ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR 1ST APRIL, 1997 TO 31ST MARCH, 1998 (Paper Cmd. 2 of 1997)

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Order read for consideration in Committee of Supply [7th Allotted Day].

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Head L (cont.) -

Resumption of Debate on Question [30th July, 1997].

"That the total sum to be allocated for Head L of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100." - [Mr Loh Meng See].

Question again proposed.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minster for Defence (Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam): Sir, thank you, for allowing me to join in this debate. I listened with interest to the speech by Mr Loh Meng See yesterday on university education and I would like to comment on some of the matters which he has raised.

Sir, there are three fundamental issues of particular concern to university education in Singapore today. The first issue affects both NUS and NTU. The second issue concerns tertiary education in general and the third issue affects NUS particularly.

The first issue, Sir, is our objective to develop NUS and NTU as world-class universities to spearhead the development of Singapore as the "Boston of the East". The reasons for this objective have already been explained and I will not go through them again. What we have to consider is how to achieve this objective. Both NUS and NTU have come a long way. Both universities are well-recognised, highly regarded by overseas universities and employers. NUS and NTU graduates do not find it difficult to get good jobs both in Singapore as well as overseas.

To develop NUS and NTU as world-class universities, we have first to decide what makes a university world-class. There will be many views on this subject. However, most academics and the general public will probably take the view that for a university to be world-class, it must have excellence in teaching of both undergraduate and graduate students and excellence in research. Then we ask ourselves: Is the present structure of NUS and NTU appropriate to enable the universities to achieve world-class standards in teaching and research?

Because of our colonial heritage, NUS and NTU are structured largely on the British model where subjects are taught in departments, grouped into faculties which undertake the teaching of both undergraduate and graduate students. There are many advantages to this structure. It allows for flexible deployment of staff and strong identification of the students with the department or the faculty. The disadvantage is that undergraduate teaching may sometimes not receive sufficient attention as professors and lecturers may tend to gravitate towards research and teaching of graduate students.

Another model which has been adopted by some of the best American universities is to have a formal Undergraduate College which will concentrate on undergraduate studies together with Graduate Schools to teach graduate students. The purpose of the Undergraduate College is to focus identification of each year's class with the university rather than the faculty or the department and ensure that teaching of undergraduate students is given the importance it deserves. Of course, the dividing line between the Undergraduate College and the Graduate Schools is not a water tight one. Professors teach in both the Undergraduate College and the Graduate Schools. But a formal Undergraduate College can help to ensure that teaching of undergraduate students is not neglected in favour of research or teaching of graduate students.

Sir, NUS and NTU have been well-served by their present structures. It has brought them recognition and we should not change these structures unless there are compelling reasons. So further thought is necessary before any decision is taken by the two universities.

Sir, the next question is how to foster excellence in research at NUS and NTU. Sir, here, we have a dilemma. One of the fundamental purposes of a university, particularly in a small country like Singapore, must be to train manpower to service the economy and society of a country. This requires the university to educate as large a number of students as possible. But if you want to become a world-class university, what you really want to do is work at the cutting edge of knowledge and this generally means that you want to concentrate not on large numbers of students but on a small number of top quality students and staff and give them the support and opportunities to compete with the best in the world.

Sir, the question is: how to reconcile these two objectives of a world-class university? In the United States, this is done by a division of labour. The United States has a large number of universities. Most of the universities concentrate on basically producing the manpower which is required for the US economy. A very small number of universities try to be the best in their field and to operate at the leading edge of knowledge and these are usually not large universities. But in the case of Singapore, we cannot afford to allow NUS and NTU to concentrate on educating only a small number of students because we only have two universities here. So this is the dilemma.

One solution to the dilemma which has been proposed is NUS and NTU to concentrate on producing the manpower which Singapore needs but to also have a small number of world-class institutes which can be affiliated either to NUS or NTU, or to both universities, and which can tackle problems of importance to Singapore at a level which can compete with the best in the world. Three areas have been suggested for such world-class institutes. First, advanced engineering because engineering is very important to Singapore and we do have in Singapore, some areas of engineering, for example, chemical engineering because of our petrochemical works and electronic engineering when we can really do good work.

Secondly, East Asian Studies because of the importance of East Asia, particularly China to this part of the world and to the future stability to the whole region. We are in a unique position to act as an interface and interpreter of East Asia to the rest of the world and to facilitate East Asian interactions with the West.

Third, molecular and cell biology because we already have an Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in NUS which is of world-class standard and the bio-technology industry could become very important for Singapore. Such world-class institutes will need a lot of resources to set up and to maintain. So we need to be very sure about the areas to be emphasised before we adopt this solution.

Now I come to the second issue, Sir, which concerns tertiary education in Singapore and the issue is student numbers. To put it bluntly, we do not have enough students. This year, NUS and NTU will admit some 9,000 students of which 8,000 students are Singaporeans, 1,000 are foreign students. By the year 2000, that is in three years' time, the Ministry of Trade and Industry has projected that we will need something close to 17,000 graduates a year to service our economy. This is almost double what we can produce today.

How do we get this large number of graduates whom we need to service the Singapore economy? First, we must give every Singapore student as much opportunity as possible to qualify for university study. With continuing improvements in our schools and with better teaching, as outlined by the Minister for Education yesterday, from a cohort of 40,000 to 50,000 students every year, we can with a lot of effort raise the number of Singapore students qualifying for university studies from 8,000 today, possibly to 10,000 students, or hopefully, 11,000 students a year by the year 2000-2001. This is the first step.

The second step is we must increase the number of tertiary level institutions in Singapore. If you have an intake of 15,000-16000 students going to university every year and all of them go only to NUS and NTU, then this means that NUS and NTU will become mega universities with student populations of 30,000-40,000 each. I do not think this is desirable. This will lower the standards of education in the two universities. So this is why, Sir, the development of the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) into a private university concentrating on finance and business courses is very important and timely because this will give us another tertiary institution which can take in university students and increase the overall enrolment of university students in Singapore without making NUS and NTU so large that they become unmanageable.

Finally, Sir, in addition to getting as many of our own students into university as possible, we have to go out to recruit students from overseas. This has to be done with greater focus and with more resources than we have done so far. We have taken the first step by restructuring the university fees structure so that there is one fee for all courses except Medicine and Dentistry and foreign students from next year will pay only 10% more than local students. But this is not enough. We will also need to set up proper admission offices in NUS and NTU which can attract and look after students from Singapore and overseas and they will need accommodation, they will need to be looked after, particularly students who come perhaps from far away regions.

Sir, there is a market for students, just as there is a market for everything else. If you want to get good students, you have to go out and attract them. We are preparing to do this. One example is by having a "need blind" policy of admission which means that we guarantee students both Singapore students as well as foreign students that if you meet our standards for admission to university, we will guarantee that you will have sufficient financial aid to defray the cost of your studies in Singapore. The type of financial aid will depend on the needs of the student as well as on his academic achievements. Very good students will get a full scholarship. Students who are not so good but good enough to get into university will be given a package, perhaps of loans or paid work, some scholarship money but enough in order to pay for the course of his or her study in Singapore.

Sir, you may imagine that when we do all this, students will flock to Singapore. That is not the case. These initiatives have to be advertised and have to be told to students. Otherwise, they will not apply on their own and this requires effort on the part of NUS and NTU. It is not easy but it has got to be done. 12.45 pm

Sir, the third issue which affects NUS particularly is the standing of the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science in NUS. Arts and Science are basic university disciplines. My worry is that if something is not done, I can see in the next few years the professional schools in NUS - Law, Medicine, Engineering, Business - overshadowing the Faculties of Arts and Science, so that eventually you will not get good people teaching Arts and Sciences, and you will not get good students taking these disciplines. Singapore will then lack a very valuable resource, because, first, the Faculties of Arts and Science in NUS produce the teachers for our schools. Secondly, they also provide the means by which we can enrich the whole area of university education, particularly at the undergraduate level.

Sir, let me give you one example. We have been thinking on how to introduce National Education in our schools and also at the tertiary level. How do you teach National Education in a way which is meaningful, interesting and challenging to university students? It is not the same as secondary school students. At university level, you cannot just have one first-year course. Then ask all 7,000-8,000 first-year students to attend the same course in a huge lecture theatre and expect the students to find the course meaningful. It is not possible. It is a big problem.

One way of doing it could be to emulate, eg, what Harvard University has done with its core curriculum. In Harvard, every student has to take 32 courses to graduate. Out of the 32 courses, one-quarter or eight of the courses have to be taken from what Harvard calls its core curriculum. The eight courses are chosen from six fields. These are Foreign Cultures, Historical Studies, Literature and the Arts, Moral Reasoning, Science and Social Analysis. Basically, you take one course from each field, and the other two courses vary. You are allowed some flexibility depending on your major, or what Harvard calls the student's concentration.

Each of the six fields contains a number of courses run by different Professors, and these Professors are not graduate students or Assistant Professors. They are the best in the field, and the senior faculty makes it a point to teach these core courses. In one field, for example, in Foreign Cultures, you may have a dozen courses. So students can choose. Each course has a small number of students, and they are taught at a very high level.

For example, in the Foreign Cultures field, I think Erza Vogel, the author of Japan As Number One, used to teach a course in that field. If you want to learn about Japan, he is an authority. If you want to take a course in science, you can take a course which is run by a Nobel Prize Laureate.

These eminent faculties make it a point to teach these courses at undergraduate level, often at first-year level. This makes the courses meaningful. Each student can attend a course which he or she likes and is interested in, and the course is conducted at a rigorous level. But to do this, you need a good Faculty of Arts and a good Faculty of Science. Otherwise you cannot do it.

It took Harvard about seven years to establish the core curriculum and another four years to actually implement it fully. We need not go as far as Harvard. One way perhaps would be to require all students in NUS, and possibly NTU, during the course of their 3-4 years in the university, to take a minimum of four courses. One course in the history of Singapore, out of a menu of courses which would be available for students to choose. Second, a course in the history, culture or society of one of our neighbours. Third, a course in human relations, because whatever a graduate does after graduation, he or she needs to be able to interact effectively with other people in order to succeed. Finally, a course in expository writing, report writing, so as to make sure that at least every graduate of NUS is able to write grammatically and concisely.

Even with this limited requirement of only four core courses out of the total undergraduate curriculum, it is going to be a big task to mount the courses at a level which university students will find interesting and meaningful. And you cannot do this with Faculties of Arts and Science which are at the bottom of the totem pole in standing and prestige in the university structure.

This is the issue which we have to grapple with - how to build up the Faculties of Arts and Science in NUS so that they can hold their own against the professional schools - Law, Medicine, Engineering and Business. It requires a great deal of thought.

One way perhaps could be to merge the Faculty of Arts with the Faculty of Science, to create a large Faculty of Arts and Sciences, as in Harvard, which with their combined resources can then hold its own against Medicine, Law, Engineering or Business. This, I know, is a major decision. But it may provide the impetus to make Arts and Science the central disciplines in NUS, which should actually be the case for a general university like NUS.

Sir, the issues which I have just outlined, as Members will realise, are very large questions, which have to be thought through. The purpose of my speech this afternoon is not to provide answers to these questions, but to inform Members of the issues so that we can have the benefit of your views.

An International Academic Advisory Panel, comprising eminent academicians from the United States, Europe and Japan will be meeting in Singapore next week under the Chairmanship of Dr Yeo Ning Hong to discuss the issues which I have just outlined. Their recommendations will help us to work out the right approach to tackle these difficult and complex issues of university education in Singapore.

Much obliged, Mr Speaker, Sir.

Mr R. Ravindran (Bukit Timah): ( In Tamil): Sir, the Tamil language is one of the official languages in Singapore. Singapore has the distinction of being the only country outside India where Tamil is an official language.

Sir, our bilingual policy helps to impart mother tongue language skills, moral values and cultural traditions. According to the figures as at 1995, Tamil is studied as a second language by more than 18,000 students. The Government has gone to great lengths to ensure that Tamil language classes are held wherever there are sufficient numbers of students.

However, the noticeable absence of the teaching of the Tamil language in the university has been a cause of concern for the Indian community in Singapore. The cry for the teaching of Tamil at university level has been echoed in this House, at various public forums and through written appeals.

