MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

The main emphasis in education is to improve the quality of teachers, teaching methods, and teaching curriculum.

Bilingual Education

The second language will be better taught through improved methods, by teachers specially trained to teach the mother tongue as a second language in English schools, and English as a second language in non-English schools. More time is being devoted to this. All teachers will eventually have to be bilingual.

Curriculum Development

Educational research and curriculum development will lead to a continuous re-evaluation and revision of curricula so that what is taught is relevant to the changing social and economic needs of the nation.

An Educational Media Service will be established to use the latest in teaching techniques and teaching aids.

The teaching of subjects will be more related and integrated to avoid compartmentalisation of knowledge.

More time for extra-curricular activities will be given, by reducing the classroom workload. The stress on extracurricular activities will be encouraged especially in the cadet and other uniformed groups. They will be made more interesting by more varied activities like attachment to Singapore Armed Forces and Police Units on exercises, and training camps during end of year holidays. School Bands should improve with the return of several music teachers who have graduated from music academies in Britain and Australia.

Civics will be taught to foster social discipline and national identity, to develop in the students an appreciation of moral and cultural values, rather than learning, sometimes by rote, for scoring marks in examinations.

Technical Education

Secondary school curriculum will have a technical bias. The aim is to provide a technically-inclined school-leaver, with sufficient grounding in the theoretical and practical aspects of technical education, to better pursue either higher technical education or skilled technical/vocational careers.

Teacher-Training

The professional skills of both teachers and teacher-trainers will be improved. Teacher-training courses will be restructured. There will be more refresher courses to enable serving teachers to improve their teaching techniques and capabilities. There will be more opportunities for teachers who wish to improve their academic and professional qualifications locally or abroad on full pay or no pay leave as is appropriate in each case.

Staffing

As more qualified teachers become available, the teacher-student ratio will improve, reducing the number of students per class to provide more individual attention for each student.

The Ministry will recruit more suitable graduate teachers, particularly for subjects in which the shortage of teachers is acute. The ratio of graduate to non-graduate teachers will be improved in secondary schools.

Under the Restructured Education Service outstanding teachers will get rapid promotion. There will be more effective deployment of talent by considering individual aptitudes and interests of teachers when making postings.

Educative Travel

Students and teachers will be given greater opportunities for educative travel to neighbouring countries through grants from the Education Fund.

School Building Programme

More and better-designed schools will be built in the new satellite towns and large housing estates. This will relieve the present shortage caused by the mass shifts in population to these areas in the last few years.

To encourage public participation in educational development more generous assistance will be given for the establishment of new aided schools.

With more school buildings, the system of two intakes of Primary I children a year, at present available only in the Chinese stream, will be extended. More secondary schools will revert to single session.

Several more junior colleges, both government and government-aided, are being built. They will provide more students with centralised pre-university education along the lines of the National Junior College.

Tertiary Education

The development and expansion of our tertiary institutions are proceeding as planned. The University of Singapore will complete the first phase of the development of its new Kent Ridge campus by 1975. Nanyang University is drawing up plans for their physical and academic improvement. The Singapore Polytechnic will completely move to its new campus at Dover Road. It will eventually expand to cater for 8,000 students. The Ngee Ann Technical College will develop and expand its facilities eventually to take in 3,000.

Industrial Training

An Industrial Training Board will be established. This Board will co-ordinate and promote all forms of industrial skills training, both in educational institutions and in industry itself.

A comprehensive range of Apprenticeship schemes is being worked out. Legislation to comprehensively regulate all Apprenticeship training will be introduced.

Special attention will be concentrated on the acquisition of precision skills in the manufacturing and engineering sectors. Meanwhile the Ministry will continue to develop vocational training in selected manual and applied arts and service trades.

A system of National Trade Tests will be established to achieve uniform standards in the level of industrial skills attained.

Education for the Handicapped

It is proposed to set up a Special Education Unit to co-ordinate the efforts of the Government and voluntary organisations in vocational rehabilitation for various handicapped groups.

This Unit will help them adjust as much as is possible in their social and economic lives, and to enable them to lead useful lives.

Adult Education

Adult education will be more closely linked with the school system on the one hand, and with industrial training on the other. Adult Education is a continuation of school education for as long as our workers wish to improve themselves, whatever their age in life, whatever their standards.

Emphasis will be on off-the-job training to improve the technical competency of adult workers through part-time courses, special ad hoc courses, and other specialised training.

The Adult Education Board's programme of recreational and enrichment courses will be expanded. They are to encourage the public to spend their leisure in more wholesome pursuits giving them more satisfaction through accomplishing something useful.

Private Schools

In order to safeguard public interest regulations will be introduced for better control of private schools, correspondence schools and kindergartens.