Education Masterplan for the Future

Sir, I rise to support the Motion. I want to make a call for an Education Masterplan for the Future – a masterplan to be jointly developed by Government and other key stakeholder groups; a masterplan to span over the life stages of a learner, from cradle to the third age; and a masterplan to be reviewed every three years.

I have five key reasons for making this call: one, we need to urgently respond to the rapid rise in global changes and disruptions; two, we need to broaden the definition of education; three, we cannot afford to ignore the elephants in the current education system; four, no one knows it all; and five, no one can do it all.

Reason one: response to the rapid rise in global changes and disruptions. Sir, the kind of changes and disruptions we are seeing today are never like before. The world's largest movie supplier owns no cinemas – that is Netflix. One of the world's largest accommodation providers owns no physical real estate – that is Airbnb. Even the beggars in some countries such as China are tapping on technology to collect monies – cashless.

As former Google Senior Vice President Rosenberg puts it, "… the world is changing so fast across every industry and endeavour, that it is a given that the role for which you are hiring is going to change."

No one knows for certain what the jobs of the future will be, but we know that progressive employers are looking for candidates who have high learning agility, candidates who learn on their own, candidates who are comfortable in moving out of comfort zones.

The MOE team had been working hard to update Singapore's education system. Over the years, we have heard of separate reviews in early childhood, special schools, Primary schools, Secondary schools, ITEs, Polytechnics, Universities and in the adult learning space as well.

With the world changing so exponentially, we will need a more consolidated and holistic education masterplan for the future. We need an education masterplan that is not as disjointed and that can articulate the overall vision, the values, the principles, the learning approaches and the roles of different partners; a plan to develop self-motivated learners from young to old, holistically with a strong passion for learning, comfortable with discomfort and even disruptions; who are not slaves and consumers of technology but masters and even creators of technology.

Reason two: our need to broaden the definition of education. Let me now turn to the need for Singapore to broaden the definition of education.

Many of our education initiatives were made with the purpose of ensuring that as many Singaporeans as possible can be economically deployed. Nothing wrong with that; after all, a vibrant economy and full employment pay the bills and fund the public services including helping our poor. But the future of Singapore is more than just the future state of its economy and its workforce.

A good education must surely lead to a good life, a better life for the people; a better life that is more than holding down a good job and attaining financial wellness. It should not have to take a WHO study to inform us that a better life must also include physical wellness, socio-emotional wellness, passion for learning and the important component of service to others.

To what extent has our existing education system led us to a better life? Have the schooled amongst us learnt and adopted healthy lifestyles after we leave school? Have we learnt to build strong personal relationships? Have we, young and older, developed a love for learning and taken responsibility for our own learning? Have we regularly given time and efforts for people and causes beyond ourselves?

What kind of education, for what kind of society? Intellects like John Abbott from the 21st Century Learning Initiative, lamented on what he felt was the sad state of the British education system. In his writing, "Battling for the Soul of Education", John Abott asked the pertinent question of "What kind of education for what kind of world?". He issued a clarion call for an education to prepare the young "for the kind of adult life which society values and which society wishes to perpetuate."

He said, "Develop the young to be "thinkers able to take responsibility for their own actions, and willing to accept responsibility for working for the common good. Re-imagine society first; and then the education system."

Hence, an education masterplan for the future must convey and communicate the definition of a good education that reflects the kind of society we want.

Next, Sir, I want to talk about the elephants in the room – the obvious difficulties in our system that people often do not wish to talk about.

The elevation of one's place in life as an outcome of one's better endowed and ambitious parents; as a result of one's academic abilities; as a result of other abilities that is not due to class privilege – they are all outcomes of Singapore's success story. "Parentocracy", meritocracy and the resulting inequalities are all developments that have come under criticism in recent times.

The Straits Times' Chua Mui Hoong pointed out in her book, "Singapore Disrupted" that "Singapore's academic-based system of meritocracy needs to evolve." Already, she said, "Many critics have pointed to the limits of Singapore's competitive examination-based academic meritocracy, which has bred a generation of hyper-competitive students who try to top examinations… to secure a place in that cherished school or to win that prestigious scholarship", she said.

Indeed, we continue to be a "tuition nation".

The findings of a recent Mediacorp Channel 8 Education Survey of 1,200 respondents is cause for concern. It was reported that more children are enrolling in more tuition as they rise through the school levels, spending even longer hours in tuition at the Secondary level. Tuition is no longer only about providing support to those who are performing badly. Seventy-two percent of parents surveyed will send their children for tuition do so when their children are already performing well in school. It is a way to, as they say, "hack the examinations".