All other official languages are being taught at the tertiary level. There is the Department of Chinese Studies and the Department of Malay Studies in NUS. The irony or what is amazing is that there is a Japanese Studies Department offering Japanese language, and a South East Asian Programme offering Vietnamese and Bahasa Indonesia. Even European languages like French and German are offered in the European Studies Programme. But no department or programme has been introduced to offer Tamil language.

The Indian community has blamed the absence of Tamil language at university level as a cause for the drop in the quality of Tamil teaching, as many local Tamil teachers in Singapore are not graduates. I believe that out of 450 Singapore Tamil teachers, less than 30 are graduates. A vast majority of these Tamil language teachers have no university education in Tamil or other disciplines. Some of these teachers have stated that they are unable to progress in their teaching careers, because of a lack of tertiary qualifications. Are these teachers really qualified to teach Tamil to our secondary and pre-university students?

Many Indian students learn Tamil for 12 years only to stop there as there is no institution offering it at tertiary level. Some undergraduates have complained that they are unable to continue with the learning of the Tamil language at the university.

Sir, when the hon. Member for Kreta Ayer-Tanglin, Mr R. Sinnakaruppan, raised the subject last year, the Senior Minister of State for Education, Dr Aline Wong, stated that sustainability and sufficient numbers of students with entry qualifications as two issues to be studied carefully before a decision is made.

Sir, the number of students taking Tamil as a language has increased over the years. The various efforts of the Government and the community at large have led to an interest in the maintenance and further promotion of Tamil language in Singapore. The pool of future entrants taking the subject at university level should get larger.

In addition, the proposed Tamil language department or programme need not look towards merely training Singaporeans, but could also aim to become a training and research hub for the language in Asia. In addition, the proposed department or programme can offer programmes which are of interest and relevance to non-Indians. With the growing business and trade ties between us and the Indian sub-continent, there is now greater interest in the economics, culture and history of the Indian sub-continent. These subjects can be taught in English for those interested in these areas. The South East Asian Studies Programme and the European Studies Programme are good models to follow for a start.

Sir, the Indian community has waited too long for the introduction of Tamil studies at our university. I would urge the Minister for Education to introduce the teaching of Tamil language at the university as soon possible.

Mr Loh Meng See (Kampong Glam): Sir, my topic is on technical education. The other day, I read with interest a press report on the success of ITE graduates in securing well-paying jobs. The ITE graduates are able to command three to four times the salary of the daily-rated employees employed by the Ministry of the Environment. The salary of the DREs was mentioned by Mr Sinnakaruppan the other day.

I am not at all surprised with this disparity of incomes between the highly skilled and unskilled workers in Singapore. When I was Chairman of the GPC for Health, I often heard doctors lamenting that Singaporeans begrudge paying the doctors their professional fees, but would readily pay even higher fees to the TV repairmen and plumbers.

There is already a severe shortage of highly skilled technicians in Singapore. The service industry will grow in the future. The trend is towards sourcing of work from the homes, offices and factories. There would be a great demand for skilled technicians in the industries and corporations, and even for self-employed persons. This points to the attractive careers ahead for those well equipped with relevant skills, especially ITE graduates.

Sir, it is natural for parents to want to send their children to university for tertiary education. However, it is important to realise that not every child has the academic ability to make it to the university. For some students, they are better suited to take up technical skills training so that they would be able to secure good paying jobs. 1.00 pm

It is important for us to make the parents understand and be aware of the abundant employment opportunities available for students taking up courses in the ITE. About 20% of each year's cohort do not make it to the `O' levels. It is important for the Ministry to retain and channel these students to courses which they have the aptitude for. I think it is better for those doing GCE "N" level (Technical) stream to be channelled straightaway to the ITE courses instead of doing the GCE "O" level, as most of them fail to make the grade. They would then not have to waste their time for they would have achieved nothing if they fail their GCE "O" level. I suggest the ITE consider conducting courses where the students can take the relevant subjects at GCE "O" level examination while at ITE so that they can qualify to enter the polytechnic at a later date if they also possess the ITE certificate. However, for many other ITE graduates, they will have ample job opportunities available for them when they graduate.

Sir, I also wish to emphasise the importance of business literacy even for ITE students. The knowledge acquired in business literacy will put them in good stead when they go out to work or start their own business.

Possibly, the Minister could update the House on the progress made by ITE in recent years and what could we expect from the ITE in contributing to the skills training of young Singaporeans.

Dr Tan Boon Wan (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, I would like to reinforce the comments and views of my GPC Chairman.

Since the Normal (Technical) Stream was introduced some five years ago, the first batch of students should have graduated. I wonder if the Ministry would share with us the performance of the students and whether the course has achieved its objectives. The questions that follow would be: what further training should be provided for them, what should they do? Should they be encouraged to try for their "O" level? On 7th July 1997, the Straits Times carried a story of an ITE student who joined the construction industry and was drawing about $2,500, just after working for two years. If you brush this case as an exception, the average monthly salary of $1,164 with the 2,239 graduates who responded to the latest ITE Graduate Employment Survey is just as inspiring. In addition, the employment rate was a high of 97%. These are very impressive figures. The ITE path looks very promising. Perhaps this is a better path for them. ITE training will provide them with immediately employable skills.

For that matter, should we not also encourage normal academic graduates to take the ITE path? If they do well, they can proceed to the polytechnics. I think we can better answer this question if we know how previous batches of Normal (Academic) graduates have performed at "O" level examinations and thereafter. However, should more Normal stream graduates opt for ITE, do we have enough ITE places to accommodate them?

Mr Hawazi Daipi (Sembawang): ( In Malay): Sir, the emphasis on technical education in Singapore which started after independence has since changed. Today, training and technical education have expanded and our students have more opportunities to obtain technical education and technical skills such as engineering and business studies.

Sir, I believe the benefits of technical education and technical skills will be maximised to our students, if the Institute of Technical Education is not regarded as a place for students who are weak academically. In this respect, the step taken by the Ministry of Education to stream the students to ITE after they have obtained their secondary education is commendable. But it will be more effective if parents and students can accept ITE as a centre that provides technical education for engineering and business studies which are specialised and which provide them with ample opportunities for career prospects with high salaries in the future. Schools have to create awareness among students and parents about the opportunity in technical studies and the career paths for these ITE graduates.

Sir, I am encouraged by the Ministry which published this magazine "I did it my way too" publicising the success of ITE graduates for the past few years. This magazine should not only be given to the students but also to the parents so that the parents could provide guidance to their children about the opportunities in technical education. Sir, I have brought up this issue because I am worried that our students and their parents do not fully maximize this opportunity. It is even sad if our students, when given a place in ITE, do not make full use of the opportunity by putting efforts in their studies and who eventually quit halfway.

Today, the trade unions, working closely with the Government and employers, have opened up opportunities for workers in their 40s were not given the opportunity in education and technical skills when they were young. This effort will ensure that these workers obtain at least NTC-3 or NTC-2. With all the efforts put in, it is sad if our students do not make full use of the opportunity for acquiring technical education and technical skills in ITE. I would like to ask how many of our students in ITE do not complete their education or quit halfway before obtaining their NTC-2 or NTC-3.

Another issue that needs our attention is whether our Normal stream students can do better in ITE. I am referring to those students who did not achieve good results in Secondary 4 (Normal) stream but they continued in Secondary 5 (Normal) and subsequently sat for their GCE "O" level examination. Will the Minister provide a breakdown of the performance of these Normal stream students in their GCE "O" level for the past few years and the number of students who may benefit if they had switched to ITE after Secondary 4 (Normal) and not pursue their Secondary 5 (Normal) education and subsequently their "O" level?

Will the Minister also tell this House the performance of Normal students in their "O" and "A" level examinations? This year, for the first time, students from the Normal (Technical) Stream will sit for their "N" level. Will the Minister explain their performance so far when they started four years back and the opportunities and technical skills that are open to them?

Lastly, I think that technical education will be accepted and seen to be beneficial to students and parents if it could be related to career opportunities in the near future. It will be good if the apprenticeship scheme (about 70 in ITE now) is extended so that parents and students could see the direct implications and benefits that they can receive through technical education and technical skills.

Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed (Cheng San): Before I speak on my topic, I hope you would allow me to congratulate Mr Ravindran for being the first to speak in Tamil in this new term of ours. I think it shows that multi-racialism and multi-lingualism is still very much alive in this House. Rumbe nandri, Mr Ravidran. The last two words in Tamil mean terima kasih or xie xie ni.

Sir, we have just heard from our DPM, Dr Tony Tan, about the challenges of our tertiary education. Now, allow me to speak on the other end of the spectrum, ie, ITE education, an area of growing importance too.

I remember when Dr Ahmad Mattar was appointed Minister in charge of vocational education a long time ago, some Malay community leaders were upset, thinking that it would set the children's mind low on ambition.

Naturally, all parents want their children to aim high, as Mr Loh Meng See just told us too, to go to the university, if possible. Unfortunately, not everyone can, naturally. But nurture we must, to ensure from each his best. The important thing is that we have an education system that optimises every student's full potential, no matter at what level. Thus, Minister RAdm Teo Chee Hean's vision and mission statement about the education policy yesterday is indeed reassuring.

Thus, I was happy to note that the ITE will be spending $9,167 per student. This is more than double the money spent on a secondary education student, which is at $4,805, and three times that of a primary student, which is $3,302. In fact, it is even higher than the subsidy for each polytechnic student at $8,659.

I do hope that the ITE students (and their parents) realise how much the MOE is spending time and money on them. The media has done its part to highlight the ITE success stories and I hope they will continue to motivate them to greater heights.

ITE, too, Sir, has distributed these two books, as shown by Mr Hawazi. "ITE courses for GCE "N" holders" is very attractive. In fact, the opportunities shown inside are very inviting. This other booklet, "I did it my way" is not only very well done, but it reflects some of the success stories. Whether it is Eric Chua, Lilian Chee or Nadarajan or Mohammed Abu Bakar, they all constitute some form of heroes for the ITE students. I hope they will inspire ITE students to even achieve more.

Nevertheless, what is the Ministry doing to ensure that we continue to maximize the potential in the ITE students? What more can MOE do to make them more marketable and relevant? MOE indeed should provide them more opportunities to upgrade their education and skills either through the polytechnic or through other diploma levels of education.

Mr Peh Chin Hua (Jalan Besar): ( In Mandarin): Sir, in Singapore, we are all aware of the importance of bilingualism. Our students put in much effort in learning English and their respective mother tongues. Today, in view of the strong economic growth in the Asia Pacific region, I feel that we should revitalize our bilingual policy. Greater emphasis should be placed on the use of the mother tongue. Following the reform and open door policies of China and the reunification of Hong Kong with China, China has grown rapidly in her economic development. In the past, we thought of learning our mother tongue to preserve our cultural values. Today, the Chinese language has also a strong economic value. The Chinese language will have greater practical value in the Asia Pacific region and will continue to further enhance its importance in the next 10 to 15 years.

Many Singaporeans who have worked overseas have realized the importance of the Chinese language. The young and talented executives from the enterprises, the industrial and commercial fields, as well as the public sector have gone to China to develop their business or to serve in various capacities. These people had put in at least 10 years studying the Chinese language during their school days. Yet, when they come to business dealings, they discover that the amount of Chinese they had acquired was very inadequate for business or official purposes. I understand that many people who have gone overseas or worked overseas had experienced the problem of not being able to handle the Chinese language used in contracts and other legal or business documents. This shows the importance of Chinese. It is not something that can be picked up easily from daily conversations or watching TV and movies. I therefore urge the Ministry of Education to place more emphasis on mother tongue education and encourage the students to learn, read and write more Chinese so that they will be able to use it when necessary.

