JUNIOR COLLEGE/UPPER SECONDARY EDUCATION

Debate resumed.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Mr Speaker, Sir, the implementation of these proposals will take a number of years. The JC curriculum will be introduced from 2006. The benefits will not be seen till some years later. Implementation will not be without its challenges. There will be curriculum to be written, teachers to be trained, new assessment methods to be devised.

We will need the support of the public, parents, teachers, students and, not least of all, the hon. Members of this House, to see these reforms through in the coming years. The debate in this House will help Singaporeans to understand the issues involved, and the importance of making these reforms. As we debate these reforms, let us fix our eyes on the future, and build an education system that will help our country and our young to be ready to meet that future.

Sir, I would now like to take the opportunity to hear from hon. Members their views on the proposed changes to the JC and Upper Secondary Education.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed. 3.58 pm

Dr Wang Kai Yuen (Bukit Timah): Mr Speaker, Sir, the report on the JC curriculum contains two major recommendations - firstly, to revise the JC curriculum, broadening the content as well as emphasising thinking skills and, secondly, to introduce the Integrated Programme in secondary schools. These proposals aim to introduce improvements as well as address some basic problems in our education system.

For years, the Ministry has steadfastly asserted the virtues of our education system. Therefore, I consider this Motion significant for the Ministry to admit that there are shortcomings in the system and, secondly, for the Ministry to accept the recommendations of a Review Committee established not so many months ago with members from outside the Ministry. Admittedly, by accepting the recommendations of the Review Committee, the Ministry of Education has taken a giant step in resolving these systemic issues. In fact, these proposed changes are considered so fundamental that the Minister has recommended to the Prime Minister that the Whip be lifted so that PAP Members of Parliament could debate the motion thoroughly without restraint.

Mr Speaker, Sir, every parent with a child in our school system has an opinion on how to improve our education system. However, to be able to come out with a comprehensive overhaul requires courage to admit that there are problems, an exceptional ability to grasp the gist of these problems, and the clarity of mind to come out with the solutions. I believe that the Review Committee, under the chairmanship of the Senior Minister of State, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, has managed to achieve.

One regrettable aspect of the report is that it contained so many new initiatives that the reader may not see the forest for the trees. To me, Sir, two major thrusts - the JC curriculum and the Integrated Programme - could have been better clearly de-linked and their merits considered separately.

Sir, as a way of setting the stage, let me list out the shortcomings of our existing secondary education system, and then look at whether the reform proposed in the report has addressed them. What are the generally perceived issues regarding our upper secondary education at the moment? In simple terms, they can be summarised as follows:

Firstly, the overall workload is high, in fact, very high. The workload of a typical student is around 1,700 instruction hours for the "A" level programme comprising the General Paper, mother tongue language and four principal subjects. For individual subjects such as Science and Mathematics, our workload is heavier than equivalent programmes in the United Kingdom and the United States by at least 15%, sometimes more.

Secondly, life as a student in Singapore is very stressful. Our students strive to take as many subjects as possible and to score as many As as they can achieve. They also choose more deterministic subjects such as Science and Mathematics and to shy away from humanities. One of the factors in driving our students is our emphasis on meritocracy and transparency. When it comes to scholarship applications and university admissions, we primarily look at the examination results of the applicants. And given that the examinations test primarily the mastery of these content-based subjects, it is possible for those with the mental ability to score better and better grades just by spending more and more hours memorising the facts and honing their examination skills by practising on the 10-year series.

Thirdly, our education system overwhelmingly favours discipline and the ability to apply oneself. As a result, our students learn too much fact and not enough abilities. In particular, we are short in thinking skills as well as social skills. In effect, our students become very good in solving known problems using known solutions but become hesitant and unsure when confronted with new problems, a behaviour regularly observed by our university and polytechnic lecturers.

Sir, these observations are not new. But what prompted MOE to set up the Review Committee? I surmise that there are two reasons. First, we have painted ourselves into a corner as far as the evolution of the education system in the secondary schools is concerned. Evolution in the natural world has taught us that it is important to continuously evolve to adjust to changing circumstances. In my opinion, Sir, our JC education had made a wrong turn many years back into a cul de sac. Why do I say so? Our teachers have become so good in tutoring their charges in scorings and our students have become so good in honing their examination skills that the only way to segregate the outstanding students from the mere excellent is to make the subjects harder and harder. And as we crank up the ratchet one turn at a time over the years, we lost sight of what we are trying to achieve in education. The ranking of schools and the students became the proxy measurements for success.

Today, our typical "A" level students are required to spend about 330 hours in one subject versus the equivalent 280 hours in the United Kingdom's "A" level. It is even more when we compare to the United States' equivalent of 240 hours. Our students are so far ahead when they are admitted to the United States universities, even into the very best US universities. They are given exemption for many first-year subjects such as Mathematics and Sciences. Furthermore, in the last "A" level examinations, the number of students scoring 4As has once again broken the record. The end of better and better scholastic results is not in sight. I do not think we have somehow managed to manipulate our children's genes so that they are now brighter and smarter than the previous generations. What happens is that our children just have learnt a whole lot more in the process of preparing for the "A" level. If we do not transform our education system, the only way to provide some differentiation among top students is to crank up the ratchet one more time, so much so that perhaps one day in the future, our students will be given exemption from even more senior level classes, perhaps the sophomore year classes in the United States. This shall be obvious to all, lay persons and experts alike, that to continue this path is not what education is all about.

The second reason that the Minister has already touched on is that the Singapore economy in the future requires a very different type of workforce than what our education system is geared to produce and our current severe recession has driven home this key point. Up to now, our economy has done well by adopting production techniques from the developed countries and we will refine them so that Singaporeans are more efficient and effective in performing those jobs. And the output of our education system is well-suited for this task. As a result, our economy has grown since independence spectacularly. However, as we try to upgrade ourselves into a knowledge-based economy, we discover that our engine sputters as we step on the accelerator's pedal. What happened? Some say that we did not develop enough intellectual property ourselves that the others are willing to pay for. Others say that we are not creative enough. In other words, our workforce basically does not know how to leverage the knowledge we have in our systems and processes into goods and services that the world is prepared to pay for.

The other aspect of a rapidly changing economy is the rapid transformation of job skills. As we no longer could predict the job skills that will be required in the future, it is better to train our population to be flexible and adaptable instead of being channelled into specialised areas too early. To fix these two problems, the whole education system must be transformed, and some part of which very fundamentally.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I believe that the JC curriculum is the first step in a complete overhaul of our education system to be more like the United States' system compared to the United Kingdom's system. It puts emphasis on thinking skills and avoids early over-specialisation. Our local universities have already recognised the need and have taken the step to transform themselves from the British system to the American system. Thus, the changes in the JC curriculum will remove the disjoint that exists today between the JCs and the universities. This change is welcomed by everyone that the Feedback Unit has consulted with regard to the White Paper.

Mr Speaker, Sir, what the new curriculum does not address is the workload and the stress of the JC curriculum. Yes, we know our students can take the stress. Yes, they can take the load. But why should we subject our children to this very trying, tempering process? The White Paper did not address the question whether it is necessary to impose such a heavy workload on our students.

Not only that, Sir, on the contrary, the new curriculum, by requiring the need to take a cross-discipline subject, would probably increase the workload. It is true that through the new classification of H1, H2 and H3, the Ministry proposes to keep the total instruction hours the same. But by increasing the emphasis on project work, thinking skills and the need to take a new subject in a different discipline, I believe students will need to spend more time instead of the same amount of time. It is regrettable that the Review Committee did not delve into this area and take the opportunity to make the necessary adjustment to bring down the total workload. I would request the Minister to monitor the workload very carefully in the new implementation and to make necessary adjustments, if so required.

Another impact on students that we have to watch out for will be their response to the new emphasis on thinking skills and project work. These are harder to do well in, especially for those who are not so strong in the command of the English Language, in writing and in expressing themselves. It is likely that these students will prefer the old approach and I believe that they will aim to go to the universities via the polytechnic route after their "O" level. Thus, it is likely that some years down the road after we implement the new JC curriculum that the pressure to allow more polytechnic graduates beyond the now top 10% into our universities will intensify.

Mr Speaker, Sir, some of the respondents to the Feedback Unit feel that the JC curriculum would only impact the top 25% of the cohort and is therefore not of major interest to the majority of our students. I think this view is mistaken as the influence of this change would be felt all the way down the school system to the primary level. Parents would recognise that the attribute that would enable their children to do well in the new "A" level examinations has got to be inculcated for many years in the lower secondary as well as in the primary levels. Contrary to public perception, the JC curriculum would touch the life of every child in Singapore and this is all the more so because of the integrated programme or the "through-train" concept to be introduced concurrently.

Sir, the "through-train" concept has been floated for many years now. A number of JCs and secondary schools have already signed up to the concept. It targets the top 10% of the cohort so that they could go straight to the "A" level without having to sit for the intermediate "O" level examinations. Since 25% of our cohort would move on to the JC, 10% would be the top two-fifths of this group. We could be quite confident that the drop-out from the Integrated Programme (IP) would be few and far between and naturally most of the GEP pupils will be enrolled into the IP programme. In my mind, Sir, IP is, in essence, an extension of the streaming exercise that started way back in the primary level. Is this good or bad? This is, in fact, a very fundamental question and indeed the more troubling proposal in this White Paper.

Sir, it should be obvious that by skipping the "O" levels, the IP confers significant benefits to the students in the programme. Just by looking from the angle of time utilisation, these students would have close to six months for other development activities that the "O" level students would spend at Secondary 4 preparing for their examinations. Furthermore, the Ministry proposes to introduce the single admission to JC 1 concurrently to solve the problem of churning of students after their "O" level examinations. Thus, the new JC 1 intake will enroll as late as in March after their "O" levels in the following year. And during this period, Sir, I do not think the students in the IP programme will stay at home marking time. I am sure that they will be back in the schools, being nurtured. Thus, the IP students would have as much as up to eight months' interaction time more than a student who took the normal route or the Express stream. Sir, bearing in mind that the IP students are the top 10% of the cohort in terms of intelligence and abilities, I believe these students will end up having a very measurable advantage over the other students in the Express stream or in the Normal stream. They would probably be so good that they might be given the label "super-express stream".

The IP programme illustrates once again the tensions between two different and opposing views in education. Do we strive for an egalitarian system catering to the majority and leaving the bright ones to fend for themselves or do we provide the best to the brightest, nurturing them to their fullest potential? If we take the first approach, we would not be maximising the potential of our very best, which could make a difference between growth and stagnation for Singapore in the future. If we take the second approach, in other words, the IP approach, will we generate a sense of disenchantment among our young who are not in the IP programme, that the system is stacked against them if nature does not endow them with the genes to do well in our system? How do we deal with the frustrations that come with the realisation that determination, discipline and other human qualities come second, while natural endowment becomes most important? How do we address the rootedness of Singaporeans when some of us are dealt with a lousy deck of cards, and the Government reinforces this in our education system?

Frankly speaking, Sir, I am torn between these two poles. In my mind, I think IP is necessary and appropriate, and would bring great benefit to the students in the stream. In my heart, I feel that this will intensify the angst and stress in our education system and make for perhaps a less harmonious society. In view of the Singapore economy which will be very dependent on the creativity of our people, my mind is winning this tug of war but my heart wishes that it need not be so. Nonetheless, I would urge the Ministry to be cognisant of this when implementing the IP. This should give the assurance that the non-IP students will continue to get the attention and the resources allocated to them currently. I am glad to note that the Minister is cognisant of this and has already reassured us in his speech.

Sir, both of these concepts look good on paper. Whether they will bring the benefits we envisage will depend on the implementation. There are many issues of implementation - and there are 31 speakers after me. The key one, in my mind, is the preparedness of the teachers by 2006. The question is: will these few years be sufficient to get the system ready? I believe that in implementing the IP, only a number of schools will be involved initially. I understand that this number is less than the number of schools currently offering the GEP. So, do we also admit non-GEP students into IP? What would happen to the GEP students in schools that are not implementing the IP? How do we deal with the aspirations of the GEP students in these schools if they could not be transferred to the IP?

There are also other recommendations in the White Paper, such as the establishment of private schools and the ability of some schools to offer other academic programmes such as the IB. These are meant to bring out greater diversity in the education system to meet the specific needs of the student population.

Sir, I believe it is reasonable to experiment with the concept of private secondary schools. In this respect, I am glad that MOE has insisted that these schools must meet the minimum criteria of 50% Singaporean students in the population and must comply with the National Education guidelines. I have no great issue with the private schools, except that we must address the concern of the public about the exclusiveness of such schools. Already, there are public comments about our students not interacting enough between those of different ethnic backgrounds. We need to ensure that such independent schools do not become institutes where only the sons and daughters of the rich and the famous intermingle and build networks for the future.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the recommendations of the White Paper will bring about fundamental and significant changes in our education system. I would like to thank Senior Minister of State Tharman for steering his Review Committee to come out with these comprehensive and well-considered policy recommendations and to thank the Minister for accepting these recommendations. These changes will affect every Singaporean. For some, the change will be beneficial. For others, it will bring about greater anxiety and stress. To me, what is important is that the motivation of the MOE is a positive one, and I am glad to hear that the Ministry is prepared to do what is necessary to ensure that the new initiatives would succeed.

Sir, we need to break through the present mindset and to bring the education system in Singapore to the next higher level of performance. I support the changes but urge caution and continuous monitoring to remedy any negative impact.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: Mr Speaker, I am delighted that far-reaching changes are now being proposed to the system of JC/Upper Secondary School education. The present system has not had a major revamp for 30 years. Like so much of Singapore Inc., it is highly efficient and accomplishes a great deal with minimum fuss. But the accompanying litany of complaints is long and familiar. And my fellow Parliamentary colleagues before me have given details of some of these.

Students and parents bemoan the undue stress the system has imposed from intense rote learning and the cookie cutter approach. Significantly, by agreeing to the reduction in the number of hours per 'A' level subject, the MOE seems to implicitly admit that the present system, by international comparison, over teachers in terms of content and subject hours, is generating an enormously stressful learning experience.

University educators and employers find our students wanting, because they are adept at knowledge acquisition but not knowledge application or creation. They often bemoan the failure of the system to inculcate critical thinking and communication skills. It is well known that Singaporean students are reticent and poor communicators in comparison with foreign counterparts. These anecdotal observations have thus far not been negated by statistics that many Government departments are fond of using to demolish arguments.

Indeed, they are reinforced by a recent study by the Ministry of Trade and Industry which shows clearly that, compared to the advanced economies, Singapore is pretty strong in acquiring knowledge, but is less so in creating, disseminating or applying information. The report further notes that it is in knowledge application where Singapore lags furthest behind and here, the weakest link is entrepreneurship.

