EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Dr Aline K. Wong): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Members of the House would remember that during the recent Budget Debate in this House, the Minister for Education outlined the Ministry's vision for "Thinking Schools, Learning Nation" to prepare the next generation of Singaporeans.

The key to achieving this mission is a strong and forward looking Education Service: a body of professionals dedicated to the education of our younger generation, responsive to change and headed by able and good leaders.

The Director-General of Education stands at the apex of this body of professionals. This change in designation from the Director of Education to the Director-General of Education reflects the broader and heavier responsibilities he will have to shoulder as we restructure the Education Service and the way that we manage our schools.

The "Thinking Schools" of the future must have principals and teachers who will manage the process of continuous learning and change in their schools in line with our changing economic, social and technological environment. While the Ministry will continue to provide the vision for education and lay down the broad guidelines for achieving this, the principals and teachers, on their part, must be able to tailor their own solutions to their students' and the schools' particular needs to bring out the best in their students. As new programmes are introduced, they will have to decide how best to integrate them into their schools.

To achieve this, the Ministry intends to devolve more autonomy to our schools. We will restructure the way our schools are managed to give more authority to principals and school cluster heads to design and use the most appropriate education strategies. We will give them more authority to decide on the allocation of resources, and will hold them accountable for achieving the desired objectives. The principals and school cluster heads are answerable to the Director-General of Education for delivering the educational outcomes.

The Director-General of Education will be responsible for defining the overall education strategies and managing the resources required for our goal of providing high quality education for all Singaporeans. The Director-General of Education will take ultimate responsibility for the educational outcomes achieved by our education system as a whole.

In line with this, more of the decision making authority for the allocation and use of human and financial resources, currently under various other divisions within the Ministry, will be put under the Director-General of Education together with the professional staff branches such as curriculum planning and development, research and testing and educational technology which already report to the Director-General of Education. Giving the Director-General of Education more decision-making authority over the allocation of funds and manpower resources will enable him to provide more responsive and effective support to the schools.

We will also want to move to a structure where the Director-General of Education will have a greater say in the advancement and career development of Education officers. This would include the identification, professional development and appointment of strong leaders to run our "Thinking Schools". As the top professional in the Education Service, the Director-General of Education will set the tone and professional ethos of the service, and play a bigger role in charting out its future direction and shape.

The new nomenclature proposed - Director-General of Education - will reflect better the broader and heavier responsibilities that he has to shoulder, as well as give recognition to his relative seniority in relation to the other Directors in the Ministry Headquarters.

I therefore ask the House to support the amendment to the Education Act to re-designate the leader of the Education profession as the Director-General of Education.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Dr Toh See Kiat: Sir, I rise to support this Bill and I would like to say that my support comes from the fact that this is but the precursor of many more changes to come. It is really part of a restructuring which makes the flat structure we have in school right now into a more manageable organisation where the leadership can be clearly shown.

As part of this change, we are going to have a new concept called the cluster school concept. As I understand it, this is the way of making a group of schools to share resources and be led by a strong leader. The Senior Minister of State has said that schools have got to be headed by good and able leaders and I strongly support that. I would however say that when we have a system of many schools pooled together, it would require some kind of hierarchy and perhaps some kind of administrative support. We cannot just leave these clusters of schools to a super principal who would perhaps be a first among equals, because the way I understand it, "first among equals" usually has the last say of anything.

I would say that the title "Director-General" inspires me to use another analogy. Our schools currently are basically battalions in the education service and the battalions are headed by principals who are the battalion commanders. Immediately after that, we have no other structure all the way up to the general who heads the service. Perhaps, we could have intermediate structures and the cluster schools could instead be called "school districts". I remember that when I was a school boy, we used to have school districts. I was very proud to be in the City District because we always used to beat Bukit Timah District in sports and all the other activities. That was really just for sports. But I think it is time to revive this concept and have it for the whole education service and that person who is going to be the leader of the cluster of schools would not just be one of the other principals but would really have an office, administrative staff and a budget to support his work. I would really think that is the way to go. I see this Bill as the point of a wedge that would open the door for more breath of fresh air.