We should introduce into our curriculum Business Chinese as a subject at either O' level or A' level, for the benefit of those who are interested. We should also emphasise the importance of the Chinese language as a means of communication in business dealings. We cannot leave the Chinese Language as just an examination subject. Communications technology has progressed a lot. Unlike the past, with fascimile, international long-distance calls, Internet, etc., the Chinese language can easily be transmitted electronically to all parts of the world at the touch of the fingers. So in terms of application, Chinese can be used internationally in the same way as English in order to ensure that we can keep abreast of the economic trend and to ensure that our young citizens can go regionalized to China and Hong Kong and other parts of the region. 1.15 pm

Mr S. Iswaran (West Coast): Sir, with your indulgence, may I just start by thanking the Minister for Education for his comprehensive account yesterday of Thinking School and how it brings together the various new initiatives. I know from initial feedback that it has gone a long way in allaying the concerns of parents and teachers.

Sir, I rise now to request that the Minister for Education consider the establishment of an undergraduate programme for South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.

Sir, Singapore has strong historical ties with three major regions of the world. Most Singaporeans would trace their ancestral roots back to East Asia, South-East Asia, and South Asia. Our links with the countries of these regions are deep-rooted, based on rich linguistic, literary, cultural, and even legal heritage.

The economic renaissance of the Asia-Pacific has added a new dimension to this relationship. All three regions offer large markets - ASEAN has a population of 500 million; East Asia, 1.4 billion; South Asia, 1.2 billion. Per capita GDP (with a few notable exceptions) is relatively low, and purchasing power will certainly increase as they catch up with more developed countries.

The three regions also encompass some of the fastest growing economies of the world. The GDP growth rates of ASEAN countries range from 4% to 9%. In East Asia, the rates are between 3% and 9%, and in South Asia, they have varied between 3% and 7%.

Singapore is situated at the heart of these three regions. Our trade and investment links with them are substantial and will grow further in tandem with their progress. It, therefore, makes strategic sense for Singapore and Singaporeans to be well-versed with the culture, traditions, economies, and politics of these regions. It will enable us to contribute to and benefit from their growth.

The NUS Arts and Social Science Faculty already offers programmes in South-East Asian Studies, Malay Studies, Chinese Studies, and Japanese Studies. In addition, we have research institutes such as the Institute of South-East Asian Studies and the East Asian Institute. It is, therefore, surprising that there is no equivalent programme for a comprehensive study of South Asia, although there are individual units in the History, Philosophy, and Political Science departments which students can avail themselves of.

Sir, there is good sense and good case for the establishment of a South Asian Studies Programme. The object would be to give students a good grasp of South Asia - its society, economy and polity. It can integrate existing courses in the various departments into a holistic programme. In addition, the programme could offer courses in South Asian Economy, Tamil Language, and Literature as well. Such a programme should be of interest to all Singaporeans, regardless of race, who have an interest, economic or otherwise, in South Asia. It should, I believe, generate sufficient demand and enrolment to render the programme economically viable. I think an added benefit would be that it would offer Tamil teachers an avenue for them to realise their aspirations of tertiary education.

Sir, I understand that such a course is not offered in any of the universities in the region. The establishment of a South Asian Studies Programme would therefore give our university a comparative advantage in the field.

Sir, I would be grateful if the Minister could consider the idea favourably.

The Minister for Education (RAdm Teo Chee Hean): Thank you, Sir, for allowing me to join in the debate here. I think it would facilitate the debate if I came in from time to time to respond to Members' queries.

The Chairman of the GPC, Mr Loh Meng See, has asked several questions on university education. I think he has received a very comprehensive reply from the Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Tony Tan. I will respond to one or two other issues that Mr Loh has brought up, in particular the Open University Degree Programme (OUDP).

Sir, the OUDP started in 1994 with three initial programmes: the BA in English Language and Literature, the B.Sc. in Mathematics, and the B.Sc. in Computer Science. With the introduction of Economics and Management (Minors) in 1996 and the B.Sc. (Honours) in Technology with Electronics in 1997, the OUDP now offers a total of 10 degree programmes. The OUDP will be launching a new degree programme in psychology next year in January.

The target intake for the OUDP courses has been about 1,000 per year. At a steady state, OUDP enrolment will be about 6,000, because it takes about six years for each OUDP student to graduate. OUDP took in its first batch of 925 students in 1994. The enrolment now stands at 3,931. So it is pretty close to where we want to be, which is about 4,000 students after four years. The actual intake in the last few years has been about 1,000 to 1,200.

The percentage of students who have left the programme in the various cohorts is about 19%. This is a reasonable attrition rate because the OUDP programme is a demanding programme and those who are taking the programme basically are working and studying part-time, and some of them may find some difficulty in balancing the requirements of both work and study.

We expect that even with the reorganisation of the SIM into the third university, we will continue with the OUDP programme and continue to provide opportunities for working adults to take degree courses.

Allow me to move on now to the issue of Tamil studies. Sir, it is not feasible to set up a department focusing on Tamil Language and Literature in the National University of Singapore, with the aim of training Tamil Language teachers at the tertiary level. This issue has been raised by Mr Ravindran this time round. It has also been raised on a number of occasions and over a number of years by Mr Sinnakaruppan. Unfortunately, we have studied it and we found that it is just not feasible. The potential pool of students is too small to sustain such a department. In recent years, only about 40 students who enter the Faculty of Arts and Science in NUS each year have taken Tamil at the A' level, AO' level or `O' level in school. The total intake of such students for all faculties in NUS and NTU is about 130. And of these, only a fraction is likely to take up Tamil Language and Literature as a major. Therefore, we do not think that such a programme on its own will be feasible.

To ensure that the quality of Tamil Language teachers and Tamil education remains high, other measures are in place. Over the last five years, 22 non-graduate Tamil language teachers have been granted study leave to pursue degrees in Tamil language in India. And secondly, the Diploma in Mother Tongue Language education programme was introduced at NIE in July this year to train O' level holders with good mother tongue language grades to become primary school language teachers. These trainees would take courses in mother tongue language and literature to upgrade their language proficiency to a level at least comparable to the A' level, if not higher.

Mr Iswaran has raised the subject of the possibility of setting up some programme in South Asian Studies. I think this programme can serve Singapore's strategic and economic interests in the long term and is an idea worth pursuing. I can see how it can strengthen Singapore's position as a knowledge hub of Asian affairs and an interpreter between East and West. I suppose it is also possible that as we develop such a programme, some element of language training could be a part of the programme and that will go some way towards addressing some of the concerns raised by Mr Sinnakaruppan and Mr Ravindran. We will study this, together with NUS, and I welcome inputs from Mr Sinnakaruppan, Mr Ravindran and Mr Iswaran.

Sir, let me now address two issues that Mr Peh has brought up. Mr Peh asked about scholarships yesterday. We did not have the opportunity to come to that. Mr Peh suggested that we should do away with scholarship bonds in order to make our scholarships more attractive for Singaporeans. Scholarships are under the Public Service Commission. I have asked them for their views on this and they have come back. They said that over the last three years, about 90% of each cohort of `A' level students, who have met PSC's selection requirements for its top overseas scholarships, have applied for PSC scholarships, and 80% of those who were offered such scholarships actually took them up. The PSC has told me that they have no evidence to suggest that those who were offered the scholarships and did not take them up did so because they were attracted by bond-free scholarships from overseas universities.

However, I believe that PSC is mindful that it is important to ensure that our scholarships remain attractive so that good Singapore students will continue to take up these scholarships and join the civil service and be of service to Singapore in general. I will pass along his concerns to the Public Service Commission.

Mr Peh has also just raised the issue of the teaching of mother tongue, Chinese Language in particular, in our schools. He has suggested that we should include Business Chinese in the teaching of Chinese Language in our schools.

Sir, we have, in fact, extended the number of students who can take Higher Chinese in secondary schools. In 1995, in addition to the top 10% band of PSLE pupils who were allowed to take Higher Chinese, we had expanded that to allow the top 11-20% PSLE pupils who were good in both Chinese Language and English Language to offer Higher Chinese at secondary level. So, in fact, the pool of students who are allowed to take Higher Chinese at secondary level has increased, and we have seen the number of students who are taking it up has increased, and we are quite heartened by this. We will continue to monitor the trends.

However, the objective of having Chinese Language in our secondary schools is to improve the Chinese Language proficiency of our students and also to imbue in them desirable Chinese cultural values and traditions. Chinese should not just be an examination-oriented subject, I agree completely with Mr Peh. The language specialists are continually reviewing the materials that the students use to try to make them more lively, more interesting and more relevant.

On the subject of being able to understand what contracts say and so on - I have been educated in English myself, in the first language, for many, many years, I still find considerable difficulty understanding what contracts say. So I am not sure that teaching secondary school students Business Chinese would actually enable them to reach a proficiency level which will be sufficient for them to understand contracts and contractual terms, and so on, which are quite specific and require an understanding of these concepts beyond language. So it may not be a suitable time to teach them Business Chinese. We will concentrate in the schools on giving them a good appreciation of the language and also to transmit traditional values and culture. But I appreciate Mr Peh's point and we will see how we can encourage Business Chinese courses in our tertiary institutions where I think the students will be older and more ready to learn these subjects.

I will ask Mr Peter Chen to address the issues that Members have raised with regard to technical education.

1.30 pm

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Mr Peter Chen): Sir, I should first of all like to thank the four Members who spoke on the issue of technical education. What touched me was that they spoke with a tone of voice which expressed great and sincere concern and care and also a very deep understanding of the parents' natural hope for their children that they will get the best and they will achieve the highest. I am quite touched by their deep understanding of that. But their concerns are all focused on the first batch of 6,800 students in the Normal (Technical) stream who will be completing their Secondary 4 N(T) by the end of this year. I shall return later to Mr Peh Chin Hua's earlier suggestions for a more flexible education system.

Sir, three Members, Mr Loh Meng See, Dr Tan Boon Wan and Mr Hawazi, have all each in his own way advocated that these students should be encouraged to go directly to ITE (Institute of Technical Education) so that they can get some skills before going into the market. They asked, however, whether there are enough places in ITE for these students and how can ITE help those who want to go on further later on in their life and to upgrade themselves.

Mr Zainul Abidin's question is very much to the point. He asks "Going to ITE is all very well, but what are the prospects for ITE graduates?" I am quite glad that Mr Hawazi and Mr Zainul Abidin have also seen the brochures that we have left on the chairs.

Sir, let me say from the outset that my Ministry agrees with the speakers. The Secondary 4 Normal (Technical) students should be encouraged to go directly into ITE.

Dr Tan Boon Wan asked how have the Normal (Technical) students done. From the reports we have seen and heard, they do extremely well with anything that is hands-on. But they struggle a bit on their academic subjects.

Mr Hawazi asked, "We ask parents to send their children to ITE, but is the drop-out rate high there or not?" The answer to that is, last year, the drop-out rate was 15%. That might sound a bit high but I would like to say that, with the new batch of Normal (Technical) students coming in and these students have completed four years of secondary education, we expect that they will do much better. I would expect that the drop-out rate will fall and that is really a challenge for ITE as well as the students.

But we believe, like the four speakers, that these students will get much better value out of a two-year technical education at ITE because, to put very bluntly, no more than a very few of them would expect to be able to get through O' level. Because the O' level is essentially an academic set of subjects. But if you think about it, this is not at all surprising. Those who can make it in the academic stream would already have been identified and transferred out into the academic stream during their Secondary 1 and Secondary 2 years.

Let me also assure the House that ITE has enough enrolment capacity to take them in. ITE has 10 technical institutes with a full-time enrolment capacity of 15,000. It can take in 10,000 full-time students every year. In 1996, its enrolment was 9,900 students comprising 8,200 full-time students and 1,700 students in apprenticeship programmes. Its continuing education and training system offers 100,000 training places to about 60,000 workers a year.

On what help is there for those who wish to upgrade themselves beyond ITE, my answer is "Lots of help.". Our education system is full of "bridges" and "ladders". ITE will provide O' level English and Mathematics programmes for these National Technical Certificate Grade 2 (NTC-2) students, if these students are interested to pursue these two subjects during their studies in ITE. Each programme comprises 200 training hours over a two-year period of their NTC-2 course. To enrol for these two O' level subjects, the students must have passed in the respective subjects at the `N' level.

There are ample opportunities for an ITE graduate to go on to the polytechnics. The most appropriate courses for Normal stream students are the NTC-2 or the Certificate of Office Skills (COS). So these are the two most appropriate courses, NTC-2 and COS. Students who pass the NTC-2 with a Certificate of Merit (COM) can be admitted to the polytechnic.