Sir, examinations, tests and academic rigour are by themselves not evil. But there is an underlying layer of fear in our system of high-stakes examinations that is killing us softly – the fear of failing; the fear of not doing well enough; the fear of not being able to get into the next school of our choice; the fear of what it looks on our resume; and even the fear of what else we should chase if we are not chasing these marks.

Sir, we cannot go on helplessly accepting this as our lot. Joy and this brand of unhealthy fear should not co-exist. Fear strips away the joy of learning; fear distracts us from the real "why" of learning. We are the victims of our own success. It is up to us, the people of Singapore, to craft a new narrative.

We cannot continue to tweak the edges of the current education system. More of us have to stand up to seek and articulate a more compelling, a more hopeful vision versus this relatively uninspiring and utilitarian state of learning.

We need to not just think out of the box; we may need to get rid of the box to confront some of these elephants in the room.

Reason four: no one knows it all. Sir, the fourth reason why I asked for a joint development of a masterplan on the Education for the Future is this. No one, nobody, not even MOE has the monopoly of wisdom and perspective to get it right. Things are complicated – we have to unpack them so that we can move ahead with clarity and courage. No one knows it all.

Like me, I am sure many of you have lost count of how many new topics MOE has been asked to add to its curriculum.

Today, you will hear from us, parliamentarians a host of what should be added – digital skills, life skills, financial literacy, art and music, sports, Asian literacy and, of course, not forgetting new economy literacy topics like coding, computational thinking, data analytics and so forth. Minister Chan Chun Sing himself joined the chorus last week when he implored the Public Service to acquire four sets of new skills – digital skills, design thinking skills, systems skills and ability to collaborate across society.

The World Economic Forum listed 10 skills to survive what is now called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and named complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and cognitive flexibility, amongst them. Those were only the Whats to cover.

What about the Hows to deliver? Experts visualise a picture of more personalized learning driven by a more individual self-paced curriculum; lesser physical campuses, project and problem-based learnings; teachers as guides, curators of content and learning designers; and social and emotional skills.

We are not done. who should education be targeted at? Everyone – from babies to youths to working adults to seniors; and not forgetting those of us who learn differently and those of us who are at risk of being left behind – the disadvantaged and persons with special needs.

The world of lifelong education is complicated and no one knows it all. And this is the reason why we need an overall education masterplan for the future to collect the dots, to join the dots so that it makes sense for everyone; so that we know where are heading; and what each of us have to do.

Reason five: no one can do it all. Finally, Sir, if the purpose of education is to lead to a better holistic life for all Singaporeans, then education is everybody's business, and the Government must involve and partner the rest of society in conceiving and delivering a good education for all.

Families with younger children must take our place and decide that enough is enough – we will not live in fear; we will not succumb to the excesses of a tuition nation. Families must not simply outsource the raising of our children, building of character and life skills in their children to domestic helpers, schools and vendors.

Educators in schools must do their part to be relevant and updated. They must themselves be self-driven learners and become better designers of learning experiences; curators of content; and coaches to instill life skills, such as problem solving, teamwork and social resilience in partnership with care-givers and students themselves.

Community must provide opportunities and trainings to ensure purposeful and fruitful internships and service learning assignments.

Adult learners need to rise to the challenge of being personally responsible for our own learning, not just dependent on the Skills Future Credit or the courses that have been created for us.

Employers and industry captains must be active in honing skills mastery and hire for skills, and stop using paper qualifications and academic scores as proxies for hiring criteria. 

The Government must be the systems integrator to harness the energies of all key stakeholders; to apply design and systems thinking skills to facilitate the crafting of an integrated and dynamic education masterplan.

There are and there will be no single brilliant strategist; and no magic silver bullet to craft an education for the future. No one knows it all. We must all come together and craft and support an education masterplan that is uniquely Singapore.

In conclusion, Sir, Singapore has always prided itself in being one of the top ranked education systems in this world. But I fear this is one of the key factors why we often resort to just tweaking the system, instead of making bolder moves – for fear of changing a system that earned us so much prestige. But let us learn something from the World Cup series that is going on now. Many of us have watched – I do not watch football much but my husband updates me a lot on this and he watches with his friends, in disbelief and dismay how prestigious favourite teams such as Germany, Brazil, Argentina and Spain have all been eliminated. We are reminded that past success is no guarantee of current or future success.

Hence, I call again for the joint development of an Education Master Plan for the Future – to consolidate all that we have done across the life stages of learners; to retain the best and boldly slaughter the sacred cows which serve us no longer.

Singapore should chart our own path of significance, not just success, in education; march to the beats of our own hearts and drum; and take the path less travelled if that is the one we need. Sir, I support the Motion.