Sir, please let me state categorically at the outset that I do see the value of a rigorous education system that stretches students, and stress per se is indeed no reason to relax the rigour of the JC/Upper Secondary education system. The estimated 25% of each year's cohort that enter Upper Secondary/JC, one can safely assume, represent the best of the crop and nothing beats a good solid education to prepare them for either a university education or alternative learning pathways to a useful career.

Without any question, the changes taking place all around us call for new responses. We urgently need to build up a pool of trained manpower with the skills and the aptitude to tackle the economic challenges of a highly competitive globalised, knowledge and innovation-driven economy.

Amongst the tirade of recommendations made by the ERC sub-committees, the need to revamp our education system to foster entrepreneurship stands out very strongly as a common and central recommendation. In fact, one of the strongest advocates comes from the Sub-committee on Enhancing Human Capital, chaired by the Minister of State for Manpower and Education, Dr Ng Eng Hen, himself.

Indeed, Minister of State Ng Eng Hen's recent ERC sub-committee report begins where the White Paper also begins - the pressing need to inject more flexibility and diversity into our education system. The goal is to enable the system to perform optimally its equipping task, and make our schools, to use the ERC report's memorable words, "creators of knowledge, engines of innovation and cradles of enterprise."

In a nutshell, there are, I believe, three underlying core principles enunciated in the review:

1. greater breadth - with focus on thinking and higher order skills, not just academic or subject content;

2. greater flexibility - to accommodate preference for different types and depth of subjects; and

3. greater diversity - to allow different pathways of education to accommodate different types of students.

Sir, I support these broad principles and aims enunciated. But in my assessment, they have still not been applied widely or rigorously enough to the vision for a new education landscape. In what follows, I will explain my reasons by highlighting five major concerns arising from the review.

My first concern relates to execution. While the principles are sound, the execution can and should take on different hues. Thus, a key concern would be in the manner of implementation of the recommendations. For instance, how can existing teachers, who are themselves products of an era where education is largely knowledge acquisition, as well as new teachers, be equipped to help students develop conceptual thinking, knowledge process skills, independent thinking and communication skills?

What are the changes that must be made to the recruitment of new teachers and their training? How should the syllabus, teaching and assessment methods be shaped to ensure they achieve the aims of the review? What needs to be done for existing and often older teachers to help them grasp the issues?

The Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Education, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who chairs the Review Committee, himself had acknowledged that the success of the revised curriculum hinges on how it is executed, particularly in the curriculum design and the training of teachers. As they say, the devil is in the details.

The most enlightened and exquisite curriculum or programme is only as good as the way it is implemented. Here, I quote the editorial of the Straits Times of 16th November 2002:

'Where the education system is concerned, it is not just a matter of rearranging chairs, building new schools, but changing the insides of people, including the people tasked with making the changes. Who will teach the teachers?'

Indeed, from the feedback I have received, I suspect that there is little disagreement among Singaporeans about the noble intentions of the changes, but the "How" will need to be carefully crafted and conveyed to all stakeholders.

I would like to suggest that MOE involve educators and other relevant stakeholders in the design of the new curriculum and make the process more transparent to parents and students. Before actual implementation of the revised curriculum, MOE should widely expose these for comments by the stakeholders so that any kinks can be ironed out before implementation. MOE, in accepting this report by the Review Committee, should also follow up with a subsequent report regarding how the curriculum has been revised and trimmed, additional new teaching and assessment methods that need to be adopted to achieve the aims of the report. This could be presented to the public and Parliament for feedback. And at this juncture I would like to thank the Minister for noting that some of these would be done.

My second concern relates to the need to take at least one contrasting subject and implications on workload. I fully subscribe to the logic of having a contrasting subject, so as to expose students to subjects outside their core content knowledge, and help them think in inter-disciplinary terms. Increasingly, complex problems we are facing call for multi-dimensional responses that a broad-based education can elicit.

Again, the execution of this could leave much to be desired. Specifically, except for perhaps a handful of students, the majority do not possess the aptitude to be more or less competent in every subject. Most students have preferences and aptitude for one category of subjects - eg, science or arts. To accommodate a broader based enhanced curriculum, the Review Committee has proposed trimming curriculum content and time of each subject.

However, even though the number of hours per subject is reduced, the need for a contrasting subject brings the total tally for a typical "A" level student to a minimum of 7 subjects, up from the existing minimum of 5.

This may mean greater stress as students are taxed beyond the comfort zone of the subjects around the core areas that they prefer. The aim of broadening students' horizon beyond the academic would be defeated if they have to struggle unduly in their contrasting subject, leaving them with precious little time for anything else. In fact, whilst there would be a 10% reduction in overall curriculum time under the proposed system, for existing triple Science students doing 4 "A" levels, the overall curriculum time for Humanities students doing 3 "A" levels will remain unchanged at about 1,300 hours. This means that the weaker students in the cohort may be unduly stretched as they now have to take more subjects and on top of this, at least one subject outside their specialisation in the same overall curriculum time.

Additionally, the typical "kiasu" Singaporean parents would want their children to do well in all subjects, as long as the subject contributes to the admission criteria of our local universities. Hence, additional pressure may also emanate from this source. Once again, the recommendations could falter at the execution stage.

To alleviate this problem, it must be ensured that the reduced hours genuinely reflect correspondingly reduced content, that does not somehow creep back into the system by way of after-class teaching.

My third major concern relates to the through-train education.

Sir, I support the proposals to have through-train to accelerate the learning pace and offer the brighter students time to pursue their interests and enrich their own educational experience without having their attention diverted by two major examinations.

As only the brightest crop of students - the top 10% - will be permitted to participate, the risk of these students being left without completing at least the "O" levels should they fail the through-train will be remote. In some ways, the through-train is thus another version of the GEP, and yet another form of streaming. I know of many parents who desire that their children be able to enter the GEP. Additionally, the perception is that the best resources are also devoted to grooming these students, perhaps more so on a per capita basis than the rest of the crop. The fact that this programme and its successor, the through-train, falls within the national school system raises the prospect that this is like officially sanctioned Darwinism at work.

Sir, I fully accept that we are all made differently and abilities likewise vary. I also subscribe to the idea that bright students with exceptional aptitude are better off developing other skills and pursuing non-curriculum-related work for character and leadership honing than taking two major examinations. But I would like MOE to consider steps to ensure that the creme de la creme of Singapore's student population entering the through-train programme do not develop isolationist tendencies, but integrate into the mainstream and not look down at their lesser brethren.

It is comforting to note that schools and JCs planning to run the integrated programme will set aside or offer additional places to ensure that students from non-affiliated schools are not shut out of the JC. These secondary schools would also continue to offer the standard "O" level track which would allow students to stay on the traditional route, if they are assessed to be unable to make the mark, say, at secondary 2.

Since 1990, the percentage of P1 cohort who passed "A" levels has been above 20%. Hence, I would like to urge the Ministry to monitor the progress and performance of the through-train cohort with the view of eventually making it accessible to a higher percentage of students, from the targeted 10%, who can benefit from the system.

My fourth concern relates to the setting up of private schools. The Review Committee recommends adding a few privately-run and funded secondary schools and JCs. Such schools are to add diversity and choice in education as well as to provide an added source of ideas and innovative practices in education.

The Committee acknowledges that such a move would however introduce some degree of elitism into the national education system, since admission would depend in part on ability to pay. Nonetheless, the need for a more varied education landscape is becoming inevitable in the face of globalisation and an increasingly mobile and informed citizenry that demands choice. Privately-funded schools are likely to appeal to a minority of parents who are at odds with the national school system and believe that their children could fit better in a less rigid alternative system. Private schools can provide greater variety and choice of alternative school systems, which can meet the needs of such families, and perhaps help stem the outflow of Singaporeans arising from unhappiness with the education system.

As one Douglas Koh quipped, in response to the Review Committee's proposals, "For years I have been thinking of emigrating because of the lack of alternative school systems. Now I may be spoilt for choice."

More importantly, privately-funded schools can cater to the children of returning Singaporean expatriates who may prefer an alternative curriculum which they are more familiar with or prepared for.

Sir, I therefore support this proposal and in fact would like to urge MOE to allow private schools to be open for all levels instead of confining this to Secondary and JC levels so that the diversity in choice can be complete.

My final key concern relates to widening the benefits, downwards and upwards. Firstly, widening the benefits downwards. The recommendations in the White Paper would benefit the most able of each cohort. For instance, the JC review would benefit the top 25% of the cohort, whilst the proposed through-train system is aimed at the top 10%. But what about the other 75% of the cohort? What about those further upstream in the lower secondary and primary schools? Should not the new education roadmap of greater breadth, greater flexibility and greater diversity be also made available to them so that all will be using the same map to navigate effectively together?

The benefits of diversity, flexibility and choice in education and the nurturing of a thinking culture should spread to the rest of the cohort so that the less able will at least receive some preparation to equip them for the challenges of the KBE. For surely the goal is not merely to have a thinking elite, but also a thinking nation. We need thinkers at all levels of society and not just at the top, and to level up the weak, without dumping down the strong. The White Paper has allowed for greater customisation or streaming with concomitant diversity and choice at the top end of the cohort with the through-train and specialised school proposals. Greater diversity, choice and customisation should also be accorded to the rest of the cohort and in this respect, I support the following ERC Human Capital Sub-committee's recommendations:

Firstly, to allow secondary students to have wider access to subjects beyond their particular stream. For instance, students in "N" level could take a few subjects where they are strong in at "O" level.

Secondly, to allow selected students a longer period to complete their examinations by taking fewer subjects in more sittings, so that they can pursue external interests such as sports and the arts, which they excel in.

These would then reduce some of the rigidity in the system, which though efficient, may hamper late developers. In fact, the answer to the much-maligned streaming system could thus paradoxically lie in more streaming or greater customisation of learning, particularly for the exceptional, the wayward and the just different.

There is obviously a great deal of administrative clumsiness, and some loss of efficiency may have to be initially tolerated but fundamentally - allowing even more diversity should - in this regard be seen as part of the maturation process in our education system. The MOE, by accepting the White Paper, is already allowing some "messiness" to creep into the currently highly efficient system.

Secondly, widening the benefits upwards. There is also the need to start grounding critical thinking skills from the echelons of lower secondary and even primary school, so that they will not start on the wrong footing. Again, as noted by the Human Capital ERC Sub-committee, we need to inculcate new traits such as thinking and communication skills early in the education process.

Referring to tertiary students, I remember coming across a T-shirt worn by an undergraduate that had the words "I is a university student." There is some reality behind this tongue-in-cheek humour.

As an ex-University lecturer, I can testify to the poor command of English, a significant number of undergraduates suffer from, as a consequence of inadequate grounding during their primary and secondary school days.

One cannot go far back enough, as psychologists will tell you, habits of the mind are formed at a very young age. This laying of foundation is especially crucial for the dysfunctional families where the home environment may not be conducive for learning and school is the only avenue for learning.

MOE announced the "Thinking Schools, Learning Nation" initiative in 1997 and curriculum content was trimmed by up to 30% in 1999. However, by all accounts, and as noted earlier, students and parents continue to remain stressed by the workload, leaving students with very little time for critical thinking and analysis.

The MOE should thus also review the curriculum content and workload of students in the primary and secondary schools to see if content can be further trimmed just like in the case of the JCs.

The White Paper notes that the current academic curriculum load in JCs is heavy compared to foreign education systems like the "A" levels in the UK and the IB. This is despite the fact that the curriculum was trimmed in 1999. By the same token, we may still be overloading and over-teaching our primary and secondary students. This, I submit, could place incoming upper secondary/JC students on the wrong footing and diminish the gains they could make from the very revisions we are now debating in this House.

As the saying goes, we are the product of what we eat and this is true, whether it is food for the stomach or fodder for the brain.

Arguably, our education system is superior to those in many countries, and has largely met the needs of our economy and citizens. However, with the rapid pace of globalisation, there is growing evidence that the system, as it stands, would not be able to meet the needs of the future workplace and economy.

As Prof Edison Liu, Head of the Singapore Genomic Programme notes, "Yes, the Singapore education system is good. Yes, it is considered among the best in the world in mathematics and the sciences. But the question is not what Singapore needs now, but what the country will need 10 years from now."

To enable us to compete effectively in the global economic arena, we need creative and critically thinking workers, not compliant workers. International Survey Research recently reported that based on its employee surveys, Singapore's chief executives tend to be good stewards rather than leaders. This is corroborated by a recent conversation I had with a PR from China who runs trading companies in Singapore and China. He told me he spends more time in China than Singapore, not because his family is in China - his family is in fact in Australia - but because he knows that the Singaporean manager can be trusted to run his company according to his instructions. He says that if he were to leave his China office unattended for too long, he fears one of his employees may set up a rival firm, just across the road, to compete against him. He remarked that Singaporean managers are very competent and compliant. Ethics aside, Chinese managers are also very competent, but they are also always looking at ways to be their own boss.

I suspect that our famously rigid education system has no small part to play in shaping the current mindset of Singaporeans. In order to reform our education landscape to produce creative workers, innovators and entrepreneurs, there needs to be a mindset change for all - students, parents, teachers and the MOE. It is heartening that the MOE has accepted the Review Committee's recommendation to reform the JC/Upper Secondary system to better prepare students for the unpredictable future.

Changing the curriculum to allow for more broad-based education and nurturing thinking skills for JC and bright upper secondary school students as well as giving them more options are first steps in the right direction. But the system would also have to be changed upstream and for the rest of the cohort in order to allow all and sundry - the exceptional, the normal, the wayward and the just different - to have a chance to survive and prosper. Until this is done, the Sim Wong Hoos and, if I may add, the Olivia Lums would continue to remain elusive.

I therefore urge MOE not to delay but look into the equally needed reforms for those upstream and the remaining cohort outside the ambit of the upper secondary/JC system. This is a call not only by the public but by many from the ERC Sub-committees. I am sure that, with determination, MOE would be able to marshall resources to look at these areas simultaneously, as it is looking into the implementation of the changes for the JC/upper secondary system.

Indeed, it is very comforting to note a recent example of MOE's eagerness to act decisively. Proof of this is in the recent change in the choice of secondary school available to pupils after their PSLE results, instead of before. Additionally, MOE has also now agreed to a single JC intake. As one principal remarked, this single intake of JC has been fed to MOE for more than 10 years and had remained unchanged. With MOE's new added willingness to change, as seen in the acceptance of the Review Committee's Report, I have high hopes (and I hope I would not be proven wrong) that MOE would seriously consider and implement many of the other proposed and much needed changes in the education system.