Within ITE itself, NTC-2 or COS students can also upgrade themselves into two broad higher qualifications. These are the Industrial Technician Certificate (ITC) or the Certificate in Business Studies (CBS). These graduates can enter the polytechnics even without a Certificate of Merit. In 1996, a total of 446 ITE graduates joined full-time courses in the polytechnics. This is an illustration of the bridges and ladders that are in our education system. Some of these 446 ITE graduates did so well in their ITE courses that 85 or 19% of them were admitted to the second year of their polytechnic courses. In other words, these ITE graduates are exempted from the first year of a normal three-year polytechnic course.

The prospects for ITE graduates are excellent. There are two reasons for this. The Singapore economy has a high demand for skilled technicians and workers and the second reason is that ITE has ensured that its courses and training remain highly relevant to the needs of industry. For example, ITE launched three new courses this month. These are the NTC-2 courses in Wafer Fabrication, Broadcasting Operations and a CBS course in Logistics.

But let us get down to the "nitty-gritty" of Mr Zainul Abidin's question. How easily can they find a job and how much do they earn? I think reference has already been made to the survey of ITE graduates. The most recent employment survey was released last month. The survey showed that 97% of those who graduated in 1996 were employed. In fact, 83% received their first job offer within one month and 98% within three months of graduation. The gross mean salary of ITE graduates was $1,164 per month. But those in engineering and technology courses commanded higher starting salaries than those in the business and other courses. ITC graduates earned gross mean salaries of $1,331, with ITC Mechatronics Engineering graduates earning a starting salary of $1,429. NTC-2 graduates earned a gross mean salary of $1,239, with those in NTC-2 Electrical Installation and Servicing graduates earning the highest and they earned $1,406. The graduates in Certificate in Business Studies and Certificate in Business Skills earned gross starting salaries of $1,094 and $984, respectively.

But these are only the average starting salaries. What about the prospects beyond? Similar surveys in the past have shown that salaries of ITE graduates doubled after the first five years of employment with every ITC graduate more than doubling. With a slightly lower base, CBS graduates' salaries also more than doubled in five years.

I want to encourage the 6,800 Normal (Technical) students and others to join the ITE when they leave school this year. I want to reiterate to them the value of a technical education. I want to emphasise the importance of technical education and technical skilled manpower to our economy. Technical skills are needed at all levels, not just university and polytechnic.

ITE is not the vocational training institutes of yesteryears. Recognising its importance, the Government embarked on a programme some five years ago to build ITE into a modern and well-equipped Institute of Technical Education. The programme involves capital expenditure of more than $350 million. In addition to the new ITE Complex at Dover Road, which some of you may have seen, two more new purpose-built complexes at Tampines and Balestier will be ready this year. The rest of the building programme is still going on.

Over the next few months, I invite the students, their parents and MPs to come and see for themselves. I have placed on your seat these brochures which some of you have been waving about, so it is my turn to wave one [indicating]. On your seat also, there is a brochure on the courses available for GCE `N' holders. But I think Mr Hawazi and Mr Zainul Abidin have referred to this document as rather interesting and inspiring because it records the testimonies of several ITE graduates and tells their success stories.

Sir, let me now address the points raised by Mr Peh Chin Hua. My Ministry agrees wholeheartedly with Mr Peh that we should provide our students with opportunities to optimise their potentialities. I said at the beginning that our education system is full of bridges and ladders. Mr Peh offered the suggestion that we abolish the Normal stream Secondary 3 to Secondary 5. I take it that he is referring to the Normal stream (Technical). I do not think he is referring to the elimination of Secondary 3 to Secondary 5 in the Normal stream (Academic) because 80% of these Normal stream (Academic) students do proceed to Secondary 5. Moreover, 75% of them obtained three or more O' levels successfully with 40% of them obtaining five or more O' levels. This is yet another of the bridges and ladders that I referred to in our education system. Stopping the students their normal school education at Secondary 2 cannot be a very good idea.

But those who are less academically inclined are streamed into the Normal (Technical) after their PSLE examinations. There are very good reasons why they should complete a four-year secondary school education. The additional two years in Secondary 3 and Secondary 4 will give them their best chance of obtaining a minimum numeracy and language competency that is needed for the acquisition of technical or office skill of a reasonable level. Industries and offices are already more technology driven today and there will be fewer jobs that will require only the performance of menial tasks in future. For some of these students, it also provides a foundation for an opportunity to further upgrade themselves later in life. I think we owe it to them to provide that foundation. 1.45 pm

Mr Peh suggested that we should have an apprenticeship scheme that we can train students after Sec. 2. At present, ITE already has 1,700 places for apprenticeship schemes, just as Mr Peh has suggested, with students drawing salaries of around $600-$800 a month. The schemes are not very different from the German system which requires a minimum of nine years of education before entry. The German student would also be about 16 years old by the time they begin their apprenticeship. So we do have in place something similar to what Mr Peh has suggested.

The intake for the apprenticeship schemes at ITE will be increased from 1,700 to 2,600 next year. They are in the technical areas, but there are also fashion garment, hairstyling, food and beverage, health care, retailing. The entry requirement is either just completion of GCE `N' level or passes of specified grades depending on the course.

For the majority of students in the Normal (Technical) Stream, they will need all the four years to reach the proficiency level in numeracy and language to cope with the immediate needs of their job, and also to contribute to productivity in their workplace, and what is even more important, to be equipped for further growth.

Of course, in that case, eliminating Sec. 3 and Sec. 4 will not be such a good idea. There will be some students who cannot be persuaded to study beyond Sec. 2, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule. In 1996, only 305 students or 4.6% of the Normal (Technical) Stream left school after Sec. 2. Even for this small group who leaves school after Sec. 2, there are already three vocational institutes that provide them with training that will lead them to NTC-3 certification. These three institutes together have an annual intake of 800.

The range of subjects at the vocational institute level may not be sufficiently broad as to include the arts, dance, drama and music. I think we can take a look at that. We can take a look at the present repertoire of subjects, but I must warn that, ultimately, we have to be realistic. Also we should only provide training in the skills and at a level for which there is a demand in industry.

Sir, I would like once more to thank the Members who have spoken and shown their concern in the area of technical and vocational education.

Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed: Sir, a point of clarification. Before that, I would like to thank the Senior Minister of State for Education for his comprehensive answer. I am sorry if Encik Hawazi and myself, being two ex-journalists, had scooped the Senior Minister of State by showing the two magazines just now. We could not resist highlighting such a good piece of work.

The Senior Minister of State just now mentioned about the number of ITE graduates who had joined the polytechnics. He mentioned about 400, which is about 10% of the total intake per year. My question is: does he see that 400 as a steady state or does he see that number growing in the longer term? This is the number of ITE graduates who would qualify to go for polytechnic education.

The second point of clarification is whether ITE would consider mature students to do ITE courses in the light of the plight of daily-rated workers raised by Mr Sinnakaruppan the other day. Can these workers attend courses so that they can improve their chances of earning higher income?

Mr Peter Chen: Sir, on the first question, I would hope that there will be more ITE graduates going on to the polytechnics, for the reason that we hope that there will be a better quality of students coming in. If we compare the ITE students, say, in the past few years and to what we expect in the future, I would expect the quality to go up, simply because in the past, the number of students may have left school after only PSLE, Sec. 1 or Sec. 2. But now they would have a full four years of secondary education and, therefore, much better equipped. They would also be older, at least one or two years older. I expect that would be the case.

As regards mature students, I am sure that it must be in our interest to provide for them. In fact, there are already a large number of places for such students, because we do agree that we must maximize everybody's potential. And they will be part of our bridges and ladders. Everybody has a second and, in many cases, a third chance.

Dr Tan Boon Wan: Sir, the responsibility for educating our young does not and should not lie with the schools alone. This responsibility lies with the school, the parents and the community. Schools are community institutions. A good school adds to the value of the community, making the community a more desirable place to live in. I think there is much to be gained by strengthening the linkage between the school and the community. In this way, the community gets involved in a more active manner in the education of their children. More should be done to increase this linkage.

Parents have a natural interest in how the school performs, but their support must be galvanised. Some schools, especially the better established ones, have formed parents' associations to help the schools' activities and to establish a line of communication with parents. I have received very positive feedback of the contributions of parents' associations from both the schools and the parents.

Most schools now have a link to the community through the School Advisory Committee. More can be done in this area. Schools also lie within RC zones. Schools should also establish links with these grassroots organisations. The latter can help keep an eye on the students. They can provide assistance to and organise activities for the students living in their zones. Perhaps some formal linkages should be encouraged between the schools and the grassroots organisations. For instance, instead of forming parents' associations for individual schools, these associations can be formed at the zonal level, as a sub-group of the RC to work with all schools within the zone.

The recent requirement for secondary school students to perform at least six hours of community work is also a good starting point which can be built upon to strengthen the link between the schools and the community. This is a laudable decision. RCs can enlist the help of the students to deliver more services to the residents. This is also a good opportunity to expose our young to the good and necessary work that the RCs are doing. I am sure with this exposure, some will be encouraged to stay on after a short stint and others will return to community work in the future. I am hopeful that this move will help to relieve the pressure on future leadership of the grassroots organisations.

The Chairman: Mr Choo Wee Khiang is not here. Mr Peh, you may take your two topics together.

Mr Peh Chin Hua (Jalan Besar): ( In Mandarin): Sir, first, I would like to raise the question of setting up counselling centres for parents of school-going children. In recent years, there has been an increase in cases of indiscipline and disrespect to teachers. I am glad to know that the Ministry of Education has taken a number of measures to prevent such cases from happening.

In fact, the reasons for the increasing number of problem students in recent years, apart from broken homes which is one of the factors, I think most of them were caused by inconsistency between home education and school education. Lack of coordination between these two important aspects of education has caused much confusion to the innocent children who are frequently at a loss as to what they should do. In addition, the family planning programme of "Two is Enough" which we advocated some years back has resulted in many children being over-protected by their parents.

Nowadays, some young parents would go to the school at the slightest provocation and complain about the teachers. Some even claimed that the teachers' method of teaching was wrong. Perhaps, they want to show their children that they are better educated than the teachers and know better than the poor teachers. This has indirectly undermined the morale of our teachers.

In the past few years, apart from going to the school to complain, there were even cases where parents beat up the teachers during their confrontation there. I think the Ministry of Education should take this matter very seriously. If we come across such unreasonable parents who cannot keep a proper control over their children but keep on thinking that their children are right all the time, I think we should give such parents proper guidance and counselling, to indirectly enhance the morale of our teachers.

I hope the Ministry of Education can set up a counselling centre to counsel such "problem parents". This centre can be manned by some experienced counsellors, school discipline masters and principals who are in the best position to give proper counselling to such parents. For those "problem parents" who are not prepared to attend these counselling sessions or refuse to cooperate with the school, I suggest that the principal should have the right to transfer their children to other schools.

Sir, I propose that the schools should keep regular and close contact with the parents. Whenever there is any misconduct on the part of the students, their parents should be kept informed. The school can, from time to time, give the parents a simple report on the behaviour or performance of their children in school, or the teachers can visit or meet the parents regularly so that parents and schools can together solve the problem of inconsistency between home education and school education. I feel the two are equally important.

Next, I would like to deal with education for the disabled. Personally, I feel that education for the retarded or disabled children is a very difficult problem and one that does not produce quick visible results. Recently, I read in the Lianhe Zaobao an article entitled "Apply the beauty of life to relieve the plight of the handicapped". This is a full-page report in colour which featured a handicapped artist and poet, Dr Huang Mei Lian. Only then did I realize that if society and the family can spend more time and efforts to care for and educate the less fortunate and handicapped people, will they feel that there is love and care from society to them. This will spur them on to give full play to their talents and produce surprising results.

