Madam, the education landscape in Singapore has for the last 10 years undergone many positive changes.  Please let me share my observations and recommendations in several focus areas.

First, on vision and outcomes of education.  Howard Gardner, renowned and respected professor of cognition and education, is famous for his theory of Multiple Intelligences which has led to the sprouting of institutions such as the School of the Arts, Singapore Sports School and the likes in Singapore.

In his latest classic, Five Minds for the Future, Gardner identified five kinds of minds or ways of thinking and acting that he believes fetch the highest premium in a future-oriented education. Three of these are related to intellect: (1) the disciplined mind which deals with the content of specific disciplines; (2) the synthesising mind which draws knowledge from different disciplines to solve problems; and (3) the creative mind which is of even more strategic value now in the future of Singapore.  Two others emphasise the respectful mind and the ethical mind.

Madam, the respectful and the ethical minds are the two minds that Gardner, in his speeches, often stressed are very important – quoting the unethical use of the intellect that led to the conception of irresponsible financial products causing the last financial crisis.

Madam, both respect and being ethical should be inculcated in the daily course of life, both in schools and at home, and are best learned by example. Ignoring this will risk our education system producing super skilled and super creative financial wizards developing seductive financial products that may lead to another financial crisis.

My question to the Minister is: how would the Ministry's desired outcomes of education reflect these future-oriented minds and skills and a balance of both intellect and character; and how these might be reflected in some milestones and KPIs for the Ministry?

Next on tuition.  Madam, I continue to be concerned over the tuition syndrome and the way our students are assessed primarily through academic results and the overbearing stress of the high-stake national examination years. Last Saturday alone, I counted 177 advertisements offering tuition services. This examination preparation stress, especially for those who missed out on the Integrated Programme train, is unlikely to create a love for learning, much less life-long learning.

Madam, there is an alternate vision that we can paint for a future education system in Singapore.  We can incorporate the strengths of our Singapore system with that of other respected education systems.  One such system is Finland.  The skills of Finnish students are among the best in all the domains assessed in PISA surveys of years 2000, 2003 and 2006.  The uniformity of students' performance is a special forte in Finland. The differences between the strongest and the weakest results are amongst the smallest when all the OECD countries are compared.  Differences in Finland and differences between schools and regions are remarkably small, unlike our elite and non-elite school landscape.  Although formal school age is seven, because most Finnish women work, there are good quality universal day care that prepare the children for a rigorous system when they start studying at seven.  Education is compulsory and free in Finland.

Children with special needs, including those with intellectual disabilities, are integrated into regular education.  There is a constant but very supportive evaluation of learning outcomes of students and schools. The aim of assessment in the Finland education system is to produce information that will help schools and students to develop.  In Finland, there are no national tests of learning outcomes and no national school league tables.  Pupils and schools are not compared to each other.  Learning takes place in a fear-free environment in which creativity and risk-taking are encouraged.  Although teachers assess their students regularly, they do not need to teach to the test nor focus on annual tests or examinations.  And lastly, the teaching profession is very popular and respected in Finland and the salaries of teachers are average. Only less than 10% of people who apply to be teachers are accepted.

Lest we start beating ourselves up and not giving credit for all the great work that MOE has done, let me add that the Finnish education system is more than 40 years old and shaped very much by their history.  All I am asking the Minister is an open mind and more public engagement for a future education vision and how we might adapt some of the best practices of successful systems without losing what we have done well.

Madam, many of the current KPIs in MOE are still largely measured by not just how many but how well students pass national high-stake examinations, the scores being the passport to an elite school and upward social mobility.  I submit that these KPIs are not sufficient to reflect our desired outcomes of education, current or future, and ask that they be reviewed. This is my second time appealing to the Ministry on this topic.

Madam, on the topic of students with special needs, I am happy to note that significant progress has been made in the last seven years in supporting special needs students, both in mainstream schools and special schools . Once never a feature in public schools, Allied Educators, or special needs officers, are now available in almost every primary school and some secondary schools in mainstream.  Within this special school system, MOE has been very considerate in their financial sponsorships and the prototyping of vocational training in schools like Delta Senior School and Metta School.

The latest successful prototype that was championed by both the special schools and MOE is in integrated education and takes the form of satellite schools.  And I am most pleased and most grateful and appreciative of especially the MOE officers and mainstream schools such as Chong Boon Secondary School, Townsville Primary School and Bishan Park Secondary School who allowed the setting up of satellite classes within their mainstream schools.  By doing so, special needs students from Pathlight, for example, integrate physically, socially and, where appropriate, academically with the mainstream students in these schools.  Kudos to MOE and all these schools for persevering in this significant development!

Madam, in the support and inclusion of special-needs students in Singapore, I seek the Minister's consideration in the following:

(1) In the mainstream school sector, I ask that every secondary school and tertiary institutions such as the ITE, Polytechnics and Universities, be staffed with minimum one Allied Educator or Psychologist to support those students with special needs.

(2) In the special schools, I ask for more than financial help.  Specifically, I ask the Minister to consider setting up an Institute for Special Education, if the Minister does not intend to slay the sacred cow of the Many Helping Hands in running special schools.  Repeat the success of ITE in an ISE – Institute for Special Education.  Charities can still provide the disability expertise and fund-raising for special items, especially in transition services.  Provide equal access to core curriculum support to the special schools that are operated by VWOs, especially for vocational courses. Officially appoint schools like ITE and WDA as the vocational course consultants to all special schools so that all of these graduands can be more employable and have a better prognosis in life when they exit.   Let every special-needs child remain in the special school system until age 21 but insist that a Robust Transition Plan be set up so that the family can take over responsibility.

And last, I ask the MOE be the sector administrator for special education to further take its place and streamline processes relating to the multiple reporting, programme evaluation systems, audits and funding agencies.  This is the fourth year I am asking for this.

Productivity and innovation.  Madam, I would ask for three specific areas for inclusion as part of MOE's Innovation Portfolio:

(1) Develop a Learning Roadmap for family caregivers to include modules on both academics and values. Provide free training to families so that they can address part of the tuition problem and engage them in modelling desired values to their own children.

(2) Seriously consider uploading quality lectures and developing online interactive lessons for nation-wide access by teachers and students in all the schools.  Scale it so that every school has access. Before the Minister says no to me again, why not take some time to go into website www.academicearth.org to sample the free online lectures from Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Berkeley, Yale, NYU, and so forth. If we can get some excellent basic lectures online for the few hundred schools we have, there will be greater productivity and more consistent quality of teaching of the core concepts.  Microsoft chief, Bill Gates, raved about the potential of this form of learning in his Annual Letter of 2010.

(3) In the area of teacher recruitment where the main tool seems to be an attractive starting salary, I urge MOE to study the successful model of the non-profit "Teach for America" (TFA) programme. TFA successfully enlists talented young leaders to commit to address the problem of education by committing two years of their lives to teach in the United States' highest-need schools.  If we adapt this programme to our local context, this can be a short-term response to our teacher shortage while serving as a force to engage and root our best young people in Singapore.