With this, Sir, I support the motion. 4.50 pm

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for National Development (Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee): Mr Speaker, Sir, parents and some MPs in this House have been highly critical of our education policies. This is not at all surprising considering the importance Asians place on education. Unfortunately, some of us, indeed many of us, have a tendency to claim credit for our children's success and blame the system for their failure. But children do not fail until we think they have.

Clearly in any society, there are slow learners, there are fast learners. Education, Sir, is not a race. Education is a journey, and not a destination. Yes, there are intermediate stops along the way - PSLE, 'O' levels, 'N' levels, and so on, and so forth. It does not really matter whether a child takes a slightly different, if longer, route to reach his own objective, his own destination.

Education, Sir, is not about how fast we reach our own destiny, but how far we can do so. MOE, in the last decade or so, has become a convenient punching bag for society's distorted definition of success. Really, a lot of the noise we hear in this House and the media do not do justice to our system here. They are both unfair and without basis.

Our system is not perfect. I think there are defects. But the system is not broken. The way we hear it in this House is that it is almost broken. But I say that the system is not broken and this is saying plenty about our system versus the systems elsewhere. Dr Wang mentioned the standards in the States and Britain. I will come back to that a bit later on.

Many countries, including the States and Britain, are revamping their systems because scholastic standards have fallen to disastrously low levels. Here, we are fixing a problem that does not exist. It is a successful problem. Our students do well. There are lots of As in the 'A' levels and we say that there is something wrong in that system. Here, the MOE is revamping the JC and upper secondary school system for quite a different reason from that now going on in the States, in Britain and in Japan.

Under the new system, many parents have the perception that the system is going to be easy on their children. There is hope that more students in Singapore under the new system will be better off. I think they will be. But there will also be a lot of heartaches. Because under the new system, there is a higher degree of differentiation, as Dr Amy Khor mentioned. It is in a way another level of streaming, if you put the students through a through-train system, if the students went into the specialised school of Mathematics and Science (something which I will talk about a bit later on). MPs and educators cannot be oblivious to the events around the world. And we seem to be very focused about the system in Singapore when we talk about the problem. We all know the problems. But if you look around elsewhere, the problems we have, the problems we face, are not serious.

Only two years ago at the 2000 Presidential election campaign in the States, education was what Americans called a "hot button issue", in other words, something so hot, it would decide who would be the next President. Why? Because an employers' survey showed that two-thirds, that means, more than 60% of high school graduates (we call it 'A' levels, they call it high school) did not have the skills necessary to succeed in the workplace. Indeed, Americans have decried, debating the declining standards in schools for over two decades. So has Britain, so has Japan. And on balance, I think we have done well.

The media, the press and academics should know better. How do we know we have done well? I think the best test is to benchmark our system versus systems elsewhere. And I think the best objective benchmarking is the International Mathematics and Science test which is culturally neutral. It does not depend on the person's language or his upbringing, and the system is totally objective. The sample sizes are large enough. The number of countries participating is representative enough. But therein lies the problem. Parents cite competition and, here, we have heard two speakers before me saying competition is a major fault of our education system. I think in particular, parents and many of us here are against ranking because they think that ranking engenders a culture of what we call "destructive competition". The real reason, if we touch our hearts, is not competition or ranking, but the fear and disappointment that our sons and daughters do not get into a ranked school. I think that is the heart of the problem.

If all of us want to send our sons and daughters to schools that can only take in 10% of every cohort, then by definition 90% of the parents of that cohort will be disappointed. But is this necessary? The hysteria about not getting into a ranked school like RI, RGS, Chinese High, is totally irrational. All our secondary schools are not bad. It is just that, if you have a spread of a few hundred schools, there must be some better schools and some not so good schools. But the real test is if a student that does not get into a ranked school, does he measure up to international scholastic benchmarks? If he does, I think it is not a problem. If he does not, then there is a problem.

Please remember, as Dr Wang correctly pointed out, that our students are held in high esteem when they go to British or American universities, many of them get exemption. Every student here does well in very good universities anywhere in the world. It will of course make parents happy, if MOE does not rank schools. But I think that would be a retrograde step. Competition and ranking, using examination results, are part of the education landscape everywhere. I think Singapore is a late starter.

Here, critics equate ranking using examination results as destructive competition. But, elsewhere, they have changed euphemism. They call examinations accountability. You might ask: accountability to whom? To taxpayers who fund public schools, or to parents who want to know which private schools are good so that they can spend a lot of money to send their children to these schools.

All around the developed world, there is an urgency to get scholastic achievements up. In Chicago, you read not long ago in the Straits Times, the authority is giving away cash grants of US$10,000 to schools which improve on their grades. Some schools in Texas are cutting down on play time and recess time to focus on core examinable skills. In Japan, educationists have found that years of education that give children room to grow, what Japanese call "the zest of life", in the last 12 years have left a serious gap.

I have just distributed a paper which, according to the opinion of four Japanese scholars in Tokyo University, is called "The Truth About Declining Scholastic Achievement", a long paper, but just read the introduction and the conclusion and you will know the message. There is a simple Mathematics test inside here and you are expected to score 90 marks. The conclusion of these four Japanese scholars is that 12 years ago, they did a survey, they found that the students, like our students today, spent a lot of time studying. They got good grades, but the parents were not happy. So the Ministry of Education then changed the system towards the American system, more broad-based, more electives and the results had not been welcomed at least by these four scholars. Their argument is that basic Mathematics scores had fallen by up to 10 points. Where students used to get 70-80 marks for the test shown inside here, today they are getting 50-60 marks. Their argument is that standards had fallen.

I go on to America which many of you have more knowledge. Now, after years of laissez-faire and falling academic standards, the state of Massachusetts has mandated that all public high school graduates must pass, what they now call, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System in order to get a High School Diploma. Before that, there was no examination. Every school graduate, they take the SAT, then they go to university. But now, in the state of Massachusetts, they want a standardised testing on core subjects.

Nature abhors a vacuum. If Singapore Government does not rank schools, somebody or some organisation would, because the public is hungry for information. In Singapore, the Ministry of Education ranks schools. In the state of Massachusetts, they do not rank schools. But they publish the results obtained by the students in different schools. And what happens? The local media fixes up these results, does the analysis and publishes a ranking list. The Financial Times publishes an education supplement every year, ranking all the schools in Britain, sometime around August/September before the term starts. It is a special pull-out, by the way.

In Singapore, although MOE ranks schools, it does not publish detailed results - RI gets how many As in History, how many As in Mathematics. In the state of Victoria, you might be surprised, and in many states in Australia, detailed subject results are published - Melbourne High get so many As in Mathematics, so many Bs in Science. Although they did not rank schools, one look at the results you will know which is the best school, which is the not-so-good school. So ranking is universal by different names, if you like. And we should keep ranking and competition in its proper perspective. The competition we face in Singapore is not internal, but really external. By that, I mean it is not competition between an RI boy and a Chinese High and an ACS boy, or between RJC and Hwa Chong and ACJC. Sure, we want them to have some friendly competition so that they have sparring partners and benchmark each other. But the real competition is between us and foreign systems. It is only when the entire local system is levelled up and superior to a foreign system that we collectively stand a chance of making ourselves relevant in the brave new world, in the new economy. To put it bluntly, collectively, are we better off than our neighbours? Collectively, are we better off than the world? If the answer is no to both these questions, we would not arrive in the new economy. We will arrive somewhere between here and Timbuktu.

Parents also take issue with the unforgiving and elitist system which streams students according to their learning abilities. We have heard a lot in this House. Many think that the solution is to do away with streaming and follow the example of, say, the USA where everybody happily travels on the same education train from Grade 1, which is Primary 1, to Grade 12, or JC 2. But this is not utopia. In fact, the US is trying to fix a fundamental problem of failing schools in what they call this one-class, one "slow train" system, where everybody goes on one train - no First Class, no Business Class, no Economy - and travels on the same train from Grade 1 to Grade 12.

Mr Speaker, Sir, if you will give me a few minutes, I shall trace the short history of the US system, starting from 1986, so that we get a better appreciation of the work of the Ministry of Education and understand why, when we compare ourselves to America, the students there have a lot less homework and content. The question we want to ask is: do we want to travel that way?

The US system has undergone fundamental changes. Up until the 1950s, the school system in the US was a bit like ours - maybe not so competitive, but a bit like ours - they had examinations, core subjects and few electives in high schools. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, hippie culture took over, America went to war, the public demanded, and the state provided, more choices. By the 1980s, parents and educators realised that it could be a mistake. Choices and lack of examinations had eroded standards seriously.

How did they know? American students' score in their standardised tests on mathematics, reading and sciences became lower and lower. At the same time, college professors and administrators began to notice that high school graduates could not read, write or do basic arithmetic. In short, a large number of high school graduates were intellectually incompetent in what they call the 3Rs.

In a survey in 1980, 99% of Americans told the census takers that they were literate. In fact, the educators knew they lied. Based on the 1989 survey, 12% of America's high school graduates were "functionally illiterate". What does that mean? It means that they could not understand printed instructions and could not - would you believe it - fill out a job application!

There were many reasons for the sad state of affairs. Among them were the abolition of core courses, proliferation of electives and very few examinations. In fact, many schools had no examinations, and those that had examinations had simple examinations - what they call a "dumbing down" of the curriculum. If you go to any bookshop today, you will see that some of the bestsellers in computer and lifestyle books are in what they call the "dummy series". A lot of these dummy series books became very popular, because the system was levelled down to the lowest common denominator so that everybody could get very good grades, go home with the feel-good factor, and every parent could pat his/her child and say, "Son, you have done well. Congratulations!"

But all of us know of children with average grades in Singapore who have suddenly blossomed in overseas schools. Obviously, this could not have happened in just a few months or years. Yet, such experiences are common. Why? Perhaps, we have levelled up a lot while they have dumbed down a lot. So, when you cross over, you are like a leopard cat which suddenly becomes a leopard! These experiences vindicate the success of the Ministry of Education and speak volumes about the high standards of our system here.

In the US, the issue of falling standards became an issue. Ex-President George Bush and the Governors of all the 50 states moved for a root-and-branch change - unlike the review we are talking about today, which is tempering at the edges. The changes are substantial, but I do not think it is a root-and-branch change. In America in 1989, Ex-President George Bush and the 50 Governors decided to do a root-and-branch change of the whole system, and Congress gave effect to what is known as "Goals 2000" - not football but education. And Goals 2000 was given teeth when Congress approved Goals 2000 and gave additional federal grants for all states to reach six objectives. Perhaps we should look at these six objectives and measure them against what the Ministry of Education is trying to do today.

Goal 1: That all children must start school, ready to learn. We must ask ourselves, do Singapore children start school ready to learn? The answer is yes;

Goal 2: That 90% of all high school students will graduate; it does not matter what age, but they will graduate;

Goal 3: That all students will achieve competence in core subjects at certain key points in their progress. In other words, when you have a high school diploma, you are supposed to reach the standards set by certain authorities, and not a diploma that means nothing;

Goal 4: That American students will be the first in the world in mathematics and science achievement. That was a key goal, because they think that for America to lead the world, American students must be the first - not second, not third - in the world in mathematics and science achievements.

Goal 5: That every American will be literate and have the skills to function as a citizen and worker. Here, we talk about thinker, innovator, creator. Their goals are very simple - every American will be literate and have the skills to function as a citizen and worker - in other words, be functionally literate. A simple goal; and

Goal 6: This goal is something we have no problem with: That all schools will be free of drugs and violence.

Let me now move from 1986 to the year 2000, when President George W Bush ran for elections and was so disillusioned with the system. His father, Ex-President George Bush had set Goals 2000. In 2000, George W Bush, Jr, ran as a candidate and said that he was not happy with the system. It had achieved some but had not achieved a lot. His key quotation was: "I would shine a spotlight of shame on failure". The Americans do not like to shame students. They always tell their students how good they are, that they have done well. But he says that that is not good enough. If the student is not good, better shame him. That is the only way to get standards up.

The situation got quite bad, and the American politicians, both Gore and Clinton, engaged on the issue. They were particularly displeased perhaps that it was not Americans who were the first in mathematics and science, but that it was tiny little Singapore that was first in mathematics and second in science. I think we should congratulate our students, parents and educators for this singular achievement. Clearly, forgiving everybody, making the syllabus simple, putting everybody in the same coach class travelling in the same slow coach, and dumbing down the curriculum is a choice we should not venture into. It will make parents happy if we rename the schools and have, say, 20 Raffles Institutions, 20 Raffles Girls Schools, 20 Chinese Highs, etc. We can fool ourselves, but the world will not be deceived.

The correct approach is that taken by the Ministry of Education. Differentiate the students not because we condemn them but because we want to help them. Different students have different needs. They come from different backgrounds, with different talents and interests. We should put them into different trains and drive at a speed that they are comfortable with, but when they reach a certain destination, they are expected to achieve the kind of results that that destination demands. However, overall, if we take the sum total speed of all the trains, that train must travel at a speed fast enough for us to enter the new economy. There is a break-through speed. If we are too slow, we will never arrive, because the world has moved on.

Slow learners need help. They do not need help by adults stigmatising them. There is nothing wrong with a slow learner arriving at "O" or "A" level a little bit later. The fact that they have arrived is something that we should applaud and not condemn. If we put a slow learner on a fast train, he or she would fall off the train. If we drive a slow train for a fast learner, the passenger would fall asleep. A slow train which arrives late is better than one which arrives empty. But can we put everybody on board and drive a slow train? Then, we will have the American problem, which they are trying to fix, and we should not move ourselves into that system.

Sir, for slow learners, I think the Ministry of Education has found a solution. If we support the Ministry of Education and the students who have some difficulty learning, I think they will be all right. If we keep talking about it, the stigma that the students in the "N" stream and the 3-year Pre-U classes feel today is largely imposed by society. Who comprise society? You and I, parents. Collectively, we are at fault.

For slow learners, I think the Ministry of Education has the solution. It is more difficult to coach the most talented, and there are very few of these people in Singapore. I always hope that the Ministry of Education could do a little bit more for the most talented, not by teaching them more - because probably they know more than the teachers - but by giving them the right environment and creating the right mood. Those extraordinary men and women who are good in academic work, sports, dance, music and the arts, they need a different kind of education altogether. You might ask, "Why do we need to help them? They are already so good." The answer is: because they are our hope. They are our salvation.

Hence, I am very pleased with the recommendation of the Committee to establish these so-called specialised schools. However, I would like to counsel, like the two hon. Members before me that, in a way, this is a higher form of streaming, a higher form of differentiation. Children who get into these specialised schools may be few, and children who cannot get in may feel disappointed. This should not be the case. But I think there is a need for such schools.