Let us look at Dr Huang Mei Lian. She is an artist and poet who was born in Taiwan but presently living in the United States. She was born with brain paralysis and many people regarded her as a mental patient. According to statistics, in Singapore, out of every 1,000 newborn babies, we have two suffering from such brain paralysis. When Huang Mei Lian's mother discovered that her daughter had such a disease, she was very disappointed and in despair. She even thought of ending the life of the young Mei Lian, and then commit suicide. She thought that her child was a hopeless case, and she was always being mocked at and suffered humiliation from those around her. From young, this little girl knew that she was physically handicapped.

In an article about herself, she wrote: "Since my childhood days, I have been worrying about overturning a vacuum flask, falling down the staircase, or falling sick with high fever." In Primary 1, Huang Mei Lian was not even capable of holding a pencil properly and she needed the help of her mother to do her school work. Today, through her determination and strong will power, she is able to overcome her handicap and eventually completed her studies at the California State University in USA and was conferred the doctorate degree in arts at the age of 28.

I am relating this touching real-life story to convey my feelings that disabled children who have the determination and will power can still lead a normal life. If we can give them the strong support and care from society, educate them to give them the opportunity to realize their potential, they too can contribute to our society. I hope that Dr Huang Mei Lian's achievement can inspire us to build up our confidence in educating the intellectually-disabled children. I hope that in funding the special courses the Ministry of Education can put in more efforts so that these handicapped children can feel the love and warmth of our society, and that we can produce more useful disabled persons like Dr Huang Mei Lian.

2.00 pm

Mr Hawazi Daipi: Sir, my GPC colleague, Mr Peh Chin Hua, has brought up the educational needs of the disabled. I share his concern and would like to support him.

The Education Ministry is in the process of making major changes to meet the challenges of the 21st century. I think improvements in educational opportunities should be universally enjoyed by our children, irrespective of their physical ability or disability.

Indeed, the Government has extended assistance to the disabled in our society through various assistance schemes given to the service organisations and special schools. Wherever possible, we should help them prepare for potential employment, not only because we need to maximise our human resources, but also because we should assist them develop greater self-esteem through greater independence. What more can the Ministry of Education do to help organisations such as the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS), the Association of Educationally Subnormal (AESN), the Singapore Down Syndrome Association and others?

Sir, some of the disabled have inherent talents far better than those physically normal. Their talent can only surface if there are more opportunities for them to be nurtured. Among them there are budding artists and writers. Many can take advantage of and be retrainable in information technology and can be gainfully employed with IT knowledge and skills.

One question that needs an answer is: how can some of our disabled children be integrated in normal schools? Some of our blind and semi-blind pupils are learning and integrating well in our schools. What about others? Recently, Prof. Reuven Feuerstein who was here to participate in the 7th International Thinking Conference suggested that Down's Syndrome children be placed in mainstream schools but with younger children so that they can face the same challenges as normal children and see what normal behaviour is and adapt to it. The question is: is this practical?

Sir, that is a very specific question. But I would say that in general the society must help the disabled to integrate themselves in society. The focus of help, however, should not just be the disabled themselves, but also their parents and immediate family members who must cope with the disabled in the family.

Mr Iswaran: Thank you, Sir. With your indulgence, I would just like to start by thanking the Minister for agreeing to study the idea of establishing a South Asian Studies Programme.

Sir, the principal objective of our education system is to enable each student to realise his or her full potential. Over the last few months, we have heard of numerous initiatives targeted at students in the mainstream in order to help them realise that objective.

Sir, I rise now to ask the Minister for Education what more can and will be done for another small but important group of young Singaporeans - students with disabilities. They too have aspirations and potential to be realised. Equipping them with skills for life and even employment goes to the very heart of human dignity. Mr Peh has illustrated this point vividly earlier.

I was happy to observe that the budget allocation for special education will increase by nearly 40% from FY96/97 to FY97/98. Could the Minister elaborate on the programmes and initiatives that will benefit from this additional budget allocation?

Essentially, Sir, there are two approaches by which we can educationally assist students with disabilities. The first is by integrating them, as Mr Hawazi has pointed out, where possible, in mainstream schools. It offers important benefits for the intellectual and social development of high functioning disabled children, for example, those who are autistic but mildly so, and they therefore have the capacity to learn and play with students who do not have those disabilities. However, I understand from the parents of disabled children that there are a few impediments to its implementation in practice, the incorporation of disabled children in the mainstream.

I would like to highlight a couple for comments from the Minister. Firstly, some principals apparently are reluctant to offer admission to disabled students for fear that their school's results and, hence its ranking, will be adversely affected. If this is indeed the case, could the Ministry consider excluding the results of disabled students for the purposes of the ranking exercise? I would imagine the number of such students cannot be very large.

Secondly, can more training be given to mainstream teachers who are then better prepared to teach and educate special students in the school environment. Specifically, I understand there is already a module on special education in the NIE training programme. Are there plans to augment and enhance this to better equip our teachers?

The second approach to educating disabled students is through special schools which devise customised programmes catering to these students' unique requirements. I have two questions for the Minister.

Firstly, what is being done to increase the enrolment capacity of our special education schools? At present, I understand that there are 16 such schools with a total enrolment of about 3,400. They apparently have a collective waiting list of about 300. There may be some double counting but I understand that is the order. That refers to those who have actually registered. I do not know how many there are outside the system. Does the Ministry have some sense of the number of this? More importantly, will the Ministry be funding the development of new schools or the expansion of the existing facilities?

Secondly, Sir, there is a need to professionalise special education. In the United Kingdom, for example, special education teachers are professionally trained, often with post-graduate qualifications. In Singapore, their qualifications are far more modest and many do not even have a degree. In general, special education teachers appear to be placed at the same level as an assistant teacher. The work is physically and emotionally demanding, and the terms of employment compare less favourably when you equate it with comparable job opportunities in the market. Morale is consequently low, I understand from some of the people who run these schools, and turnover is high, in some cases, as much as 30%.

Is the Ministry studying the possibility of perhaps offering a more professional course for the training of special education teachers so that their esteem and standing would be raised?

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Dr Aline K. Wong): Sir, I thank Mr Peh Chin Hua, Mr Hawazi and Mr Iswaran for speaking on the subject of special education for disabled children.

I agree with them that the goal of our educational system is to develop every child to his potential, and this includes the potential of disabled children. In Singapore, there are opportunities for disabled children to develop their potential. Those who are able to cope with the rigours of mainstream curriculum can pursue an education in the mainstream schools while those who need specialised assistance can do so in special education (SPED) schools. Mr Peh Chin Hua mentioned the example of a successful disabled child from Taiwan raised in the United States. In Singapore, there are also examples of special children who, with the help of the special schools and with determination and support of the parents, can outshine in their abilities and achievements. So these examples are not just limited to children who live in other countries, but they are also found in Singapore. In fact, there are some pupils who have left SPED schools and gone on to continue their education in our local universities.

Yes, our children who are disabled deserve an education that will enable them to develop their potential. But I must emphasise that this has to be done as a shared responsibility between the Government and the community. There are currently

16 SPED schools run by voluntary organisations, providing education to some 3,400 disabled children. In accordance with the recommendations of the Advisory Council on the Disabled, the Government has since 1989 increasingly provided financial and other support towards the education of children with disabilities.

Allow me, Sir, to briefly recount the progress that has been made in SPED education since then. My Ministry together with the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) has been providing a capitation grant for recurrent expenditure to the SPED schools up to a cap of four times the cost of primary education. The Government funding is on a 50:50 sharing basis with NCSS, and we have been increasing this funding. The Government funding has increased from $4.4 million in FY89 to $14.2 million for FY96.

Besides this capitation grant for recurrent expenditure, the Government also provides capital funding for the construction and renovation of buildings for the SPED schools. The capital funding which started on a 50:50 basis between the Government and the voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) in 1989 was increased in 1991 to a 80:20 basis where the Government provides the major proportion and the voluntary welfare organisations come out with 20%. In 1996, the Government's share again increased to 90:10 with Government bearing 90% of the funding.

To provide better facilities as well as to cater to the demand for places in the SPED schools, the Government has supported the building of purpose-built schools. In-principle approval has to-date been given for six purpose-built SPED schools to be built. Two of them are already under construction and more are in the pipeline. With the completion of these new projects which could be replacement schools or new schools, we would be able to provide enough places for children who require SPED education, not just to clear the waiting list but to increase the enrolment. But as to the exact figures, I am afraid, Mr Iswaran, these are based on population estimates and it is not very easy to come to accurate figures. But I think that with the completion of the six purpose-built schools, over time we will be able to cater to the demand.

In 1996, the Government extended the Edusave Scheme to children in the SPED schools. Eligible pupils get an Edusave Account and receive a yearly contribution from the Edusave Endowment Fund. For 1997, the contribution is $160 per child. In addition, SPED schools also receive an annual Edusave Grant at $50 per pupil, the same as the mainstream primary schools. This is to enable the schools to conduct enrichment programmes and purchase additional equipment and resource materials for these children. This is a significant step taken by the Government to recognise that a child in a SPED school is eligible for similar benefits from the Edusave Endowment Fund given to a child in the mainstream school. 2.15 pm

Sir, to enable the SPED schools to do more for the children who are disabled, I am pleased to announce that my Ministry, with effect from FY 1997, will raise its subsidy for special education according to a new formula, subject to the current cap of four times the cost of primary education. MOE will fund the SPED schools the normal cost of primary education and share the funding of additional costs with NCSS at 50:50. Thus, at a cap of four times the cost of primary education, the Ministry of Education will fund up to one plus 1.5 times, while NCSS will fund the remaining 1.5 times. With this new funding formula, the Government's maximum share of funding is increased by 25%, that is, from a share of 50% to 62.5%. For FY97, the increase in Government's share translates into an additional $700,000 subsidy, and MOE's total grant to SPED schools will be $15.5 million this year.

Today, our SPED schools provide specially-designed educational programmes for the different disability groups of children to meet their individual needs and to enable them to integrate well into society. They are taught basic literacy and numeracy as well as self-help skills to enable them to live independently. As Mr Hawazi points out, the important thing is also to help the children to be as independent as possible.

Children with disabilities in SPED schools also have the opportunity for vocational training. The Vocational School for the Handicapped is fully funded by the Government, and it provides training up to a certificate of vocational proficiency. Earlier this year, my Ministry approved the setting up of an additional school run by the Association for the Educationally Subnormal Children (AESN) to cater to ESN pupils between the ages of 16 and 18 in pre-vocational training. Prior to this, ESN children had to leave school by the age of 16. Now they can go on to what they call the senior school for ages 16 to 18.

This programme helps the pupils to acquire work skills and assist them in securing and retaining a job. Basic pre-vocational training is also provided by the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore, or the MINDS schools, for the 16 to 18 years old. In addition, the VWOs run a number of training centres and sheltered workshops for children who graduate from SPED schools. I would therefore like to assure Members that there are provisions for vocational training and assistance for them to get a job.

As for integration in the mainstream schools, I think Mr Iswaran himself is of the view that some children can benefit from integration, but not every child can benefit from integration in mainstream education. I would like to point out that children who are disabled need special attention. In fact, if they go to SPED schools, they will have specialised attention of customised programmes and specially trained teachers for their benefit. Thus, integrating a child who is disabled into a mainstream school may not necessarily be beneficial to him. Much depends on the case. In the mainstream school, a not very high-functioning disabled child may have difficulty in coping with the pace of learning as well as the curriculum which is much more academically oriented and the teacher may not be able to give him the due attention that he needs. However, as I said, children with disabilities who are able to follow the mainstream curriculum do have the opportunity to pursue their education in mainstream schools. There are physically disabled children who go to schools which are equipped with special facilities for their movement. There are also sensory-impaired pupils, such as the hearing-impaired and the visually handicapped, in mainstream schools. Many of them join the mainstream secondary schools after completing their primary school in the SPED schools.

I must pay tribute to those schools who accommodate the disabled children in their midst. I do not think it is possible for schools to say that they would not want to accept disabled children because they may drag down their schools' ranking. I think that would be morally wrong, and not in keeping with the spirit of professionalism.

In the mainstream schools, the pupils attend regular classes and follow the same curriculum. MOE gives special resource teachers to designated schools to help them, and we have plans to train more and deploy more resource teachers to these schools to help the children who are integrated in the mainstream.

