good choices at secondary school.

So we will widen the range of options.

The most popular schools, the most popular programmes, the most popular programmes we can replicate and bring to more schools so that you don't have to go to School A in order to take Programme A. You can have Programme A in many different places.

Like the Integrated Programme, the IP, we are going to expand the IP. What is the IP? It's the through train, so students who go on to the IP from Sec 1, they go through to JC and then they take 'A' Levels but they skip the 'O' Levels.

If you are confident of making it to university, that's a good choice.

And we've been doing this for three years now, the results are good, we've got 11 schools doing this and we are going to expand the IP programme to six more schools in Singapore, seven more schools, add one.

And I hope that will allow more good students to choose this option and get into an IP programme.

And the way we are going to do it, this new seven schools are going to have dual track. So if you get into the school, you didn't get into the IP programme but you may still get into the school, you have a chance later on.

So later on, if you do well in Sec 1 or Sec 2 you can get into the IP programme and then proceed from there.

So the PSLE doesn't matter quite so much. I think that will give more choices to many Singaporeans.

We will also enhance the secondary education for the academically less-inclined students.

Normal Tech students often prefer an ITE approach, the way they are taught in the ITE.

So we've tried out to enhance the NT programme in several schools, it's worked well and we will learn the lessons from this and we will apply them across the board in NT's courses in Singapore so that when you go to the NT, Normal Tech, that's also a good option for you because we will prepare you well to go to ITE.

It'll be more practice oriented, industrial attachments and so on.

We started two special schools for the kids who fail PSLE, couldn't get into NT.

NorthLight and Assumption Pathway caters to a small number of students and they have a special mission and a very practical approach.

NorthLight has a guiding principle. I visited them. These are students who fail PSLE. The schools find it very hard to accommodate them.

They have lost confidence in themselves.

But NorthLight principle is: Every student is a star who can shine as brightly as any others.

And so the facilities and the curriculum are geared to help the students do well, like this programme where they are being taught culinary skills in a kitchen and the students gain confidence, they enjoy going to school, they respond.

And one of them said, and I quote: "I'm not Superman but I would be more than a bird or even a plane."

That's not bad.

And the key success factor getting him to that point is to have the teachers with the passion and the training who would build their self-esteem, their resilience and their social skills, emotional skills and get them to want to improve themselves.

So learning from NorthLight and Assumption Pathway we will set up two more specialised schools for Normal Tech students. So we have a broad range of options for a broad range of kids.