The Minister for Education mentioned two of these schools - Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School. Maybe I can just mention a little bit about these specialised schools in New York City, which are really in a class of their very own. Among the ruins of the state high school education system in New York, there are jewels in the squalor. When we drill deeper into the American system, we have to recognise that the average student is an academic laggard, but there is a tiny slice of the community which is exceptionally brilliant. But because they have a big population base, that tiny slice is enough to pull America forward to be the most powerful nation today. This is not surprising, where you have a large pool of laggards and a small number of highly talented people because, if you had been to a desert, you would understand that it is only in a desert that there are oases.

The New York City Specialised High School System is something in a class of its own. In fact, in New York City, there are three of these schools and one specialised high school in dance and music. New Yorkers call these "specialised schools", but actually it is an euphemism for very elite schools. These are the best schools. They are also public schools. Students who get in, get free tuition. It is in these schools - three mathematics and science schools, and one music and dance school - that the future captains of industry in New York City are being groomed for tomorrow.

I think a specialised school, not just for mathematics and science but also maybe for sports and music, is an idea whose time has come for Singapore, precisely because our talent pool is very thin, even though the average standard of the student population is high.

The Minister for Education mentioned that the specialised schools have the Integrated Programme that starts from Grade 9 all the way to Grade 12, ie, from Secondary 3 to JC 2. The schools are prohibited from taking in students on any other basis. So, sometime around October, the New York City Council will set what they call the Specialised Science High Schools Admission Test (SSHSAT) - SATS is too easy for these kids - and students who score the highest will be ranked and streamed to these four specialised high schools. Neither wealth, prestige nor power will open the door to these schools for the child. The child must get in on his or her own merit.

We would think that these three high schools in New York City - at least the mathematics and science high schools - get their cream from all the states. This is not the case, not even from the whole of New York State. They only get the cream from New York City which, as we know, consists of five boroughs. So the population catchment of New York City is something like 9-10 million. In other words, each specialised high school only gets from a catchment of three million. In a way, it is like Bronx Science getting from three million, similar to RI getting from the whole of Singapore. But if we were to benchmark RI's academic achievements against Bronx Science's, then we are comparing a dwarf versus a giant.

Bronx Science alone has produced five Nobel Prize winners. Stuyvesant High has produced two Nobel Prize winners and one Field Medallist. A Field Medal is the Nobel Prize for Mathematics. Brooklyn Tech, which is the other specialised high school, has produced two Nobel Prize winners. So, together, they have produced nine Nobel Prize and one Field Medal winners. Just imagine, 1.3 billion Chinese have produced only six Nobel Prize winners! So, these three schools are outstanding and they are not that old. The oldest is only about 100 years old. Bronx Science is about 70-80 years old.

I think we need to give our brightest students the best environment. If we can create a Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech or a Stuyvesant High in our backyard, I think Singapore has great hopes for the future.

Standards in these schools are extremely high and the standards and the hours spent in the schools are so high that Singapore parents will scream for mercy if any of their children went there. Brooklyn Tech, for example, sets the passing mark at 65 marks. That is only the passing mark. The average mark is 75 marks. That is what they call the recommended grade. Brookyln Tech's graduating class last year (2001) won scholarships to Ivy League, to all the good universities, totalling us $36 million worth of scholarships.

In order to graduate from Brooklyn Tech, you need 44 credit points, versus 40 credit points across the New York State system. But most Brooklyn Tech students take 50 credit points. It is an outstanding school where the pressure is so great that no Singapore school, I believe, and I am an RI alumni and I am ashamed to say that RI does not measure up to Brooklyn Tech or Stuyvesant or Bronx Science. The focus that we are asking students to spend too much time on the curriculum is not wrong but we have it in focus, because in America, the very best spend a lot more time on the core subjects. When we measure against them, we are just out-classed.

Sir, I strongly recommend the establishment of a Specialised High School of Mathematics and Science for the reasons that I have enumerated. But whether it is best supervised by NUS is something I am not sure. Bronx Science is not under the supervision of New York University (NYU) or Columbia University but it had a dedicated founding principal, Dr Morris Mester. I think the champion agency is important but it is not the over-riding importance. The most important factor is a champion himself or herself, the principal must be totally passionate and dedicated to the cause of specialised education. In the Specialised High School of Mathematics and Science, the curriculum should not just focus on Mathematics and Science alone. As in the three specialised high schools, they do a broad spectrum of other subjects and there are people who come out from those schools who are non-scientists, for example, William Safire from Bronx Science - he is a writer. Then you have got people like Lucy Liu of Charlie Angels fame. She is from Stuyvesant. These are people who did not pursue a course in Mathematics and Science and become Nobel laureates material.

I would also agree with the recommendation to set up a Specialised School of Music and Dance. But here, we have to be realistic. We may not have enough critical mass to start here. If we can have the critical mass, there is no harm because it is an area that we should pursue.

Many high schools in the developed countries have, what the media calls, the through-train system. That means you start from Secondary One and finish at JC 2. The Australians call it Year 7 to Year 12. But this approach is premised on the fact that when you are on this through-train, you want to enter university, in the sense that the JC 2 examination, the Year 12 examination, is a university entrance examination. But some students may not want to travel this train. Therefore, it is correct that there is no necessity for all schools to implement this system. Some students may not want to go to university. They may want to pursue sports, music. Some may want to change train after Secondary 4 to go to the polytechnic. Some may want to go overseas. It is useful to keep the "O" level.

I suspect that in our system, some of the students on the through-train might quietly sit for the "O" levels also. There is a good reason for it because today, a small but growing number of "O" level students are sitting for their SAT and they are proceeding to good universities in America to finish off their degrees. We should give students more choices. Choice is always a good thing provided that it does not dumb down the curriculum, it does not trim the content of the core subjects.

The review also recommended, in a quite substantial way, on broadening the syllabus to provide more choices. This is a good recommendation. If the "A" level has a chink in the armour, it is that it is too narrowly based. It is all right for good students who want to specialise in the universities and make up their minds at 18 years old. But if you are not very sure, and you are groping around, then the broader base system would be recommended. As in many systems in the past in many countries, when you move from a core system to a broad-based system, contents are inevitably diluted because there are certain fixed hours that students attend schools for. It is important that when we move from a core "A" level today, with four or five principal levels, to a broad-based system we should not trim down the content of the core subjects too much. Core subjects, I would say, on the academic side, are languages, English is a must. For mother tongue, not many of us will be able to grasp the two languages but those who can, should. Mathematics and Science are a must. With these three core subjects - language, Mathematics and Science - you can branch into most electives. Most electives are knowledge-based and if you are good in language, you can do English Literature. If you are good in logic and you can understand a lot of things and the foundation of these is Mathematics, Science and Language. The right mix between core and electives is a bit difficult to achieve.

I have mentioned the Japanese experience. They moved from core to broad-based, the dumbing down of the Mathematics curriculum. I would like to urge MOE to be a little bit careful here. Whether the "A" level is superior to the International Baccalaureate, opinions are divided. I think there is no harm trying both systems and let students have a choice. Whatever system, I hope we will achieve excellence either in "A" level or in the IP system.

On balance, I commend the Ministry of Education for moving ahead. I believe that this review is not premised on the basis that the present system has problems. In fact, we are moving from a very strong platform to a higher level. 5.22 pm

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the motion standing in the name of RAdm Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Education.

Sir, I recently returned from a trip to China. There is now a very popular phrase in China, and that is, "yu shi ju jin" - progressing with time. Sir, the world is changing very fast, much faster now than before, and the education system must also change for us to keep up with the changing times.

The initiatives and proposals contained in the report of the Junior College and Upper Secondary School Education Review Committee are bold and wide-ranging. If implemented, they will significantly change our approach to education. Historically, our education system has been based on a highly structured approach. Over the years, we have sought to gradually open up our system to allow for variety and some experimentation. Now, we are ready for a major quantum leap. The impact of these proposals before us will be far reaching and long lasting.

Sir, while I agree with the overall concept and approach proposed by the White Paper, I would like to make several observations and I hope the Ministry could take them into account when implementing these new measures.

The success of the proposed changes depends critically on the implementation process. Firstly, we need to prepare our teachers, students and parents for these major changes in the JC curriculum that have been proposed. The broadening of the curriculum will undoubtedly better prepare our students for the university education and to meet the challenges of the fast-changing world we now live in. However, as these changes are quite significant, there may be a need to prepare the students even during their upper secondary school days so that they are better prepared for the broader curriculum. In this regard, I am glad that the report has recognised the potential upstream impact on the secondary schools. I would like to urge the Ministry to also look into the upper secondary school curriculum and make adjustments where necessary to help students adapt to the new system in the JCs. For example, some modules of the Knowledge and Inquiry could be introduced to the students in the upper secondary schools so that they will be more familiar with the subject when they enter into the JC.

In reality, some students, especially the slower ones, may find the broadened curriculum more difficult to handle. These difficulties may be more acute during the transition period when the new curriculum is first introduced as it would take some time for things to settle down and for the students and teachers to get used to the new system.

To help them cope better, additional time and attention may need to be provided to coach them and to help them catch up. The schools could help identify these weaker students and consider providing some form of learning support. This is particularly useful during the first one or two years when the changes are introduced. It will also help assure our parents that their children will be able to benefit from the new approach rather than to suffer from it.

Teachers, on the other hand, will need time to adjust to a more skilled based system. As new subjects such as the Knowledge and Inquiry will be introduced, teachers will need to understand the new requirements. Some may need to change their teaching methods and acquire new teaching skills. They may also need to develop new ways of assessing the students. It is therefore crucial that the Ministry prepares and trains the teachers so that the new curriculum can be implemented effectively.

Teachers at the upper secondary levels also have a vital role to play as a bridge to help advise and counsel their students so that they in turn can make informed decisions on the subjects they intend to take up. Parents, in particular, may also need to be similarly briefed and counselled beforehand. It would therefore be helpful if the Ministry could consider providing a briefing for the secondary school teachers and principals in addition to those in the JCs. They will then be in a better position to offer advice to their students and parents. This way, I believe that it will help smoothen the implementation of the new curriculum.

Secondly, I would like to suggest to the Ministry to consider including some elementary management components in the new curriculum. This could comprise people management skills, communication skills, decision-making process, basic business and management principles. This is in line with our move to promote and encourage entrepreneurship. In fact, no matter what our students end up doing in future, they will invariably benefit from some basic management know-how.

Some project work in the new curriculum could also include development of business ideas and this will foster innovative thinking among our students. There could even be vacation attachment programmes to give students an opportunity to see first-hand how business corporations work and the issues involved in running a business. Schools who wish to offer management components may be able to draw on the resources from the management schools in the universities or from the private sector. This way, we can inject greater professionalism in our courses. Hopefully, over time, we can produce more entrepreneurs to spearhead our economic development.

Thirdly, on the proposed integrated programmes, it is important for us to carefully explain the various models to the students and the parents so that they are in a position to make informed decisions with regard to the route they are taking, so that they can reap the maximum benefits. To provide diversity, it is good to allow JCs and secondary schools to come up with creative ideas on integrated programmes. So far, we have seen quite a number of schools submitting a wide variety of proposals. I am sure more variations will emerge as time goes on. Even the university is keen to operate a specialised school.

To avoid confusion, it would be useful for the Ministry to explain in layman's terms how the system works and how parents and students should make their decisions and the implications of their decisions. Annex N of the report provides a very good overview of the proposed education landscape, but it is not easy for a layman to fully understand what it means. Once the models have been finalised, it would be opportune for us to explain in greater details. We could also simplify the models and pilot perhaps just one or two as a start. Once we have gained more experience, we can then experiment with greater variations.

Fourthly, on the proposed setting up of privately funded schools, I think it is a welcome initiative. I would like to urge the Ministry to proactively encourage internationally renowned private schools to set up their branch here. These well-run private schools will not only provide variety and choice for our students. They could also bring in innovative teaching methods that could benefit our schools here as well. Given that the number of such privately funded schools is going to be limited to only two or three, I would like to urge the Ministry not to be too restrictive on the conditions imposed on them. The key criteria should be the quality of their system and the quality of their output.

[Mdm Deputy Speaker (Mrs Lim Hwee Hua) in the Chair]

5.32 pm

Mr Gan Kim Yong: My fifth point relates to the 3-year pre-university programmes which are currently provided in the two centralised institutes. Most of the proposals in the White Paper are focused on the objective of maximising the potential of our students, especially those who are in the upper end of the cohort. This invariably gives rise to the impression that the lower end of the cohort, especially those that are pursuing the 3-year pre-university programmes, are being neglected. There were few proposals, if any, to improve the system to also maximise their potential. I would like to urge the Ministry to also look into this aspect so that these students would not feel left out. Perhaps some of them may be suitable for the proposed specialised independent schools if they possess specific talents. A system could be put in place to allow them to switch to these specialised schools where appropriate.

Lastly, communication is vital. Whatever changes we want to make to the education policy, it is vital that we take pains to explain them to the teachers, students and parents. This is crucial in garnering acceptance and support for the policy changes and for the new policy to be effective. For this reason, I would like to urge the Ministry to continue to engage the various stakeholders through public media, dialogue sessions and other avenues to explain to them and to solicit feedback from them as we refine the proposals. It may even be useful to produce an easy-to-understand booklet to explain the new system.

Education is a vital part of our Government policy as it affects the entire population and it determines our future. It is also one of the most difficult part as its effects are usually not immediately obvious. Madam, there is no perfect system, although every parent thinks and believes that he alone knows the perfect solution. We must continuously review and improve our education system to keep up with the times, so as to give the best to our children. I sincerely hope that this report is not the end but a turning point. I hope that the review process will continue and our future generation can benefit from an ever improving system.

Madam, I support the motion.

Mr Wee Siew Kim (Ang Mo Kio): Mdm Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak on today's motion, which has far-reaching and long-term implications.

First, I would like to state that this is a courageous and responsive move on the part of the Ministry of Education. There has been so much talk in homes, schools and debates in the newspapers on our school system - the pressure on the school children, the perceived rigidity and, of course, its strengths. As some of the earlier speakers have said, after all is said and done, we do not have a train wreck!

Feedback has been taken into account and many opinions sought. I applaud the efforts of the Committee to tap a wide spectrum of views. The fact that this motion is tabled today is a reflection of our system's true responsiveness and swift action on feedback, resulting in a timely and better solution for the future of the country.

I am glad that we have the courage to make changes to our system when we feel there is a true need for it. In many aspects, this also reflects the true strength of our people, the willingness to make changes even ahead of time.