Finally, I would like to inform the House that starting from last year, the Ministry has been providing some support to dyslexic children in mainstream schools. We have collaborated with the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS) in giving remediation to these children in the DAS study centres. We have helped DAS set up a learning centre in the eastern zone and will be assisting it to expand its Clementi Learning Centre to meet demand in the west as well as help them to set up a new centre in the north. At the same time, we will be training some teachers to provide help to mildly dyslexic pupils who do not need the specialised remediation in the DAS centres.

To assist autistic children studying in our mainstream schools, the Ministry is at present working with a voluntary parent group to provide them support along a similar line as the DAS. It is not possible to require every teacher in our school to have the specialised knowledge to deal with disabled children. Yes, they do attend a module in the NIE on how to assist, but this is not professional training. They would only be sensitised to the needs of the special children. If they find that they cannot handle them and cannot really give enough assistance to them, their job is to refer the children with disabilities to those who are specially trained for the purpose.

Mr Hawazi and Mr Iswaran also mentioned that parents should be drawn in to give support to the education of special children. I think this is entirely correct. Parents have indeed played a very important role in giving support to the special schools and special children. And let me repeat, education for the disabled children should rightly be a shared responsibility between the community, the Government and the parents.

Let me come very briefly to the question of community relations and how schools and children should be more involved in the community, as raised by Dr Tan Boon Wan and also by Mr Loh Meng See yesterday in his very first speech.

My Ministry strongly encourages parents, grassroots leaders and private enterprises to be involved in schools. As Dr Tan Boon Wan rightly pointed out, some schools have very strong PTA associations, or parents' support groups. Examples include St. Andrew's Secondary School, CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School, Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), St. Michael's Primary School. These parents' support groups are able to work very closely with the schools to help them implement initiatives, national programmes and so on. Some of them could be alumni while some of them are just concerned parents. At the same time, grassroots leaders are involved, as Dr Tan Boon Wan rightly observed in the School Advisory Committees and School Management Committees. But I am not very sure whether the RCs are the right institutions to get the parents organised - parents whose children are going to the neighbourhood schools. An RC zone is very much smaller than the catchment zone of a school. In some rare cases, of course, an RC may be very near to a group of schools, primary and secondary. But I am not very sure RCs would be the right institution to help parents in giving support to the schools. But there are RC members and other grassroots leaders who sit on School Advisory Committees and School Management Committees.

What we have in mind to involve students and the community in a closer relationship is in conjunction with the promotion of National Education, where we would like to see the students taking on community involvement at all levels. The preliminary outline of the plan has already been announced by the Minister for Education last Saturday. The plan is for the pupils to be involved in community work. For young pupils, this may mean school-based activities. For the older pupils, these activities will expand to the neighbourhood and to the community at large. I think we will work out the details of this community involvement programme. Yes, every secondary and JC pupil is expected to give about six hours per annum to community service, but in what form, I think we could leave this very much to discussion and to the initiative of the local community, in which case I think the grassroots leaders can very well come up with ideas on how to link up with the schools.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Encik Mohamad Maidin B P M): Sir, Mr Peh Chin Hua raised some issues concerning counselling for parents. I thank him for raising these issues. In fact, parents, especially difficult ones, other than helping schools, can also at times dampen the effort of our schools and our teachers in trying to meet the targets set. He is right, Sir. Indeed, many schools encounter many kinds of parents. But most of them are very supportive of the schools, the principals and the teachers, and they have cooperated in the work handled by teachers in school. But there will always be some who do not see eye to eye with the school. This is where the problem is and this is what the Member mentioned.

However, Sir, unfortunately, the Ministry of Education is not in a position to set up a counselling centre for difficult parents as proposed by Mr Peh. Neither can schools be asked to send such parents for counselling. We are not in a position to do that. We also cannot use the pupil's place in the school as a threat to bring difficult parents in line. Where there are conflicts, schools would try to resolve the conflicts amicably. And, if necessary, they can refer such matters to the Ministry of Education.

Mr Peh also mentioned the incidence of some teachers being beaten up by parents. From what I can recall, there was one incident in 1995, and the parent had been dealt with in the courts. He is also right in mentioning the need for channels of communication to provide a stronger support between parents and schools through PTAs, etc. Indeed, schools have sufficient channels to communicate with parents. And these would include one-to-one meeting, what we call meet-the-parents' sessions, newsletters and also pupils' progress reports. Schools indeed should maintain regular contacts with parents and inform them of their children's performance and development.

However, the Member is very concerned about some misconduct or over-zealousness on the part of parents. In this regard, Sir, I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the Ministry's main mission, and that is, to develop, implement and manage a flexible education system which would bring about the best in students and develop in them sound moral values and a strong foundation in the basic skills necessary to earn a living. In doing so, it is important to note that our teachers in schools can succeed in their mission only with the full support and confidence of parents and the community. Mutual trust and close cooperation between the schools and parents are necessary to ensure that children will benefit fully from schooling.

The Ministry has confidence in the professional competence and judgment of our principals and teachers. The vast majority of teachers are committed, competent and caring professionals who have the interest of their pupils at heart. This is an important message for us to remind our parents. When in schools the pupils come under the authority of the principals and teachers. Our schools expect the support of parents for the good of their children, and parents should accord schools this right. At the same time, schools are open to constructive feedback from parents and the public. However, any feedback or complaints about teachers should be raised with the Principal because the Principal is empowered to deal with and resolve such complaints. 2.30 pm

Parents who are unhappy with teachers should see the Principal or Vice-Principal of the school. The Principal is obliged to inform the parents concerned of the outcome of the investigations and any action the school has taken. It has been found that many instances of parents' unhappiness arise out of misunderstanding and these can be easily sorted out by the Principal. If parents are not satisfied with the action taken by the school, they may raise the matter with the Ministry. The Ministry will investigate the complaints only after the matter has been first raised with the Principal of the school.

Complaints against the Principal should as far as possible also be raised with the Principal himself. If the complainant deems this inappropriate, he may raise this with the Ministry by writing to the Director-General of Education. The Ministry will acknowledge receipt of the complaint and keep the complainant informed of any action taken. If investigations, either in the school or at the Ministry, uncover that the complaint is false and malicious, appropriate action will be pursued against the complainant. The Ministry's concern in the entire matter is to ensure that schools are run commensurate with their mission of developing every student not only intellectually but socially and morally as well.

Sir, I hope these procedures can provide the necessary channels for parents with grievances and they can take it up as necessary.

Mr Iswaran: Point of clarification, Sir.

The Chairman: We are running behind time. Please make your clarification quickly.

Mr Iswaran: I would like to thank the Senior Minister of State for her comprehensive reply on special education. Does it mean that with the new funding formula, there will be a net increase in the funding extended to special schools from 4 to 4.5 times per capita of the primary school expenditure? Or will NCSS' component be reviewed?

Dr Aline Wong: The change in the formula is that, within the present cap of four times, the Government's share of the cost would be bigger than before.

Mr Iswaran: So there will be no net increase. Or will NCSS continue to fund two times so that there is an increase?

Dr Aline Wong: The Government will increase its share of funding and this would reduce the burden on NCSS.

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua (Marine Parade): Sir, thank you for allowing me to join in the debate.

Sir, I realise much has been said and debated on the topic of ranking of schools, both inside and outside the House, but I would like to revisit the topic again with a view to assessing whether there are significant negative side-effects and with a discussion on the refinements that can be made.

The Ministry of Education has maintained that the ranking of schools is meant to provide a guide to parents and to let them know how schools compare and particularly to point to the existence of many good neighbourhood schools. Sir, I would like to state from the outset that I am in complete agreement with the objectives.

However, the repercussions appear to be worthy of attention. Sir, we all know that too much MSG (or monosodium glutamate) in our food will lead to undesirable side-effects to our bodies. In the same way, too much of a preoccupation with the Mean Subject Grade (also MSG) by schools and parents would, I fear, distract principals and teachers from their basic role of educating pupils. An obsession would lead schools to drop certain subjects, such as Literature, in favour of easier-to-score ones.

It is also suspect that qualitative factors, like ECA, can be successfully incorporated as ranking critieria. For what do we measure - achievements or level of participation? Short of quantifying a school's ECA score satisfactorily, there would always be more emphasis on examination results. As such, it is almost inevitable that schools will tend to maximise their examination scores. Sadly so, this might have been an end unto itself in some schools.

Sir, I would like to ask the Minister four questions. Firstly, if he could give an assessment of the ranking of schools scheme since its inception, vis-a-vis the original objectives. Secondly, whether he can consider banding schools in groupings of, say, 5, Top 5, Next 5, instead of assigning discrete individual positions? Thirdly, can the Minister state what measures are in place to ensure that students would not be advised to opt for subjects or combinations which would serve solely to maximise their examination scores? And finally, will the Minister also ensure that sufficient assistance and, where necessary, counselling is available to both principals and teachers to counter the pressure exerted by the ranking exercise?

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang): Sir, may I have your permission to take the two cuts together?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: ( In Mandarin): Sir, according to newspaper reports, we have already started to implement the single-session system in our secondary schools. In 1996, half of our secondary schools were on single-session. Prime Minister Goh said at the 1996 Teachers' Day function that the Government will be implementing the single-session system in all the secondary schools by the year 2000. The newspapers have interviewed principals of secondary and primary schools. They unanimously agreed that a single-session system means that the schools will have more flexibility to carry out extended programmes and more activities for the students.

The single-session system not only makes it easier for teachers and students to spend more time together, but to cultivate in them loyalty to the school during their four years in school. The primary school principals who started the single-session system also said that this is welcomed by the parents and students because the students have more time to revise their lessons in school and to take part in extracurricular activities. The schools can also give them all the necessary tuition lessons and the school premises can be used by the students in the afternoon to have more creative learning. Going single-session is a move in the right direction, especially in the present trend of our society where both parents go out to work, the schools must therefore play a greater role in looking after the school children.

But I also know that implementation of single-session school will create many new problems. For example, the students will have longer hours in the school and they may be tired. Teachers will face additional pressure and facilities in the school need to be improved to keep in pace with the implementation of the single-session system. The school time-table and extracurricular activities will also be re-arranged. More importantly, the school must arrange its normal teaching and other activities so that the students who are having longer schooling hours will lead a more balanced and enriched school life. I would like to know whether the Ministry of Education is aware of the general and specific problems of the various schools, and whether it knows how individual school resolve such problems. I would like to also ask the Ministry of Education what is the progress made in respect of the implementation of single-session system in the schools. How many primary and secondary schools have already implemented single-session schools? Will the Government also consider introducing the single-session system in all our primary schools in future?

Now, let me deal with the next topic on the streaming policy. It has been almost 20 years since the streaming system was introduced by Dr Goh Keng Swee's Report on Education in 1978. In the meantime, the streaming system has been modified by the Ministry of Education to ensure that students would have at least 10 years of basic education. I support the policy to let every student have at least 10 years of basic education. According to Dr Goh Keng Swee's Report, based on examination results in the past, it was estimated that 8% of students in each cohort would be streamed to the Special stream in the secondary schools, while 31% of the students would be streamed to the Normal stream and another 41% would go to the Normal Extended stream.

According to the Report, the main aim of streaming was to cut down attrition rate in education to ensure that the slow learners can complete their secondary education, albeit over a longer time. I would like to know whether the Ministry of Education has evaluated the results of this streaming policy. How much educational wastage has already been saved under the streaming policy? For every cohort of students, what were the percentages of students in the various streams? Since the implementation of the streaming policy, how many secondary students in the Normal stream each year have been able to gain admission to the polytechnics or universities after completing their GCE `0' level examinations?

The Chairman: May I remind hon. Members again that we are running behind time on this amendment.

Mr Lim Swee Say (Tanjong Pagar): Sir, I would like to speak on the topic of professionalism. A few days ago, there was an article in the Straits Times and the title was "Teachers and Doctors Under Fire - The Innocent Ones Get Tarred Too". In the opening, Ms Tan Sai Siong wrote, "One after the other, they came in quick succession. I am referring to letters which our Forum page ran last Wednesday and Thursday, complaining of teachers' handling of students. I told myself, Aha, another round of song and dance about teachers' inadequacy has begun."