Dr Tan Boon Wan (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, in the recent Budget debate, the Education Minister, RAdm Teo Chee Hean, saw the importance of the teachers, principals and staff and the Ministry of Education is taking steps to make the Education Ministry into a thinking entity.

Earlier, the Ministry has proposed decentralising its decision-making down to the autonomous cluster schools, as Dr Aline Wong has said. The changes proposed in this Bill are in line with the changes that are envisaged. However, change of names and designations is the easy part. The main changes to the system proper are more difficult. It will require commitment, hard work and proper management.

As the Ministry passes more decision making responsibilities down, it is important that the decision makers at this level are properly trained to make this decision and take responsibilities for the added duties. This is easier said than done, as habits are difficult to change. In situations where decisions are centralised, as the Ministry of Education set-up in the past and now, decisions are transmitted from top and executed at the bottom. We can have very good implementers at the bottom and the system can work well. However, to change the mindset of an implementer to that of a decision maker is not easy. But the success of the change and ultimately the system, depends on changing this mindset. We must bear in mind that whatever changes that we need to make to our education system is not one of choice but of survival dictated by forces beyond our control. We will in future have a new breed of teachers and students in a new world environment. They will be more inquisitive and assertive. If we do not change our education system, the teachers and the students will be frustrated and employers will not get the type of workers and the nation will not get the type of citizens that we need.

The Prime Minister has painted the vision of Thinking Schools and a Learning Nation. To make this a reality, we must restructure our education system into one where our teachers and principals are encouraged to think, to make decisions, to implement and to take responsibilities for a decision taken and implemented. Power must devolve downwards. Choosing the right people to take on responsibilities is critical to our success. Here, I must caution that if we are looking for a manager, we should be choosing people with good management skills. Here, I must put people management skills as very important. There has been a nagging suspicion that teachers who are good in teaching are more likely to be selected to take over this management position. This is not good. A good teacher may make a poor manager. In doing so, he or she may not perform well as a manager and make everyone else unhappy. Once a teacher is chosen to take on a management position, he or she must be given training and not to be expected to learn by fumbling through.

Finally, I would like to emphasise that the main purpose of education must be to produce a nation of educated citizens to meet the needs of the nation. Management is incidental to achieving this goal. Management must therefore exist because of their clients, the teachers, students, parents, employers and Government. They do not exist of their own rights. They must not see the needs of their clients as chores to be performed. Here, I would refer to the entire education system: the Ministry, the schools, ITE, the polytechnics and the universities. Administration exists to support the primary functions of teaching, not the other way round.

Sir, I support the Bill.

Dr Aline Wong: Sir, I thank the two Members of the House for their support of the Bill. I would also like to thank them for giving us some ideas for thought. I agree with Dr Tan Boon Wan that training for the school leaders is very important and not all teachers are necessarily good managers. This is why I emphasised in my speech that we would be selective in choosing strong leaders to lead in our effort to devolve autonomy to the schools.

As for Thinking Schools, how do we materialise our vision for Thinking Schools? The way to go forward is to devolve decision making to schools where the action is, and that is why we want to restructure the school system and to group the schools in clusters to give them the opportunity to share resources, to deploy personnel in a more efficient manner and to develop school programmes that are catered to the particular needs of the schools in the local context. It is actually not a flat structure, as Dr Toh said. Heading the cluster of schools would be a group senior principal who actually is not one of the principals from the cluster. He would be someone with a specific mission, who would be posted to head a cluster of schools and to bring it forward. He would help the staff to develop. He would be monitoring and also assessing the staff at the same time. So it is not a flat structure.

As to his idea that perhaps we could group the clusters of schools into districts, regions, and so on, certainly we can consider this suggestion. The cluster schools pilot project has been in existence for a few months now. We have had a preliminary assessment of its success and we are quite confident that this is the way forward. With this, I think I have answered the points made by both Members.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Dr Aline Wong].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.

Mr Speaker: Order. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at five minutes past six.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 5.50 pm until 6.05 pm. Sitting resumed at 6.05 pm