To revamp the education system is not an easy matter. It will involve changes in processes, methodology, systems and, more importantly, mindsets. It will not happen overnight and it will be painstaking. The impact will be far-reaching. Many, those already in school as well as our future generations, will feel the impact. So, why are we doing all this? In order to ensure that our only key vital resource - our people - is nurtured and developed to be able to compete in the global arena. That our people are economically active and in the passage through life enrich the well being of both themselves and their fellow citizens.

While changes are being proposed to our education system, this is not to say that our current system does not have its benefits. Many of us have gone through the current or even the older system, depending on our ages. We all have benefited from it. It has produced high levels of achievement by international comparisons. Our students have consistently done well overseas, courted and admired by foreign centres of learning. So, at this juncture, I would like to reiterate some of these benefits which I hope would not be lost in the revamped system.

Our current system produces outstanding Science and Mathematics students. Other countries have evaluated our approach and adopted our syllabi and teaching methodology. Perhaps it is the rigour of the system, the disciplined approach that has generated this.

The other important aspect that must be retained is the continuous effort to integrate our people; to build a society that is multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious. My early memories of school is the recital of the Pledge before the start of each school day. We must preserve this at all costs.

Now, on to the proposed revised education framework and education system. I particularly like a quote that I read recently which, I believe, is appropriate in our discussion today. By theologian, T. Edwards, who lived in the 19th century, it says:

'The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.' This, I believe, is the thrust of what our proposed system aims to do.

We have succeeded in imparting knowledge to our students. They, in turn, are like sponges soaking in all the information that is fed to them. Too often, they accept the knowledge imparted without question. This may stem from our traditional respect for teachers and people in authority and therefore not questioning. As a result, we have often heard our students are too reliant on teachers to feed them with information that they lack questioning minds and initiative.

The lack of these qualities is glaringly noticed when they enter the workforce. Anecdotal examples from friends and colleagues illustrate this point. Let me just share one. A foreign senior manager, whom I had the chance to speak with, is from a major disk drive manufacturer. He heads a team responsible for Asia and draws talent from around the world. Among his 10 senior managers - the people mapping strategies, formulating solutions and responding to challenges - he has a wide range of Asian nationalities but no Singaporeans. Why? "Singaporeans are not innovative enough" was his response. They need checklists and a guiding hand all the time. And they play it safe. However, his middle management is all populated with Singaporeans who he can trust because they are great executors of plans.

This and other anecdotes may be symptomatic of the issue - rote learning. To survive well in an ever changing and more globalised economy, we must equip our younger generation to question and think on their feet. They will then be able to adapt to different environments and be able to face challenges.

And if one remembers that the great bulk of the body of knowledge had been amassed in the last hundred years and fast accelerating, what we learn today may well be obsolete in our lifetime. Hence, we need to pay heed to how we impart knowledge in this very modern world; where the information highway makes available at the speed of light a whole cache of information through the Internet and other modern media. There is a wealth of information and knowledge out there waiting to be harvested and turned into useful, commercially viable know-how.

The new emphasis on project work, research and inquiry-based search for knowledge at an early stage would develop and hone the questioning spirit and nurture inquisitive minds.

In addition, self expression must be encouraged. Multi-way communication must be buoyant. The classroom must be turned into a forum. The flow of thoughts, questions and ideas should not be linear. A matrix flow must be encouraged between students and teachers; among students and among teachers. Teachers must relish the challenge and be trained to draw out the more reserved among their students. The Socratic method of teaching - drawing answers from questions posed, getting students involved and excited about the material being taught - is one form of doing this.

Diversity is our strength. Hence, I also support the flexibility of the new system to allow for academic and non-academic specialisations. The approach of having sports and arts specialities in dedicated schools would open up new avenues for our young who are endowed with these talents. We have to persevere or we would not have a continuous stream of badminton, bowling, ping-pong, playwrights and violinist stars to stand proud for us. We redefine what is success for our young.

I believe that the key to the success of the proposed new system rests on two points revolving around implementation. One, to ensure that there is an adequate pool of teachers who can switch from the traditional approach to teaching. No longer must there be just one way or a fixed way to approach a problem. Students' curiosity must be aroused, and they must be guided to figure out complex issues with their own thinking and insights.

Encouragement must abound. Remove the fear of failure, of giving wrong answers. At all ages, students must be encouraged to experiment, to fail, understand why they failed, nudged to pick up and try again. Teachers must establish that rapport with the students, create an intellectually uninhibited environment in the classroom; unfreeze the students psychologically from the paralysis that stems from the fear of "messing up".

My second point on implementation is priority and pace. I believe the approach is correct. We must not fail because we do not apply the adequate level and type of resources in the execution. Hence, while the changes proposed are bold, we may have to prioritise.

The proposal of creating even greater diversity in courses and new pathways is, in my opinion, not an area of immediate urgency. We must allow time for the students to reorientate to these new educational skills and priorities. Introducing too many changes all at the same time may, in fact, cause saturation, heavy workload, and may result in disruption and confusion for both students and teachers. A phased approach will be a better way to introduce such evolutions.

The proposal is comprehensive in many aspects. However, I hope the Committee would consider three more factors.

Firstly, it is a system that is unforgiving; one that does not allow repeated failures. The flexibility and diversity of the new proposal involve some form of risk taking by the students too. They are making decisions at a tender age and we must be prepared that some make mistakes in judgement. Here is the only area where I think the proposal has not gone far enough. We must have a structure in which they are given a second chance; and even maybe a third. For if we subscribe to life-long learning, then we must allow students to unwind earlier choices and start anew. Like what the Senior Parliamentary Secretary said, "as long as the train arrives, it does not matter if it is late." So along the way, maybe we may create the entrepreneurial environment that we all yearn for.

My next point is that the new proposal should increase emphasis on National Education. This has been introduced in schools and it must continue to be emphasised. I have heard from a fellow MP that he detects that younger people in the upper secondary and post-secondary exhibit less of an identification to Singapore than those in their mid-twenties.

Why is this so? Should not this sense of identity set in earlier rather than later? Hence, I hope that the Committee will look into more aspects of National Education. Beyond textbooks, bring National Education to life, eg, visits to military camps, exposure to our war heroes, our journey to water sufficiency, etc.

We are a young nation; our people are always looking ahead and perhaps spending too little time remembering the past. We must do more to commemorate and celebrate the sacrifices of those that had made nationhood possible for us. The achievements, sacrifices and contributions of the many notable Singaporeans must be made known to the young. Hence, why not make National Education one of the KI or PW topics? Rather than suffer the fate that, if imposed upon, some youngsters feel they are being brain-washed; let them go on a journey of self-discovery.

My third point concerns stress and pressure. This comes up often whenever the subject of education in Singapore is discussed. Could the Committee consider more emphasis on continual assessment and reduce the frequency of examinations? With less rote learning, there should be a correspondingly less need for examinations that we know today. Learning should be fun. The KI approach could be extended to even more subjects. Examination pressure may actually paradoxically be mitigated by incessant and continuous assessments. And, through life, we are continually assessed.

Beyond my earlier suggestions on some adjustments to the proposals, I am totally supportive. Especially, in the new school environment, emphasis must be on students presenting and convincing other students. Communication skills must be brought to the forefront. From a tender age, they must learn to stand up, speak, be heard, convince and defend.

I have just returned from a short trip to Israel and one thing I heard is that when you put two Israelis together you will get three opinions. Why not?

As we hope to turn out generations of more inquiring Singaporeans, we may also have to handle the possibility of a more chaotic, challenging, vibrant and unpredictable environment. But this is exactly the strength of a pluralistic society, tapping the wisdom and experience of everyone. We just have to be prepared for this new environment, stay the course and not waver in our resolve, for it could get uncomfortable for the older people used to more compliance. It is a journey that we must see through.

In conclusion, I reiterate that I am in favour of the proposal to revise the education system. In the process, we must bear in mind not to put additional pressure on our students. Hence the recommendation to trim curriculum content to create space for enhancements to other areas in JC education is applaudable. Parents have consistently been complaining that their children are stressed and do not have time for recreation and to pursue other interests.

While aiming for a more flexible curriculum and to develop thinking generations of Singaporeans, the stress factor must not be increased. The new system should allow for students to learn at their pace, provide for those who may be late developers and for those with non-academic talents. And they should be given additional chances as they explore; to fail and try again.

We want multi-faceted Singaporeans who will contribute to the economy and add vibrancy to our young nation. We want thinkers, creators, sportsmen and artists. Is it a tall order? Perhaps, but we are a nation known not to wallow in discussion, one that is quick on our feet. We act on solving our issues and that is what we are doing right now.

Being examination savvy is no longer enough. Our young must be equipped with the best hi-tech fishing rods, nets and spear-guns to go fishing and not merely provided with fishes. They must have the ability to do lateral and vertical thinking, to think and question the fundamentals, to achieve understanding rather than just knowing.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Motion.

Mr Ang Mong Seng (Hong Kah): (In Mandarin): Mdm Deputy Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to join in the debate on this motion. There are 27 other colleagues who would like to speak on the motion and I will try my best to make my speech short and brief.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, in this new economy era, in order to survive, our people must be able to make changes, be flexible and adjust ourselves to keep up with the times. As such, this proposal to reform our JC education is very apt and appropriate.

This report of the Junior College/Upper Secondary Education Review Committee has been carefully deliberated upon and presented by a panel of experts. All these recommendations are based on very solid grounds. The purpose of the reform is to broaden the scope of studies of our students and to give them more space to develop their potentials and talents to the fullest. They are very creative and challenging.

I have discussed with many parents and teachers on the recommendations of the Review Committee, and the feedback I have is mainly positive. Here, I would like to make three points concerning the proposed reform.

First, on the "through-train" method. The Committee is recommending that some students, particularly the better students, be allowed to go straight from Secondary One to the "A" level without having to take the "O" level examination, and from there proceed straight to the university. This is a break-through and a watershed decision in the reform of our education system.

In this aspect, I would like to ask what criteria will MOE take to decide who will be exempted from the "O" level examinations and take the through-train to the "A" level examinations. Will MOE simply designate a number of schools to be the "through-trains", and all the students on board will go straight to the "A" level examinations? In my opinion, this method will lead to some problems, because in this way, would not all the students who score well in the PSLE be concentrated in these "elite" schools, and all the other students who could not make the grade to these elite schools would be deemed to be second-class students, and their schools become second-class schools? The teachers in these schools will then feel that they are given the second-class students to teach. They will naturally be demoralised, and the standard of their teaching, and consequently the standard of the schools would be lowered.

When MOE decides on the "through-train" system, would it be compulsory for all the students in this system to skip the "O'" level examinations? Do the students have a choice? As a matter of fact, students who are good in their studies are not afraid of examinations, because the examinations can only prove that they are strong in their studies. So, would the students be given an option to take the "O" level examinations if they decide to do so? I have spoken to some parents and they are worried that this through-train system may yield unpredictable results. The new system will take some time before the result can be clearly seen. They are afraid that in the event that some students could not cope with the new model of study in the reformed JC curricula, and could not do well in the "A" level examinations, they would have no "O" level results to back them up.

With no good "A" level certificate in their bags, they would have nothing but a PSLE certificate. They cannot qualify for admission to the university. Even looking for a job would be a big problem. Can MOE consider granting some sort of "Certificate of Standard" for these students so that they would have at least a certificate to show that they have progressed over the years in this "through-train", and has been exempted from the "O" level examinations? This may help them to seek admission in the foreign universities or to show it to their prospective employers.

Secondly, I would like to talk about the teaching resource. Under this new system, we need to be able to accurately assess the potential of the students, and to customise the teaching accordingly, so that the students would derive the optimal benefits from the system. I think the teachers will play a very important part. I would like to know whether we have enough teachers who are adequately equipped to take on this higher responsibility. Let me give you an illustration. Teaching is like cooking. If you have some high-quality abalone, but you do not have a good chef to cook it, you would not be able to serve out a delicious abalone dish. On the other hand, if you have the best abalone, and the best chef from the famous abalone restaurant from Hong Kong to cook it, then I am sure you will have a very delicious and well presented abalone dish which is fit for the king.

MOE will only start this new system in 2006. We have a window of some three to four years before that. Can MOE make use of this period of time to identify some good teachers, send them overseas for special training, so that they will be able to cope with the demands of this new curriculum, and the students would benefit from their teaching?

Recently, during my visit to the world-renowned Qinghua University in Beijing, I was invited to tour a subsidiary primary school of the university. While I was there, the teacher was teaching these young students about yi sheng (physician). I observe that many articles relating to the medical profession, such as stethoscope, clinical thermometer, syringes, etc, were exhibited in the classroom. The teacher made use of this apparatus to demonstrate how a physician went about examining his patient and diagnosing his ailments. The students were invited to ask questions, and many questions were asked by the young children. It was indeed a highly interactive session. The students were also invited to participate in role-plays whereby some took the part of the physicians and the others played the part of the patients. The whole lesson was conducted in a very relaxed and informal manner. No pressure, no stress. I could see that the students thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and I am sure they must have learnt a lot from this kind of exercise. This is what I call creative teaching!

Last night, I had dinner with the Principal of a Junior College and he was telling me that the teaching method in Singapore was also very creative. Perhaps, we have left school for too long a period. In the last few decades, we can clearly see that the school premises and facilities, or the hardware aspect, have improved a lot. But, we really do not know about the software aspect - the teaching methods, contents and style. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to visit the ITE, and it was a real eye-opener for me. I would like to ask the Minister whether some arrangements can be made for our MPs and our grassroots leaders to visit the junior colleges and the schools, to see for ourselves whether this software aspect of our education system could match the vast improvement in the hardware aspect.

We often hear in this House that schools in the other countries are better. For what you know, our schools may well be better than theirs. If our MPs can have the opportunity to visit the junior colleges, they will have a better understanding of these colleges.

Thirdly, under the new system, how will MOE evaluate the performance of the junior colleges? If we want to attain good results, the teachers must have the support of the principals for them to apply their talents and creativity in their teaching. But, if MOE still insists on using examination results as the basis to evaluate and rank the junior colleges, then this new system will turn out to be just an ideal, and will not be practical at all.

We should evaluate the teachers on their creativity, not just on the examination results. In a restaurant, if the owner restricts the chef to just a few dishes in the menu, no matter how creative the chef may be, he will not be able to dish out more delicious cuisines to attract more customers. I hope that MOE would also take into consideration the creativity of the teachers when they rank the junior colleges.

We should use the 6/2/2 system, that means 60% based on the results attained by the students in the examinations and 20% based on the teaching method of the teachers. We should send out inspectors to schools to evaluate the creative level of the teachers. If the teachers are very creative, we should give them more points, more incentives. So this will make up 20% of the total evaluation. The remaining 20% will be based on the creativity of the students. We are always encouraging the students to be creative, to make full use of their talents. The performance of the students can be reflected by their linguistic capability, the way they express themselves and the way they communicate with others. Merits should also be awarded to their participation and contributions in the field of arts, sports and community service. I think we should encourage our students to give full play to their talents and their potential.