Sir, Ms Tan wrote this article because she was concerned that this could be another round of song and dance against teachers. I share her concern and like to take this opportunity to speak out for the many teachers in Singapore who deserve to be recognised, not criticised.

Sir, please allow me to share a true life story.

"I was identified as educationally subnormal when I was in the fifth grade. I was put back into the fourth grade, and I failed again when I was in the eighth grade. When I was in my 11th Grade, a teacher of mine told me that "Somebody's opinion of you does not have to become your reality." This teacher became my mentor, and gave me the feeling that he had good and high expectations of me. Encouraged by this, I strived to live up to these expectations.

One day, this teacher told his students that each one of us had greatness, something special within us. If we could glimpse this larger vision of ourselves, we would make ourselves, our parents and our community proud, and we would touch millions of lives.

I was inspired but unsure because I did not do well in my examination. This teacher told me that it didn't matter; that just meant I had to work harder. "Your grades don't determine who you are or what you can produce in your life.

So I worked even harder to make the grade and to live out my goal."

Sir, this kid who was labelled educationally subnormal later on became a well-known author. His name is Les Brown, and one of his best sellers is titled - Live your Dreams.

A good friend of mine shared this story with me via the e-mail. It is taken from a book titled "Mentors, Masters and Mrs MacGregor". It contains many real life stories on how teachers are remembered by their students for having changed their lives.

My friend went on to write in her e-mail that "Good teachers are best remembered not for the contents they teach. They are remembered for the values they share, for giving a little bit of themselves to the children, for showing the child that he or she matters, and for having faith in and believing in the children so that they reach for something higher than they thought possible. If each teacher for each year can just commit to making a difference to the lives of one or two children, they will be the strongest social force in the land."

Sir, I agree wholeheartedly when the Minister said yesterday that teachers are not just mere facilitators. Teaching is more than just a job. It is a vocation, one that requires strong feelings of service, commitment and total dedication. But for our teachers to serve with pride and self-respect, we, the parents and the public, must in the first instance take pride in them and respect them for the difference they have made, and continue to make, to our children and generations of Singapore. 2.45 pm

Sir, going back to the article in the Straits Times, I am grateful to Ms Tan for ending her article with this plea:

` . unhappy parents . instead of airing their grievances in public, should consider going to the relevant ministries to lay out their complaints. Or see their MPs. That way, the handful of genuine culprits will receive their just deserts without the rest of their innocent, conscientious colleagues being tarred wrongly with the same brush.'

Sir, we need to have some of the best brains and the best hearts in Singapore in the education service, because investing in and nurturing our young is key to the future success and survival of Singapore.

We must recognise that we can only attract the best to join this vocation if, and only if, we are able to uphold the image of teachers and instill greater respect for and pride in teaching in our society. Complaints against some errant teachers must be put in the proper perspective and balanced with recognition and appreciation for those who give much of themselves to our children. If we are not able to attract and retain the best, over time, teaching will degenerate into just another profession. This will be disastrous for our future.

Sir, I thank the Minister for his commitment to give more support, time and training to our teachers, and to give them more autonomy to tailor solutions and devise new programmes to suit their students' needs. On top of all these, I hope the Minister will find ways to give more recognition to our teachers which I feel they rightly deserve. For example, we publish this book to talk about the success of the students. How about publishing another book on our own version of mentors, masters, not Mrs MacGregor, but maybe Mrs Tan, Mrs Lim, Mrs Wong, for what they have done to change the life of our students, and to remind all Singaporeans that the teachers are indeed a great, powerful social force in our society.

Sir, I hope the Ministry will pay much more attention to our teachers, help them to grow, and to recognise their contribution. The Ministry may wish to consider conducting organisational climate survey to have a better understanding of how our teachers in general feel about themselves, about the students, about the curriculum, about the technology in school. I feel it is important to know how they feel about the direction and pace of change, and make them feel that they are part of the driving force behind this new vision "Thinking Schools, Learning Nation".

Sir, let me end by saying that the Ministry of Education, as the employer of teachers, and we as the parents of the students must care more for our teachers, if we expect them to care more for our children.

The Chairman: Mr Chew is not here. Mr Loh.

Mr Loh Meng See: Sir, I like to echo what Mr Lim Swee Say said just now about teachers. I am very pleased to hear what the Minister for Education said yesterday, that he is personally aware and is concerned for the welfare of teachers, and that the Ministry is taking steps to improve the working conditions and making teaching a meaningful and worthwhile career.

The excellent academic results in our schools owe much to the efforts of our teachers. We all remember our teachers and would attribute our success in later adult life to them for laying the strong foundation in our personal growth and development.

I welcome the move by the Ministry to devolve the authority and responsibility under the school cluster programme. This also means that the leaders in the decentralised system have to be adequately prepared for the task, as it involves a new way of carrying out their duties. Their leadership and management skills are brought to bear in this new arrangement. This also provides avenues and opportunities for career growth and development in the field of school management.

I wonder whether, under this cluster programme, the criteria and process involved in recruitment, selection and deployment of teachers would be changed. The acceptance of a member to the teaching team is important. It provides for stability and the possibility of good induction and mentorship for new teachers joining the group under the cluster school programme. It may also mean that the performance expectation and the assessment will be fine-tuned to meet the higher objectives expounded under the concept of thinking schools.

The recent announcement by the Public Service Division, and where BG Lee spoke on the subject of managing the poor performers in the civil service, may create some uncertainty and would require the assurance from the Minister that there is no serious problem in the performance of our teachers. Besides the financial rewards, non-monetary incentives are equally important.

I am pleased that the Ministry will be providing teachers with at least 100 training hours a year. May I suggest that some overseas exposure and industry attachment be considered? What we need is for teachers to be constantly updated about things happening in the world, so that they have a better understanding of what is happening in the workplace and the work of different professions. Our teachers need to stay relevant in imparting their knowledge to prepare our young to face the future with confidence.

Parents are also concerned when they see lessons being conducted by temporary relief teachers on a prolonged basis. We must try to reduce the over dependence of relief teachers. Perhaps the cluster school programme could look into this matter.

Mr Sin Boon Ann (Tampines): Sir, the rising affluence in recent years has brought about a new phenomenon of Singaporeans travelling overseas for holidays. It is common for Singaporeans to book their holidays well in advance so that the parents and children can take time off to visit places and spend meaningful time together. Such travels by Singaporeans not only provide much opportunity for rest and recreation for the overworked and perhaps tired Singaporeans, but also form the basis of learning experience for many children accompanying their parents.

When Singaporeans travel overseas, they learn much more about the history and culture of a particular place than they will probably learn from reading about it if they had not travelled. Invariably, through a process of comparison, Singaporeans learn to appreciate the differences between Singapore and the other countries. More often than not, it is through such encounters that Singaporeans gain a deeper understanding of what we are today. Because vacation time for Singaporeans is so short and therefore precious, the choice of destinations for travel for Singaporeans is very often restricted to the more developed places. Travelling to places such as Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia usually does not rank very high on the Singaporeans' travelling agenda.

As Singaporeans, it is imperative for us to understand our neighbours, their history, their culture and their forms of government. This understanding will not only give us a better insight of our neighbours but also appreciate the differences amongst nations in the region. No education in school could be complete unless the children themselves come to understand the region around us. By analogy, one never knows whether a line is crooked unless and until it is compared against a straight line. An understanding of the region will help to facilitate the strengthening of ties among countries in ASEAN, and will help to minimize potential conflict in the region.

Accordingly, I would like to ask the Minister whether the Government has a programme of sending our students to ASEAN countries to give them a better appreciation and understanding of our neighbours in the region. If such a programme is available, how many of our students participate each year in the programme and, if otherwise, whether our Government would consider promoting such a programme?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Sir, Mrs Lim has asked about ranking in schools and whether this had some undesirable side effects. I would say that there have been some side effects out of the ranking system which have not been totally desirable. One of these is that students and schools may inadvertently be discouraged from taking subjects which they are weak in.

I must say from the outset that it is not a bad thing to discourage students from taking subjects which they are weak in, because that will allow them to concentrate on subjects in which they can do well. But we should not be discouraging students from doing subjects which they can do reasonably well in, simply because that is going to affect the mean subject grade of a school and draw down its ranking. That is one of the disadvantages of using too much MSG, as Mrs Lim has said. So to make sure that we do not end up in this situation, what we have decided to do for ranking in the secondary schools is to use English and the best five subjects, which is really the basis that we use for admission beyond secondary school.

It is a paradox here because we thought that by using mean subject grade, that means including all the subjects that a student takes, we would encourage students to take more subjects. But it has got the adverse effect, which is that students will take only those subjects which they can do well in.

Paradoxically, I think if we reduce the number of subjects on which we rank schools, this may well encourage students to take those subjects which they would not necessarily ace, but which they may be interested in and which they will then want to take, and the schools will feel less constrained in allowing these students to take those subjects. So we will be changing the ranking basis for secondary schools and junior colleges to the same basis as is used for qualifying students to go on to the next stage, ie, polytechnics, pre-university and also from JCs to universities. We hope that this will reduce the pressure on the schools to use too much MSG.

I must say though that ranking has its benefits, and this is something which we are going to continue with. I think ranking has achieved the objectives which we set out to achieve. It provides not only parents with an indication of how schools are doing, it provides the schools and the principals themselves with an indication of how they are doing in comparison to other schools which may have the same circumstances that they have. And I think the effect is really salutary.

I personally do not concentrate so much on the ranking of the school by how well the students have done. I personally look at the value added of the schools and I pay a lot of attention to that particular aspect. As you know, the Ministry, in fact, gives small prizes to schools which have good value added. The top ten value added schools get $20,000. The next ten get $10,000 a year. I am personally visiting some of these value added schools to see what it is that they are doing which is right and which might be applied in other schools.

We are not the only people in the world to do ranking and find benefit from it. In fact, the results show that the bottom 20 secondary schools in the 1992 ranking exercise improved their mean subject grade by almost half a grade, which is not bad, those in the top and middle 20 in 1992 have gained about a quarter of a grade. So actually ranking does add a little bit of spice and it encourages the schools to do better, which I think is a good thing.

In the United States, they have discovered this as well. I would like to read to Members some excerpts from a newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, 4th May 1997, which compared what happened in Texas and in California, both very big states, large populations and many educational problems. Texas managed to improve its educational performance dramatically, and the article asked: "So what's the secret behind the Texas turnaround?" And they say that most observers point to the state's new school accountability system, and that it is one of the few in the country. The ratings are derived mostly from results of the Texas assessment of academic skills. They have basically got a ranking system and they are very, very tough with their ranking system. High performing schools relish the recognition. Poor performing districts can be taken over by the state. Principals or entire staff of repeatedly low performing schools can be transferred out. And this year, Texas became possibly the first state to link teacher evaluations to test score. So they have been very, very tough.

They go on to say that since 1993, one of the one-time low performing schools has tripled the number of students passing the Mathematics examinations. Nearly all the students in that school passed the writing examinations. They say that the accountability system has created a noticeable fear of failure among the schools and among the teachers, but it has motivated them to do much, much better than they had done before. The article goes on to say that pressure does in fact pay off. So we do not want to be excessive, but I think that pressure, in reasonable amounts, and competition have encouraged our schools to do better and the results actually show them. 3.00 pm

I will go on now to talk about single session schools and streaming, which were raised by Mr Low Thia Khiang. The Government will turn all our secondary schools into single session schools by the year 2000. We are building 16 new schools and adding new blocks to 28 schools to allow this to take place. The feedback that we have received from those schools which have been operating single sessions indicates that this is very well received. They do not have any significant problems at all. In fact, they welcome this very much.

On streaming, we have some numbers here. Before streaming, the drop-out rate for primary school students was something like 20%. For secondary school students, another 20%. The drop-out rate today, after streaming, for primary school students is 0.4% and for secondary school students, it is 4%. So streaming has made a dramatic improvement in the number of students to progress from one level to another.

Streaming has worked because it has allowed students to progress at a pace and level which they can cope with. Therefore, it does not discourage them to stay in school. It encourages them to stay in school. And as Mr Peter Chen has quite eloquently put it, our education system is full of bridges and ladders which allow students to move from one stream to another stream, from one course to another course and allow them to progress and advance. This has dramatically improved the performance of our students.

