Chairman, I beg to move, "That the total sum to be allocated for Head K of the Estimates be reduced by $100".

Sir, truth be told, many of us have been sufficiently warned about the current VUCA age. We heard the mantra: "disruptions are occurring at breakneck pace and if we do not retool, reskill ourselves, the likes of Ubers, Grabs, AirBnB, TripAdvsors, Alibabas will soon be eating our lunch!"

Sir, I urge MOE to assemble a team of external and internal parties to take a deeper look at how schools for the future ought to look like; how different they are from schools of today. What kind of future schools will support the future economy and the SG100 nation we want to build? Let me go through some recent observations in this space.

The World Economic Forum, in a paper on the future of jobs, had called for a rethinking of education systems. The paper cited that most existing education systems provide highly silo-ed training, featured by a number of 20th century mind-sets and practices that hinder the progress of today's talent and workforces.

Two such legacy issues burden formal education systems worldwide: one, the traditional dichotomy between Humanities and Sciences and also the dichotomy between applied and pure training; and two, the prestige premium traditionally attached to tertiary-certified forms of education versus say, skills mastery of other forms.

There is the urgent need also to incentivise lifelong learning. Because of the declining population of the young in countries, simply equipping the young better in schools is not enough. The report says, "Ageing countries would not just need lifelong learning. They will need wholesale reskilling of existing workforces throughout their lifecycle." Schools for the future must surely be Schools FOR Life.

Single-skillset jobs are also on the decline, they say. This means that many jobs that require only mathematical, including computational, skills would be automated. A coder's job too can be replaced. Similarly, jobs that require only predominantly generic social skills would not be paid well since the supply of this pool is usually large. Schools for the future must thus try to develop students who can successfully combine mathematical and critical soft skills.

Next, on learn-ability or learn-agility. That is the essence of good future education. This is confirmed by workforce consultants such as Manpower Inc and Centre for Creative Leadership. When new skills are identified as fast as other skills become extinct, the ticket to stay relevant is one's learnability and that is the willingness, capacity and capability to learn. How do schools for the future promote and model learn-ability? One way, as some experts pointed out, is for the student of the future to be constantly be exposed to and try new experiences, including unfamiliar subjects in school.

School OF Life. But technical competencies are not the only deliverables of education, now or future. More so, the future education system needs to deliver students who are not frustrated or surprised by changes; students who in the face of change and failures, pick themselves up quickly and prepare themselves yet again; students who in the midst of changes retain an anchor and heed a compass that will help them retain their humanity, their loyalty and goodness. We need students with character who will do good even when no one is watching; clean up after themselves and be comfortable in interacting on a daily basis with persons who are of different races, religions and abilities. A School OF Life, so to speak.

I would like to speak about the school that Mr Jack Ma is Building. I recently came across the concept of the "East-West Private School" that Mr Jack Ma, billionaire-founder of Alibaba, is intending to build. In the Chinese website describing this school called Yun-Gu, named after Mr Jack Ma himself, Ma Yun, I learnt of the several features advertised to attract top-notch families, local and foreign, to sign up their children. With the mission to raise every child to be the best version of himself, Mr Jack Ma said that the unique features are as follows: that it will be a 15-year school syllabi covering, from pre-school up to high school. There will be an open, sharing, green smart-campus with a strong foundation in technology, using big data, cloud computing and the works. There will be a curriculum based on bilingualism, porosity amongst school, society and nature, strong STEM focus, physical wellness and life skills, and an appreciation for the arts. And there will be individualised education plans and schedules developed with students and by students as well based on their learning ability and their areas of passion.

I was initially excited when I read about this school that Mr Jack Ma intends to build, until I analysed it more carefully. You see, the school that Mr Jack Ma intends to build is meant for 3,000 young people; a staff-student ratio of 1 to 5; with a strict entrance assessment. It is not a school built for a nation. But our Singapore Government is different. We are not a company and it is formed for the purpose of meeting the needs of every citizen, not only those who can afford private education. Hence, I am convinced that if Singapore put our heart to it, we will be able to build even stronger schools for the future than Mr Jack Ma.

Our Ministry of Education (MOE) starts from a position of strength. Our definition of education, for instance, has expanded to more than the traditional limits of age through the SkillsFuture initiative. We are still a long way, of course, to creating a nation of learners who do not just carry an L-Plate but we need to cherry Triple L-plates; which stands for Life Long Learners − Triple L.

There is much to reflect and rethink about Schools for the Future for Singapore. What would the future literacy curricula cover? Who would we be educating in the schools for the future? How would content be delivered and by whom? How do we promote innovation and learnability? How do we assess learning outcomes? What are the roles, the competencies and contributions of the partners of our schools for the future − the educators, employers and the families?

Sir, education cannot be business as usual. We cannot afford to ignore sacred cows we reared − the high-stake exams, the direct admission system, the over-reliance on tuition. We cannot tweak it a little here and there. We need to dare, we need to imagine, we need to innovate. We need an Industry Transformation Map that includes the MOE professionals and partners. We need to build schools poised for the future. I therefore urge MOE again to assemble a team to review, to reflect and report on how ready our education institutions are indeed for the future.