It is my sincere hope that MOE would move away from the existing system whereby the ranking of schools and colleges is weighted heavily on examination results. More emphasis should be placed on the creativity or innovations of the teachers and the students. I think in this way, the principals, teachers, students and even the parents will put in concerted efforts and work hand-in-hand to raise the overall standard of the schools, to the benefit of the students.

I hope that MOE would consider the three suggestions I have made. Finally, I would like to thank Mdm Deputy Speaker for giving me this opportunity to speak.

I support the motion. 6.12 pm

Dr John Chen Seow Phun (Hong Kah): Mdm Deputy Speaker, some 13 years ago, when I first entered this reputable Chamber, I commented that our education system produced many students who were "exam-smart", extremely capable of only scoring very many As. I questioned then whether this was what our nation wanted to achieve. Now, 13 years on, I am very glad to note that at last the problem is being addressed in a substantial way.

I agree with many points made in the White Paper. While our system has been efficient in mass producing trained and skilled workers for our early years of industrialisation, it is no longer good enough to take us into the next 30 years in this information era. In this new age, we must be capable of not only producing goods and services, but also new knowledge and intellectual property. Unlike the traditional industrial goods producing economy, the new winners of the information age are companies which own significant IPR like CISCO, Microsoft and Pfizer.

Are our top students creative enough and enterprising enough to fit into this new era to take Singapore into the brave new world? We must address this problem now. Otherwise, like many other countries, we may get caught in the sandwich class: trapped in between the newly industrialising, low cost countries like China and India, and the western countries who own and produce most of the world's IPR.

What are the problems we have to address in our education system? Please let me comment on some points from the Report. Firstly, many of our schools and JCs adhere strictly to the syllabus published by the Education Ministry. This leads to a homogenous student population with little variation - hence the lack of diversity. But, parents are also to blame. If you are a bright student scoring many As, try telling your parents that you want to go into drama school to do acting instead of taking up the place offered to you by RJC!

Secondly, there is an over-emphasis on knowledge per se. Classes become information download sessions. Often neglected are the skills associated with learning, thinking and research. This leads to poor ability to critique, rigidity, poor reasoning skills, low creativity and a spoon-feeding attitude, in which the students (and later our workers) invariably await instructions and information from the higher authorities.

Thirdly, these problems are compounded by "short-termerism", ie, study only for the examinations! Try asking a student something about what he has studied two months after his final 'A' level paper. Or try asking him to read up on something which is interesting but is not in the syllabus. This problem arises from the fact that our examinations are very poorly structured. Questions can be "spotted". Answers are memorised wholesale, sometimes without real understanding of the subject matter. Indeed, even students from our top JCs memorise GP, essays or economic analysis, hoping that their "spotted" topics will "come out" in the final examinations! Is this what we want from our education system?

In this regard, I must commend CHIJ Katong for being brave enough to make Literature compulsory for their 'O' level students. Literature is sometimes a much dreaded subject. It is difficult to score an A1. There are no good "standard" solutions - no model answers are ever good enough, no DS solution, as we say, in the Army. And everything can be argued from different points of view. Further, it is also very difficult to teach properly because a teacher has to be good enough and confident enough to accommodate many different points of views from the students.

CHIJ Katong believes that the study of Literature teaches their students life-long skills that will serve them well during their lifetime and it is not for the benefit of scoring A1s during examinations. If the A1s do not materialise, so be it.

So what are the skill sets which we should try to impart on to our students? There are four basic skill sets which our students should learn by the time they leave the JCs. They are (1) ability to think, reason, self-learn, research for facts, probe by asking intelligent questions and critique. Without this capability, whatever our students learn in their JCs will soon become outdated, if it has not faded from their volatile memory before that. They will certainly not be able to produce new knowledge nor lead in any R&D activity. Hence, I would suggest that As and distinctions should not be given for various subjects until a student has clearly demonstrated his thinking and reasoning capability. It is too easy to get an "A" if all it requires is the reproduction of lecture and tutorial notes given by the teachers as model answers. Even a dumb photocopying machine can do this.

(2) Communications, ie, writing, presentation and recording. As pointed out by the Review Committee, this is a major area of weakness for many of our students. Inventions and discoveries can be useless if nobody understands your achievement. The best business plan will fail from day one if you cannot convince your investor or your potential customers of the superiority of your product. Apart from the formal classroom environment, more student activities like debates, seminars (where the presenters are students themselves), oratorical competition and student workshops should be organised.

Another important skill which is somewhat lacking is the ability to keep proper (by proper, I mean detailed and precise) records of scientific work. This stems from the over-emphasis of getting the job, such as an experiment, done rather than paying attention to the proper procedures and recording of the conduct of the experiment. Teachers must be also made to realise that laboratory sessions are not only for teaching the basics of the subject matter. They are also to teach students how to conduct and record an investigative procedure in a proper manner. This is an important aspect as R&D activities, especially in the biotech field, will necessitate such skills.

(3) Teamwork. This has already been addressed in the White Paper. However, I would like to add that students should not be participating in CCA because it is compulsory, or merely for the CCA points which can help in university admission. There is much that can be learnt from being a committee member of a society or representing your school in swimming. Participation should come from interest and enjoyment, not CCA points.

(4) Decision making. This point may not have been addressed in detail in the Report. However, it is related, yet different, from the first point on thinking skills. Decision making goes beyond ability to think, reason and fact finding. It involves a certain measure of courage, confidence and leadership. Some will argue that this cannot be formally taught. However, like teamwork skills, we can create the correct environment for students to acquire this ability.

Let me go through a few other interesting points. The Report suggests "A Broader and More Flexible JC Curriculum". I support increasing the breadth in our education system. However, this should be done through "moral suasion" and education rather than by strict rules. Imposing breadth upon the student's choices may lead to mechanistic rote learning in order to achieve a good result in a subject, taken not because the student loves it, but taken in order to fulfil a government requirement. Is this education? The very thought of imposing such a requirement runs directly counter to the main idea of flexibility. (In a way, diversity also suffers because you are eliminating the possibility of generating some students who would do well in pure Science or pure Arts.)

I would therefore urge the Education Ministry to consider very carefully how we produce breadth in our JC student's education. Ideally, it should be done by convincing the majority of the students that this will serve them well. It will suffice that a large majority of the students, say, 80% accept this. If the Ministry still decides to impose it as a rule, we should still try to convince the students and their parents of the merits of such a rule. In addition to this, I would urge the Ministry to consider allowing an all-Science (and Mathematics) or an all-Arts option for exceptional cases. In such cases, students may be asked to show that they are highly committed to this very specialised track. This commitment could be shown through, say, doing some of the subjects at the H3 level or special project work.

Giving students more flexible options is a good thing. However, many students are not well informed enough to appreciate these options. Their interest in the various subjects has not been fully developed and cultivated. Many make choices due to peer group pressure and by what they hear from the media and their friends.

Schools should provide better advice and counsel to students making such choices. This should be done on a continuous basis through career talks, visits, career guidance, and other such activities. This process is a long-term one, and should not be done over a short period, just before such choices are made. It is such interest, developed and cultivated over the years, that becomes a passion. Such passion is a seed of possible greater things in the future.

JCs should be asked to allow more subject combinations. Ideally, students should be given freedom to choose their own subject combinations. This will in turn produce diversity through the diverse subject combinations. Although there may be an administrative and resource problem, we should allow, whenever possible, students to study subjects that they love. I understand from feedback that it is not possible to do "strange" combinations like Literature and Biology. Should this not be allowed?

I understand that giving absolute freedom of choice may also have its undesirable effects. In our achievement-oriented society, many will go for the combinations that will maximise their chances of getting the most As, rather than taking subjects that interest them. This brings me to the topic of examinations.

I have touched on the weakness of our examinations earlier. I would like to discuss this in more detail here. While the main examination paper can continue to test for knowledge and standard applications, some questions that test the students' understanding, ability to think and reason, and the ability to draw conclusions in non-standard situations should be included. This is to encourage developing knowledge skills, in addition to merely absorbing information.

I note that certain subjects also produce a disproportionate number of As. The Ministry of Education may want to check this out. Surely, it is possible to equalise this by adjusting the difficulty of level of the examination questions, and by some moderation. We ought to try to remove any incentive for choosing a certain subject due to the ease of getting an A in the examinations.

Another cause of passive students that we have today is due to our teaching methods. I think there is too much spoon-feeding in our schools and JCs at present. While this may be a very efficient way to scoring high marks in the examinations, it is like a drug. It deadens the mind and the processes of thought, and the student will be nearly all lost once this is removed.

Yes, we should continue to provide lecture notes, but students should be made to refer to some text and reference books. I know of JC students who relied only on lecture notes and never read a book for their Physics paper.

Students should be made to look for facts and details by themselves. They should also be taught how to collate, process and present these facts. There should be more student interactions and discussions during tutorial classes in JCs. The teacher could merely chair the discussions instead of doing most of the talking. I strongly recommend more activities like peer group teaching, student seminars, debates, forums and workshops.

Next, I would like to touch on the subject of university entrance requirements. I find that the local universities are rather rigid in their methods of selecting students for entry, and for most departments. Generally, points are assigned for various "A" level grades, and these are summed. If you meet the cut-off mark, you are in. Otherwise, you are out. I find this much too clinical. How many points would you give Remy Ong for his three Asian Games Gold medals?

A few years back, I appealed on behalf of a national level badminton player for admission to NUS to study engineering. He missed the cut-off mark by one or two points. I appealed several times, right up to the highest level at the university, because I believe that it is good for NUS to accept such a student. But, alas, the appeal was rejected, citing the need to adhere strictly to the rules.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, borderline applicants ought to be given a chance. An interview could be conducted for these cases. Consideration must be given for special circumstances and achievements outside the normal curriculum. After all, if more effort and time were spent on his "A" level subject instead of his badminton activities, much better "A" level results might have been obtained. On the other hand, some other applicant may be able to show during his interview that he is far better in a certain subject than his "A" level results indicate, and his lower mark could be due to an illness during his examination paper. Surely, such cases deserve a chance.

I would also like to comment on the use of Project Work (PW) for university entrance requirements. I hope this will not add to the stress and workload of our already over-taxed JC students. Assessment of Project Work is also rather subjective in nature, and this could lead to accusations of unfairness. I suggest that the universities use a pass/fail requirement for PW rather than taking into account the actual PW grade for their entrance consideration.

I support the White Paper's recommendation for Integrated Programmes, private schools and specialist schools. This is because they bring about greater diversity for the system and more flexibility and choice for the students. I also support keeping open the 3-year pre-university centres for students who would prefer to take more time to do their "A" levels. I hope that transfers between these different types of schools will be possible, so that students will have better flexibility to pursue their intended goals.

Lastly, I would like to mention that more resources will be needed to truly achieve the goals of this reform. Teachers themselves need to be retrained. Their knowledge of the subject may need to be far wider and deeper than just the syllabus, because the better and more intelligent students may bring up such issues during discussion sessions. I have no doubt that the reform will be difficult for some. However, I think that it is beneficial and that it can be done. I agree with the White Paper's recommendation for more teachers and teaching resources in order to facilitate this improvement in our education system.

I would also like to caution that all will be in vain if schools and JCs pay lip-service to these changes without truly understanding and accepting the basic philosophy underlying the reform.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, the White Paper has provided the right concept and framework for reform. It remains to be seen whether and how we can implement it.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the motion. 6.20 pm

The Minister of State for Defence (Mr Cedric Foo Chee Keng): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I have had the benefit of chairing a sub-committee for Remaking Singapore. We have engaged many people and, from their feedback, I know that Singaporeans take a keen interest in education issues but remain divided about the many features of our education system.

Today's debate is on a motion of great import. It will determine, in no small part, whether our children will lead fulfilling lives. Once we set our compass and decide on the course, cohorts of Singaporeans will be headed along this course, and it will take us years to change our bearings or to steer them back. Therefore, I commend the Ministry of Education for subjecting its report to robust debate here, and the Party for going a step further, to lift the Whip.

It is difficult to have a meaningful strategic conversation on education until we settle the score on the merits of the different approaches to education. There are, I think, two basic approaches to education. Let us call the first approach the syllabus-centred' approach, and the second the learner-centred' approach.

The first and more traditional syllabus-centred approach in education defines the purpose of teaching as ensuring that students acquire a prescribed body of knowledge and a set of values as determined by society. This is so that they will grow up to meet the needs of the future society, namely, what is required of our citizens and what is required of our workforce.

What follows from such an approach are didactic teachers, top-down teaching, well-behaved learners, a carefully designed curriculum and a very disciplined environment. The characteristics of such a syllabus-centred approach are sequential preparation for the next educational level, tests at the end of each stage, grouping learners of similar abilities (or streaming), and competition among students and among schools, so as to boost performance.

The second approach is what we may term as the learner-centred approach. Here, the starting point is the learner, the student or the child, rather than a prescribed body of knowledge. The attributes of this approach are different. Here, a 12-year-old is seen as a 12-year-old, and is to be developed to his or her full potential. The 12-year-olds are not seen as future 13-year-olds and to be prepared as such. The curriculum takes on an open-ended and enquiry-based orientation, and they are taught experientially and through activities, and not taught facts just to be stored. The values to be inculcated are not made to conform to a certain mould that society has pre-determined. Every child is accepted. In fact, every child is celebrated for who he or she is. The role of teachers here is merely to facilitate and ensure that the lid to the brain remains open and not to attempt to fill it up. Cooperation, as an underlying social trait, is emphasised over competition.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, let us consider each of these approaches and see if we can determine the right approach for our time and place.

The strongest critic of the syllabus-centred approach can be traced back to Charles Dickens. In his novel Hard Times, he said that children subject to such an education system are like "little vessels arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they are full to the brim." This system requires precise recall of the lessons learnt, great reliance on memorisation - often without actively engaging the student in the learning process. The assumption that knowledge is static, something that already exists, runs counter to the bewildering pace at which knowledge is constantly being reshaped.

However, there are also proponents of the syllabus-based system, and they have also argued, equally passionately, about the merits of such an approach. They assert that the results of a syllabus-based approach are more quantifiable, so that weaker students may be identified for remedial lessons and weaker schools put right. Students are introduced to competition early in life. They learn to face adversity squarely and to cope with failures and labels. They develop a practical view of the world and are not lulled into believing that our world begins with Once upon a time .' and ends with . live happily ever after'.