I will ask Dr Wong to address some of the issues on professionalism.

Dr Aline Wong: I do not think I can add more to the eloquent tribute that Mr Lim Swee Say gave to our teachers. I agree with him entirely that we should give teachers our due respect and appreciation. Very often, it seems the public is too ready to say negative things about them, whereas in fact our teachers deserve every appreciation from all of us for their hard work and dedication.

In fact, last year, the National Institute of Education together with Esso has instituted an award, "The Most Caring Teachers Award". I happened to be the Guest-of-Honour for this inaugural ceremony and I think it is an excellent idea to pay tribute to our caring teachers.

As to whether we should carry out occasional surveys on teachers' attitudes and their feelings about the programmes that we initiated, we do have that kind of survey. We regularly have dialogue sessions with them and talk to them about their workload, concerns and problems.

Mr Loh Meng See asked, beyond monetary incentives, what kind of recognition do we give to teachers. The Ministry of Education places a great deal of emphasis on the professional development of teachers. In fact, we have drawn up a professional development plan which maps out the milestones in the career of a teacher. We devise training programmes to help each teacher to develop professionally, say, in becoming a Head of Department, a Subject Head, a Level Head, and then on to Vice-Principal and Principal, and so on. So we help them along in their professional development.

As for cluster schools, whether it would be given the flexibility to recruit and deploy teachers, yes, it is part of the idea of a cluster. But at the moment it is still very much in the pilot stage. There are only two clusters which have been formed. We are trying out the idea. The Group Senior Principal will be given the autonomy to deploy staff within the group of schools and to pool the resources to develop the programmes for the benefit of the students. So we will see how this pilot project goes.

Finally, Mr Sin Boon Ann asked for more student visits to countries, especially around the region. I would like to inform him that the Ministry of Education has been doing that for many years. We have been encouraging our students to visit our neighbouring countries in order to broaden their horizon and to appreciate these countries' culture and way of life. For example, last year alone, about 28,000 students have gone to visit other ASEAN countries and for the first half of this year, about 11,000 have already done so. They go mostly to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. These are guided or supervised by the teachers. The schools organise these visits and students can use the Edusave grant for part subsidy of these trips. So we are trying to involve students in such visits to broaden their horizon and go beyond their textbook knowledge.

Mr Loh Meng See: Sir, I would like to thank all the Ministers for the very comprehensive response and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Chairman: Amendment No. 2. Dr Tan.

Dr Tan Boon Wan: Sir, I think I probably need more than five minutes to ask the question and to get a reply. For that reason, I would not want to move my amendment

The Chairman: Thank you. Amendment No. 3. Mr Singh.

Mr Inderjit Singh (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head L of the Main Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code LC 1500.

I will make my speech short. We have seen in this House and heard a lot of talk about the question of arresting the teen gangsterism problem. But I believe all of these are containment actions which are not going to solve our problems. I believe that many of us conclude that the root cause of our problems happens to be in our secondary schools where the students start going wayward in secondary schools and their behaviour continues to be a problem as they grow up. This will, in the long term, be a social problem for our country. I have talked about this in my maiden speech in May this year and about a similar problem that happened in Taiwan. My contention is that our school teachers are not given enough authority to discipline their students similar to the way that I was disciplined when I was studying in school.

My questions to the Minister are: Is anything being planned to arrest this problem at the root cause, ie, to allow teachers to discipline students in school? My second question is very specific, ie, the use of tamagotchi or cyber pets in schools. I would like to ask the Minister what is the Ministry's policy towards children bringing these toys or cyber pets in school? I believe UK and Hong Kong have banned it in their schools. Do we have a similar policy in Singapore?

Mr Davinder Singh (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Sir, I welcome the Ministry's decision to make community service compulsory for secondary school students. The question I pose to this House and to the Minister in particular is whether the scheme that has been drawn up, ie, a minimum of six hours of community work together with work with the RCs or peer tutoring, is enough. Really, the issue is, what are we trying to achieve by this scheme? If the object of the exercise is, in due course, to create a caring society, then we should ask ourselves whether the scheme, as it is presently formulated, is enough to achieve that objective. We can examine that by looking at what is happening at home and looking at what is happening in the schools. At home, you either have families who do not spend time with the children and therefore are unable to transmit values, or families who do spend time with the children, but nonetheless, the result is, as we all know and have acknowledged, that Singapore cannot boast of a caring society. Therefore, what needs to be done has to be done in the school. Because obviously nothing much more can be done at home without significant Government interference which will not be welcomed to change that situation.

The attempt at mandating community service in schools is a good step but six hours in a year, is that going to achieve anything? Unless secondary school students who are going to be the pioneers in the scheme are able to spend a significant amount of time in the homes or the orphanages to understand that not everything is fine or rosy in that there are people in Singapore who are unfortunate and who live under very gloomy circumstances, they are not going to appreciate that the world does not revolve around them. Therefore, I think it is crucial that the Ministry consider extending the time during which students have to engage in community service. I would also ask the Minister to consider not paying too much emphasis on work with the RCs or peer tutoring. That really does not drive the message home as much as working in the homes or the orphanages.

Encik Mohamad Maidin B P M: Sir, I will answer Mr Inderjit Singh's second question first, ie, whether we should ban tamagotchi toys in schools. Our approach is slightly different in this case. Instead of banning tamagotchi today and maybe you have a tamagotcha coming into the market tomorrow and some other "tama" later on, we have in fact regulations in place in our schools to avoid many of these things from coming into the schools. In fact, the Ministry has the confidence that our schools already know how to deal with this. Many schools do not allow students to bring in or play with electronic gadgets or toys in school. Principals and teachers have enough authority to set the rules in school to ensure that students are not distracted by unnecessary gadgets and games. I am sure the schools will deal firmly with this and the Ministry of Education will back them up. So the chances of tamagotchi becoming part of our school life are definitely almost zero.

Mr Inderjit Singh also raised the question of discipline in schools and his worry about poor discipline affecting our education. May I first deal with what the Ministry is doing about this in this area.

First, in our life skills packages for primary, secondary and junior colleges, there are two modules available. One is on personal effectiveness and the other is on inter-personal effectiveness. These two modules address the issue of pupil's self-esteem. Pupils are taught how and why they should learn to accept themselves and to control their anger. Pupils are given important life skills like saying no to negative peer influence, building a rewarding relationship with others and solving conflicts in non-violent ways. These are what they call "psycho-social skills". The third module on effective learning develops the cognitive competence of pupils to enable them to learn more effectively to construct meaning in what they are learning and making learning more interesting. All these are already in place in our schools.

We have also recently launched the Volunteer Special Constabulary (VSC) Scheme. Discipline masters and teachers from nine secondary schools underwent programmes to be appointed as hon. VSC senior officers. They will be a symbol of police presence in our schools and they liaise and network with the police and advise their schools in police related matters.

We also have what is called the Police Caution cases. A programme has been developed between MOE, MCD, the Police and the National Council of Social Service to formalise a referral system for counselling and for selected juvenile delinquents who have committed offences and not charged in court. We also have another scheme called the Peer Group Advisers programme where the Juvenile Court initiated the programme to enable students from neighbourhood schools to participate in the processes in the juvenile criminal justice system. Then we also have Peer Mediation programme whereby the Subordinate Courts and the MOE train student leaders to help their peers to resolve conflicts and disputes in schools. Up to now, we have 126 teachers from 63 secondary schools and all guidance teachers have been trained up to now.

With regard to Mr Singh's concern about measures to deal with gangsterism, I must say that students that are involved in gangsterism are usually referred to the CID or the Police. Prison visits are organised by the Police for such students and the NYC street-wise programme, which will start later this year, is targetted at providing counselling to our youths who are involved in gang activities.

Since 1995, the Ministry started what we call the Behaviour Tracking and Analysis scheme. This tracking has given us some indication on the extent of students' involvement in gangsterism in school. From the data given by the Police on juvenile student offenders arrested, we have 1,484 cases in 1993. It went up to 1,762 in 1994, 2,239 cases in 1995, and in 1996 there was a drop to 1,773 cases. These numbers may look big, but at the same time each year it comprises roughly about 0.3% to 0.37% of our student population in secondary schools. In other words, although it is more than 1,000 cases, actually it is very small compared to the number of students we have in school.

Mr Singh is also worried about the activity of gangsterism in schools. Sir, I must say that our schools are in a controlled environment whereby those people who try to promote negative activities, including gangsterism, should be aware that we have in every secondary school about 50 to 70 teachers, including our VSC officers, in their job and a network of students in the school, which will make it very difficult. I do not think secondary schools will become a fertile ground to promote gangsterism. In fact, Sir, if these people try to promote gangsterism in school, I think chances are that we are going to spot them and we are going to refer them to the Police.

In fact, last year, under our Behaviour Tracking and Analysis (BETA) scheme, teachers in schools, with the help of their students, managed to track 140 cases of students involved in gangs. This is an increase of about 39 cases from the previous year in 1995, where there were 101 cases tracked, and all these cases were dealt with. We counselled them, we gave them warning, involved their parents in such cases, and some students were caned, and ultimately they were referred to the Police if they did not improve.

So all these measures, Sir, have given us an assurance that the situation is indeed problematic but under control. We will keep monitoring the situation and work with other Government agencies to keep it at a low level.

I must conclude by saying that Mr Singh is not wrong in mentioning that he is worried that there is indeed a general rise in juvenile delinquency in Singapore. But then we should not blame our schools and put everything on the shoulders of principals and teachers because this is not just a matter for the schools to handle, but also for our society as a whole. By our effort in providing a minimum of 10 years' education and by keeping many of these students in school, we are in fact keeping them usefully occupied by providing them opportunities --- 3.20 pm

The Chairman: Order. It is 3.20 pm, Mr Maidin. I am afraid I have to "guillotine" you.

Mr Inderjit Singh: Sir, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $3,566,198,570 for Head L ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $1,125,340,900 for Head L ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.

The Chairman: I shall now deal with the remaining heads of expenditure in respect of which no amendment stands on the Order Paper Supplement.

In respect of the Main Estimates, they are Heads B, C, D, F, G and Z.

I propose to take these heads of expenditure en bloc.

Question, "That the sums stated for those heads of expenditure which appear in the last column of the Schedule of Estimated Expenditure under the Main Estimates on page 37 of Paper Cmd. 2 of 1997 stand part of the Main Estimates," put and agreed to.

The Chairman: In respect of the Development Estimates, they are Heads B, C and F. I propose to take these heads of expenditure en bloc.

Question, "That the sums stated for those heads of expenditure which appear in the last column of the Schedule of Estimated Expenditure under the Development Estimates on page 38 of Paper Cmd. 2 of 1997 stand part of the Development Estimates," put and agreed to.

Question, "That the sum of $33,564,211,300 shall be supplied to the Government under the heads of expenditure for the public services shown in the Main Estimates for the Financial Year 1st April 1997 to 31st March 1998 contained in Paper Cmd. 2 of 1997," put and agreed to.

Question, "That the sum of $26,995,617,900 shall be supplied to the Government under the heads of expenditure for the public services shown in the Development Estimates for the Financial Year 1st April 1997 to 31st March 1998 contained in Paper Cmd. 2 of 1997," put and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported.

Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House.

Dr Richard Hu Tsu Tau: Sir, I beg to report that the Committee of Supply have come to certain resolutions.

First Resolution reported -

Question, "That the sum of $33,564,211,300 shall be supplied to the Government under the heads of expenditure for the public services shown in the Main Estimates for the Financial Year 1st April 1997 to 31st March 1998 contained in Paper Cmd. 2 of 1997."

Second Resolution reported -

Question, "That the sum of $26,995,617,900 shall be supplied to the Government under the heads of expenditure for the public services shown in the Development Estimates for the Financial Year 1st April 1997 to 31st March 1998 contained in Paper Cmd. 2 of 1997."

Dr Richard Hu Tsu Tau: Sir, I beg to move, "That Parliament doth agree with the Committee on the said resolutions."

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions accordingly agreed to.