Consider now the alternative learner-centred approach. For all its strengths and its appeal as an avant-garde and progressive approach, it is not without critics either. Some said it is like allowing growth without direction and, in the extreme, as we have heard from Assoc Prof Koo Tsai Kee, it is like allowing children to decide when, how and what they want to learn. The results of such an approach are also not easily measured, and students or schools who are down the wrong track cannot be identified early and cannot be put right.

So, which is a better approach? Rather, the relevant questions are: Do we need to settle for one or the other approach? Do we need to make that binary either/or choice?

I would contend that the optimal choice to prepare most students lies somewhere in between the syllabus-centred and the learner-centred approaches. We must preserve the rigour of our current system of education or risk structural failure in our schools, as again pointed out by Assoc Prof Koo Tsai Kee. We must not throw out the baby together with the bath water.

It is possible to modify Singapore's predominantly syllabus-centred approach to incorporate some of the finer features of the learner-centred approach. Such a hybrid approach is one that would produce an education system with the teacher still in authority, with the rigour of a challenging curriculum, yet with time left for inquiry and active engagement of students in the learning process. And because of the shorter shelf-life of knowledge, the subject content, the choice of subjects and, in fact, the whole syllabus itself, need to be reviewed more frequently.

The JC/Upper Secondary education review report does not discuss the various approaches to education explicitly, but implicit in its recommendations to broaden the JC curriculum is a well-calibrated shift away from the "syllabus-centred" approach more towards the "learner-centred" approach.

The introduction of Knowledge and Inquiry as a new inter-disciplinary subject in Junior College will require students to question the bases of knowledge; to apply what they have learnt, both inside and outside the classrooms, and to defend their positions. It will provide a good counter-weight against the other content-heavy subjects.

Therefore, rather than making Knowledge and Inquiry an alternative subject to GP, I would propose that Knowledge and Inquiry be offered in lieu of GP. In the International Baccalaureate programme, a similar "Theory of Knowledge" subject is compulsory for all students and is said to be the "glue" of the entire diploma programme.

The new emphasis on Project Work will challenge the students' resourcefulness, their organisational ability and their presentation and communication skills and this is to be applauded.

The report recommends that all JC students offer at least a H1 contrasting subject plus GP (also at H1) or Knowledge and Inquiry at H2. On that basis, the time spent on the contrasting subject is 16% to 21%. Whilst the direction is correct, it is worthwhile to further increase the time spent on contrasting subjects once we gain some experience with the reforms. After all, JC is not a tertiary education and there is sufficient time at university to specialise. At many liberal arts colleges in the United States, every student takes a broad-based curriculum leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree. The American system sees it fit to avoid specialisation even at undergraduate level. Here we are beginning to specialise at Junior College level although relaxing the specialisation with the introduction of the contrasting subjects. The United States system only begins to specialise at graduate school.

I also welcome the Ministry's intent to update the existing subjects offered and to introduce new subjects to JC students. But I would like to suggest that we introduce topics like Management of Technology, Entrepreneurship, Cultural Studies and Communications Skills either as components within existing subjects or as new subjects altogether. These are essential life skills if our young are to thrive in an increasingly inter-connected world shaped by rapid technological change. In my 17 years of work in the private sector, no one has ever asked me to solve differential equations but I have often been expected to understand technology, to be entrepreneurial, to appreciate cultural differences and to communicate and defend my ideas.

Taken together, Knowledge and Inquiry, Project Work, a contrasting subject and the updating of existing subjects - the new JC curriculum is refreshing - it retains the robustness of the "syllabus-centred" approach (challenging and rigorous) and adopts the finer features of the "learner-centred" approach (research, inquiry and a broad curriculum).

Mdm Deputy Speaker, the other major recommendation of the report is the creation of alternative pathways in the upper secondary and JC sector. This new diversity will include an integrated programme, specialised schools, alternative qualifications and private schools.

These new routes provide choices to meet the needs of different students. Yet, each of them is challenging, robust and internationally recognised. Ultimately, graduates of such diverse range of programmes will approach problems differently and will come up with alternative solutions to a problem. They will provide an array of perspectives that will make for a more vibrant, resilient and successful Singapore.

The Integrated Programme will do away with the GCE "O" levels for students deemed to be university-bound. This leaves more time for project work, CCA and character development programmes. However, it would be better if the IP can be extended to more students and not be confined to the top 10% of a P1 cohort since about 22% of the P1 cohort who took the "A" level examinations in 2000 is eligible for a local university. If we consider admissions to foreign universities, that figure will be even higher.

Allowing schools to offer the IB and other internationally recognised programmes will cater to returning students. This is in keeping with the trend of Singaporeans working overseas at some point during their careers. The IB will also cater to those students who prefer a more "learner-centred" approach and I welcome that.

Allowing private schools is another change that I welcome but it would also be good for the Government to encourage or partly-fund scholarships that are tenable at such private schools. This would support those who may not otherwise have the financial means to enroll into such private schools.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I would like now to move on to discuss specialised schools.

If we were to plot the distribution of our students along the single dimension of scholastic ability, we will always get some form of "bell-curve". There will be a small group of students who are weak academically; a small group who are very capable and a large group of average performers.

But the attractiveness of specialised schools is that they will cater to students who may be deemed to be mediocre on this bell curve plotted along academic or scholastic ability. However, these same students may be uniquely capable if we measure them along other dimensions like sports, arts or music. This broadening of the definition of success by MOE is indeed a "watershed".

Specialised schools could also afford students longer time to complete their programmes and also a modular testing system as opposed to age-based, high-stakes examinations. This will allow such students time to prepare and participate in international or national events.

To ensure that these specialised secondary schools succeed, we need a system to identify talents at an early age. Our primary school pupils should have greater access to qualified counsellors who will profile their strengths and weaknesses, including giftedness in the arts, music and sports and also learning disabilities, if any. As such counselling resources may be hard to come by, schools can strike up partnerships with community groups, voluntary welfare organisations, school alumni and parent associations. In addition, the twinning of JC/higher secondary schools with their junior counterparts - the primary schools - during CCAs and Community Involvement Programme - would also provide much needed opportunities for student leadership and character development. Investing in counsellors to spot, either talents or learning disabilities of pupils and intervening early in their formative years will, I believe, yield handsome long-term returns to society as a whole.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, for the educational reforms to succeed, we would need more than a broad curriculum, more than a diverse upper secondary/JC education sector. We would need a complete change in the skills and styles of lesson delivery, nothing short of some form of a cultural transformation.

Allow me to illustrate my point with some of my own experiences. He summoned a student to the front of the class, blindfolded him and placed a heavy book onto the open palm of his outstretched arm. Then he abruptly removed the book and the hand shot right up. He declared, "For every action (the force of the book); there is an equal and opposite reaction (the force of the hand) - this is Newton's third law of motion and our topic for today's lesson", declared Harry Tan of St Andrew's.

I once also attended a class at MIT where Franco Modigliani and Lester Thurow were both in the same classroom as instructors. Both are illustrious economists but each espousing views that are fundamentally opposed. The students must decide whom they want to believe. There were no model answers.

Unless more of our teachers are inspired to excite our students, the curriculum reforms will not bring about the full desired outcomes. But our teachers have raised a valid point. They told us that they often have to rush stoically through the syllabus as their performances are not measured by the creativity of their delivery but whether or not they complete the tight syllabus. Therefore, something has to give. We cannot have the cake and eat it. I would like to suggest that we cut the size of the syllabus further so that teachers may find time to be creative and students will find permanence and meaning with the knowledge that they acquire.

This reduction in syllabus is not aimed at reducing stress, as suggested by MPs like Dr Wang Kai Yuen. I believe that, by and large, our students are resilient and unless we constantly challenge them, as the Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Prof. Koo Tsai Kee pointed out, they will be inadequate to face the highly competitive world awaiting them.

I am reminded of a story. In fact, it is a true story. Jack Welch once received a report about his executives at General Electric. Someone highlighted to him that 95% of his executives are feeling heavily stressed and he retorted, "What is the problem with the other 5 percent?" Do we want to be the GE's of the world? If so, then we must maintain the rigour of our education system. After all, we are talking here about JC students who are our best and brightest.

Challenge the faculties of our students we must, but not by sheer quantity of the workload at the expense of the quality of the learning experience.

We should not deprive our students the joys to savour the intrigue of the unfamiliar, the excitement of discovery and the fulfilment of lasting knowledge. As an education goal, we must encourage our youths to develop an inquisitive mind so that they will continue to seek out whole new worlds of knowledge years after they complete their formal studies.

As Dr Amy Khor pointed out, for the Triple Science student offering four "A" levels, the report suggests the reduction of curricular time by 10% and for humanities students, the curricular time remains unchanged.

Students currently offer subjects that reflect their forte. The new contrasting subjects will take our students out of such forte. Hence, the time required to establish a basic foundation will be disproportionately more and we have to take cognisance of that. If we coordinate the curriculum to be covered at JC level with the universities, as the report suggests, we should have no problem cutting the curriculum down further.

There are also concerns that the reforms are not going to happen early enough in a student's educational journey. I am confident that in time, MOE will look into introducing reforms into our primary and secondary schools as I am sure that such efforts will be most welcome and will yield similarly good results.

In conclusion, let me pay a tribute to all teachers in Singapore. Many have laboured tirelessly to educate our sons and daughters. They will also be charged with the responsibility to carry out these educational reforms. I wish them well and I am confident that they will continue to do Singapore proud!

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the motion. 6.42 pm

Mr Chew Heng Ching (East Coast): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I would like to express my appreciation to members of the JC/Upper Secondary Education Review Committee led by SMS Tharman for their work and in coming up with some recommendations on the challenges pertaining to JC and upper secondary education.

I am pleased to see that a broader and more flexible JC curriculum to cater for greater diversity in our education system has been recommended. I am certain that if these measures are successfully implemented, it would lay the foundation for our children to compete more effectively in a globalised economy which requires breadth of knowledge and applications instead of rote learning and specialisation.

I understand the proposed changes will also shift the emphasis of education from one of content mastery to learning skills and from knowing to thinking. In particular, a greater emphasis towards project work and the offering of elective subjects like Knowledge and Inquiry, besides the General Paper, would work in the long-term interest of our students.

Whilst the objectives and end results of the proposed JC education seem laudable, I feel that the means towards these ends are just as important and should be adequately addressed. Whilst the report goes a long way in addressing the practical needs and qualifications our students ought to achieve and also the future needs of the economy, like many speakers before me, I am concerned that it does not address many of the root concerns of our education system as it stands today. I refer specifically to the "pressure cooker" environment that has arisen, from the focus of achieving success based mainly on academic excellence or qualifications or indeed what goes into the report card that our students receive today. Indeed, as MPs, whenever we meet residents, be they students, parents or teachers, their common complaint is that our education system is too stressful and pressurising. Our current emphasis of rewards for students and teachers based largely on academic performance is partly to be blamed.

The proposed changes will result in a broader-based education through additional broader qualifications in H1 or H2 level subjects. However, if the underlying structure of our education system is not refocused, we might just end up with students with broader based qualifications and scoring a lot more 'As', this time in both the Mathematics/Science and Arts/Humanities subjects, but still the same by-product of our education system - rote learners, good in mastering contents, knowledgeable but lack thinking skills, little independent thoughts, with less enterprise and initiative or little interest in the world around them.

Madam, I am concerned that this scenario could be a real possibility if we do not change our system of rewarding our principals and teachers. The Ministry's criteria of success in ranking JCs and secondary schools by academic results, and the performance evaluation of principals and teachers whose career advancement is based, to a large extent, on the deliverance of these results, are fundamental to the pressure cooker, high stress, rote learning environment we have today.

Principals and teachers have incentives to prepare model answers to enable students to be examination smart and get top grades - at the expense of a real education per se, since it is in the interest of their own career development to do so. With the continuance of such incentive structures for our teachers and principals in our education system and the ranking of JCs based largely on competitive quantitative criteria, I am doubtful that the high ideals raised in this JC Report can be fully realised.

At worst, we might merely create additional subjects or subject areas including project work, CCAs and the lot, where students will be pressured to compete for the sake of competition, and not enable them to be thinking individuals, capable of independent learning and enterprise. The end result is a JC education where students and teachers become more stressed out and we end up with the same products, this time with students scoring As, not just in Mathematics/Science or the Arts/Humanities subjects, but both, and end up none the better.

Madam, I would therefore like to recommend that the Ministry review the need to rank JCs and relook at the reward system for our principals and teachers when we implement measures to improve our JC education system. There should also be less emphasis on examinations or using examination results as a sole criterion to measure the performances of our students, as well as principals and teachers. Unless we do this, our best intentions behind the proposed changes may not be realised. The new reward system should be based on how well our JCs train our students to achieve a broader based education and master learning and thinking skills, and not just on the number of As obtained in H1 and H2 level subjects in the 'A' level examinations.

Madam, still on the subject of incentives and rewards for our teachers and principals, I would like to raise the issue of teaching resources. In the new environment envisaged, teachers would need to acquire expertise in teaching and assessing students in the areas of thinking skills and innovation. They would need to both set challenges and structure courses to bring out these skills in the students, as well as assess students in these new areas. This is indeed a fundamental change in much of our traditional education philosophy. Our existing teaching resources may not be suitably equipped to meet these new challenges. We therefore need to retrain our existing teaching staff to re-equip them to implement some of these ambitious plans. I would like to ask the Minister if he could elaborate on any special training plans to cater for these changes.

The Report has indicated that additional teaching resources would be required to tide in for the period up to full implementation of the new JC education system. Would these new teaching staff resources replace existing ones? I would like to seek the assurance from the Minister that opportunity be given to the current teaching staff to fully enable them to adapt to the new regime. I agree that, in the interim, we may have to import foreign talents to help implement these changes. If so, I would hope that specific plans for local succession, after skills have been acquired and nurtured by our local teachers, be put in place so that we do not create a dependency effect on foreign talents in our JC education system in the long term.

Finally, I would like to raise a suggestion that the mother tongue criterion could be broadened to include any second language. With Singaporeans expected to study and work overseas for long periods of time, as part of the economic changes anticipated, returning Singaporean families have found that the mother tongue criterion for local schools too restrictive for them. This is an additional source of stress for both students and parents returning from overseas. If we can broaden the criterion to other languages, making exception for this group of Singaporeans returning from overseas, we might even enhance Singapore's future as a globalised economy plugged into the world. It would also encourage Singaporeans overseas to return and contribute positively to our country.

In conclusion, I support the motion moved by the Minister for Education. I agree that we should change our JC curriculum to achieve a broader based education and to develop thinking, communication and learning skills. However, I call on the Minister to review our teaching methods, to place less emphasis on examinations, to do away with ranking of JCs, and to reward our teachers in many other ways. Examination result is but only one of the ways. Whilst the desired ends for our education system are well intended, I fear that we may not achieve them if the means towards these ends are not properly addressed.

Dr Jennifer Lee (Nominated Member): Mdm Deputy Speaker, may I start by congratulating Senior Minister of State Tharman and his Committee on a very well written report and one that should, in general, receive widespread support; who would oppose after all injecting more breadth and flexibility into the JC curriculum and the proposed education landscape, painting such a picture of options and variety of pathways as to warm the hearts of parents and students alike. But the recommendations do raise some areas of concern and some questions that could do with some clarifications. As so many of my parliamentary colleagues also have their comments to contribute, I shall restrict my observations to just three areas.

For a start, the first question that actually came to my mind when I read through the report was whether we have, in fact, got the process upside down - back to front, focussing all of our attention on JC and upper secondary education, the last four years of our young Singaporeans' education, thinking that we can spend the first most formative and impressionable years of our children's lives, grilling them and grinding away at their self esteem, and then in the final years of their schooling education, we expect to turn them around on a pin and blossom with this new curriculum, albeit it is a very attractive proposition, and to develop their thinking skills at this very late stage.

Senior Parliamentary Secretary Koo Tsai Kee gave us a very thorough account of the Bronx Science High School and of the five Nobel Laureates which they created. But I would dare say that the Bronx Science High School did not create these five Nobel Laureates out of thin air. The question for me is, in fact, how these Nobel Laureates' minds were moulded when they were much younger. For me, that is an important question. While it is certainly important to look at the finishing stages of their education, who is, in fact, looking into what we are going to do with our pre-school and primary education, to prepare our children for the new world?

Secondly, broadening the curriculum is certainly, I think, heading in the right direction. It will give more exposure to our students to more fields of knowledge and allow them to be more well-rounded individuals, allow them more opportunities to find areas in which they have special interests, skills and talents. The Committee has recommended that this broadening be achieved in balance with cutting down on content, and I am all for that. It has been inexplicable to me all this time in recent years that we have been preaching to the adults on the need for life-long learning, because of the rapid obsolescence of knowledge, that we have kept, at the same time, stuffing the heads of our school children with content. So the acknowledgement that we can and should in fact ease up here is good news indeed. However - and this is a big however - how will the Ministry of Education ensure that in developing the new curriculum, we will in fact lighten the content load? Because lightening and reducing of curriculum load is not a new story for us. In fact, we are supposed to have already lightened curriculum previously by as much as 30%. In fact, the Minister himself this afternoon has spoken with conviction that we have trimmed down on content, and yet it would seem that only the Minister and his senior officers have this conviction, because just about everybody else that you speak to in the system - parents, students and teachers alike - do not seem to have experienced any lightening of the curriculum load.

My second question is: how will the Ministry ensure that this shift of the curriculum from depth to breadth does, in fact, happen and does not result in added load, that the implementation of the new curriculum will stay true to the intent?

The third and final question that I want to raise relates to the most diverse JC/Upper Secondary education landscape. I applaud the recommendation. Alas, it will only be for the top 10% of our children. Contrary to Dr Wang Kai Yuen's anticipation that parents will respond by recognising that different skills will be needed now for success and prepare their children accordingly, I am most fearful that the result will be even more fearsome pressure on our children sitting for their PSLE each year, to make it to that top 10%, so that they can benefit from the new integrated programme in their secondary education. As usual, we are focusing so much of our attention, effort and resources on the few at the top. Why should this diversity of approaches be reserved only for the top 10%? We are grateful that the kind of resources and opportunities that were previously given only to the top 1% in the Gifted Education Programme will perhaps now be available to a wider 10%. But is the focus on this elite group, in fact, justified? The GEP has been in existence now for many years. Has there been an assessment, in fact, of its outcomes, other than perhaps the number of President's Scholars that they may have produced? What contributions have previous GEP cohorts made to Singapore society? What skills and spirit and values have they developed? Similarly, with the recommendation to establish specialised independent schools to cater to students with special talents in arts, sports, mathematics and science, these schools will again cater only for the very few.

I served recently on the Economic Review Sub-committee on Enhancing Human Capital and co-chaired the Work Group on Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation. Our Work Group recommended, not elite arts and sports schools, but making arts and sports education widely available to our children in schools so that more of our children will imbue the spirit and values that come with these disciplines. And also, so that we will lose less of those who have the skills and talents in these areas who would otherwise be left by the wayside in our traditional education system.

When we look at our workforce today, the problem we have is not with the top 1% or the top 10%. They are more than able to fend for themselves in the old world, and in the new, and indeed to contribute to our national development. The enormous challenge that we face is with the massive 400,000 workers at the bottom of the spectrum, whose world is far removed from the corridors of power and wealth.

I would like to ask who is looking into the educational needs of the future equivalent of this large group of Singaporeans, who will also have to deal with the new challenges and the new demands that will be made on them in our new and globalised economy.

To conclude, Mdm Deputy Speaker, I do support the motion, but I would urge Government to further review the whole education system, particularly addressing the needs of our younger, pre-primary and primary school students, to ensure that the broadening of the JC curriculum is indeed matched with a decrease in content so that it is manageable and to avail the improvements to a much wider population of students. 7.03 pm

Mr Ahmad Khalis Bin Abdul Ghani (Hong Kah): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I am in full support of the motion mainly because I was a member of the Committee that did the review. In that light, I had actually tried to place my speech somewhere at the end of the debate by calling the Whip quite late, just before the deadline. To my horror, I was placed at No. 12 and to speak on the first day. Apparently my creativity is not good enough. I hope after the review, future MPs would be more creative and innovative in manipulating as to when they would speak in Parliament.

Madam, I would like to touch on a few points and then later also touch on the points raised by my hon. Friends before me.

Just some background to this review. I see three important factors that played in the minds of both the Ministry and the Review Committee.

Firstly, the demands of the new economy - which is innovation driven. This new economy places a great premium on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. With these great new demands placed upon our economy, upon our future, what do we do with our education system? If we are just to look at the JCs and upper secondary education, what do we do about it? This topic has been dealt with and touched upon by my colleagues before me. I will deal with them in a short while.

Secondly, we have this syndrome, which we in the Committee called the "Coca Cola" syndrome. We have at the lower secondary education level a very broad based curriculum, where students take eight to ten subjects, covering both the sciences and the humanities, one or two languages in addition to that. Then, at the university level, the first one or two years, it is also similarly broad based. Students in the science faculties are made to take one or two humanities subjects. Students doing humanities are also made to take one or two non-humanity subjects. But at the pre-university level, the specialisation is more pronounced. We have about 40% of our science students at pre-university who do not take any humanities subject. Yet, when they go to university, as most of them do, they have to take at least one humanities subject. So we have to correct this "Coca Cola Bottle" syndrome.

Among the questions that we have to look at here, Madam, is how then do we broaden the curriculum without compromising depth. All of us agree that the rigour in our system, the standards that we have achieved in our educational system are good, we wish it to remain, but yet we also want to broaden the curriculum to enable our students to cover as many subjects as possible. But how do we achieve this without compromising depth? So the Committee came out with this system of having three tiers as opposed to the present two tiers in depth. Presently, we have the "AO" and the "A" levels, now we have H1, H2, H3, or rather this is the proposed differentiation as far as depth is concerned, so that we can achieve a greater amount of breadth without compromising depth.

The third factor in the background is the high percentage of our top 10% of our student cohort qualifying for university. In other words, for them, the "O" level is more or less a formality. Yet, as we have heard earlier on, if we are to free these students from taking their "O" levels, which also means freeing them from taking or preparing for preliminary examinations, they would have an additional eight to ten months of free time - eight to ten months where they can benefit from other enhancements or enrichment projects and programmes. So the question then is: can we do away with the "O" level examinations for them, and if we are to do it, how do we manage the fall out?

Mdm Deputy Speaker, when we consider the new demands, the demands of the new economy, and when we speak of innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and when we try to look at the education system where we ask ourselves, "So what do we do with the education system in order to meet these new demands", among the things that first strike my mind is how to improve the curriculum in terms of enhancing thought process skills over content mastery or accumulation of information. I think this has been discussed. We see there are efforts being made to enhance the value of project work, highlighting thought process skills over content mastery in pedagogy or teaching methodology. These ideas had been dealt with by the Committee.

Another aspect in relation to innovation and creativity is to develop within the curriculum a means by which students are able to draw knowledge from different disciplines. In other words, it is not sufficient for them to merely learn. When it is already not sufficient for them to learn from one particular body knowledge, now it is also not sufficient for them to learn from different bodies of knowledge, but we would encourage students to be able to draw lessons from different bodies of knowledge at the same time.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, one of the most known icons of our time are the producers of the Star Wars Trilogy, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The Star Wars Trilogy is very captivating, partly because I think within one show you see different bodies of knowledge coming together. It has, well, this may be controversial, but to my mind, high literature value because it has a very identifiable theme or themes. It has simple plots that criss-cross one another. It has lots of wit and humour. That is the literature aspect. Then it deals with science and technology, whether futuristic or fictional sometimes. You have, for instance, the three-dimensional recording of Princess Leah talking to whoever that may be. In the first show it was Luke Skywalker, I think, receiving the message that he was supposed to see Obiwan Kanobi. Then we have this fantastic Death Star construction, which was Darth Vader's headquarters. We have fancy flying machines. We have flying saucers that can presumably travel at the speed of light. Well, that is the science aspect.

Then we have the aspect of politics and governance. We have the clash between the Empire and small planets. We have the knighthood of the Jedi. This is another element of the Star Wars Trilogy. We have the marketing part. Besides advertisements, they have toys, they have games, they publish books and comics. In short, Mdm Deputy Speaker, that movie, or that trilogy of movies is a multi-faceted industry, and to my mind the producers were able to captivate the imagination of the world because they drew from various bodies of knowledge, put them together and came out with a solid product that nobody else could have done. If local producers are to be capable of similarly captivating the imagination of the world, then I believe they have to develop that capability to draw from different bodies of knowledge.

This ability to draw from different bodies of knowledge must mean that they have a grasp of the different bodies of knowledge to begin with. So it must mean a broadening, at some point in time, the curriculum. I am afraid it has to mean a certain degree of workload. It will have to mean that students must be able to study, and must have to undertake the rigour and the difficulty of studying different types of subjects, including subjects that they may not be totally happy with because it is a bit different from what their aptitude is best at.

Some Members spoke of the need to lighten the load. I think what is more crucial here, Mdm Deputy Speaker, is not so much to have a lightened workload but to have an enlightened workload. An enlightened workload means a workload that takes into account the need to prepare our students for the future as opposed to simply helping them go through the present.

Another aspect of the review, Mdm Deputy Speaker, is communication skills. We have heard just now from my fellow Members that Singaporeans somehow are not able to communicate well. This was in fact one of the points raised by some of the Review Committee members and some of the feedback that we received. So here, I think the Committee tried to overcome this problem by enhancing or emphasising the need for project work, where they have to develop teamwork and then in the presentation of the project work they will have to develop communication skills. So in the presentation of project work the students will then have to develop skills in communication so as to impress or convince the examiners of the worth of their project.

As it is, the General Paper is a subject that is feared by most students. When we introduce project work, there is a general reaction among students and teachers that this will increase workload or stress. I do not think any of us will want to increase the workload or stress for the fun of it. I do not think any of us are morbid enough to have that kind of sense of humour. But it is something which we need to do based on the comments that we get very often from the public and Members of this House that Singaporeans are not good at speaking, not good at communicating, or not articulate. So we have to do something about it. We have to improve our system and among the things that we can do is to enhance the quality of teaching GP as well as project work. And I believe that, in the long term, this will have the effect that all of us desire. We would be able to produce Singaporeans who would be able to market their products better, who would be able to articulate and communicate better and, hopefully, make life in Singapore as a whole much better too.

Just two more points, Mdm Deputy Speaker, I do not wish to be long because I wish to break my fast also. I agree with the points raised by my colleagues that teachers play a very important role in this. In fact, teachers have told us that looking at the recommendations and reviews, they are very concerned as to whether teachers and principals are ready for the review because they realise, just as everyone here also realises that the method of teaching has to be kept in line with the substantive recommendations. Indeed, the method of teaching, if not rightly aligned, might even undermine the recommendations. So, as stated by MOS Cedric Foo just now, the teachers would have some way to go in making the necessary changes, and I have full confidence that our teachers will do so.

Again, we have already received feedback that the teaching profession is under stress. What more with the new recommendations! But, again, I reiterate that it is no fun adding stress to the lives of teachers, as it is no fun adding stress to the lives of students. But looking again at the future that we are facing, the new demands that are before us, what choice do we have? Something that we have to do for our children, for our country, what I can just say here is that I have full confidence the teachers too will align themselves with the new recommendations.

Similarly, as regards parents, Mdm Deputy Speaker, they will find the changes quite painful and sometimes quite bewildering. I think parents would need great help to understand the changes. I do not think it is possible for parents to be able to grasp all the changes in one go and it may not be necessary for them to do so too. So here, there will be a need for stronger collaboration between parents and schools so that they will be given the right dosages of information at the right point in time. In this respect, I believe schools will take the necessary measures to have contact points with parents as their children progress in school.

I will touch on some of the points raised by my colleagues before me as regards the Integrated Programme. One concern was whether or not this is a higher level of streaming. The first response to that is: is streaming by itself a problem? If it is not, a higher level of streaming is not a bigger problem. But even if it is something that we ought to be concerned about, the response to that would be to weigh the benefits of having the Integrated Programme as not having it. Here, we have the opportunity to free up about eight to 10 months of the time of our best students when they do not need to take their 'O' level examinations. If you can do it, why not? Sure, we are concerned with the others. But in this respect, there is nothing much that we can do about the others. In this particular aspect, must we deprive the best from something which they otherwise could get? In fact, we get feedback from everyone that our system is too rigid, too book-centred. So perhaps these eight to 10 months are perfect for them to go out and do something else, like fire fighting perhaps, as what some students do in the United States, and community work.

There was this concern that the IP programme would also widen the gap between the very best and the not-so-good. Perhaps, we can use these eight to 10 months to inculcate among the top 10% students the values that, even though they can fly high, they must remember that when they nest, they must nest on solid ground. When they land, they must land on firm feet. They must be true Singaporeans, good citizens, good sons and good daughters, that they have to respect their parents and love their neighbours and help those who are in need. So we can use these eight to 10 months to do that, which otherwise they may not have the time if they have to prepare for preliminary examination and 'O' level examination. So as far as they are concerned, they are valid ones. But I think on balance it is better if we can do away with the 'O' level examinations, we do away with it.

I shall not prolong everyone's agony any further. I stand in support of the motion.