JUNIOR COLLEGE/UPPER SECONDARY EDUCATION

Order read for Resumption of Debate on Question [25th November 2002],

"That this House, having noted the Report of the Junior College (JC)/Upper Secondary Education Review Committee 2002, contained in Paper Cmd. 8 of 2002, (1) supports the new JC curriculum which will better develop thinking, communication and other process skills and engage students in greater breadth of learning; and (2) endorses greater diversity and opening of new pathways in JC/Upper Secondary education to cater to the different strengths and interests of students.". - [RAdm Teo Chee Hean].

Question again proposed.

1.18 pm

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong: Mr Speaker, Sir, much of the debate yesterday focused on whether the proposed changes in the White Paper will ring in more stress and a more elitist system.

Like others in this House, I too am concerned whether the increased subject - from five to seven at the JC level - will mean more stress for our children, especially those at the borderline. More likely, greater stress will be faced not so much by the top 10% of students, but the Mr and Ms Average and the Slightly-Above-Average in the JCs. But how stressed they will end up depends very much on how the subjects are taught, and how the students approach the subjects and their own expectations and that of their parents'. We know from our own experience, that if you enjoy a subject, it will cease to be stressful.

But even if the broader based education curriculum does prove to be more stressful for some students, we have to ask ourselves which would be more stressful in the final analysis. To be stretched a few years in school with a broad based education that prepares them well for the future, or to come out to the workforce ill-equipped for the lifetime of challenges ahead?

The other concern - whether this would make for a more elitist system - is to my mind the wrong question. The question to ask is: with this education reform, will the masses in Singapore have a better future?

We have a society that is mainly middle class. Over the years, however, the income gap has widened between the top earners and those at the bottom. It would be much simpler to look for ways to distribute our country's wealth more equitably, than it would be to try to distribute one group's intelligence more equitably. We should put our efforts into nurturing those who are more gifted and intelligent among us, so that they can add to the country's progress and wealth, which can be shared more equitably with all citizens.

As the Education Minister said yesterday, and I quote:

'Those students who will benefit from the greater educational options being introduced, must not forget that the opportunities that they enjoy are ultimately justified only by the quality of their commitment and service to our nation and the general social good. If our JC students leave the system very bright, very creative and innovative, having benefited from the best that our system has to offer, but without a sense of commitment to country and obligation to his fellow citizens, then all these efforts would have come to nothing.'

I agree fully with the Minister.

Sir, I do not particularly care if this reform would produce Nobel prize winners at the end of the day, although it would be good if it did. The fundamental thing is to give every citizen, every student, an opportunity to reach a place in which he or she can and will make the greatest possible contribution to the public good.

What we need to focus on is to continue to strengthen meritocracy and to remove all barriers to social mobility and create a level playing field so that all citizens can truly partake of equality of opportunity. In this respect, Sir, I find the proposed education reform very exciting. It is exciting because it embraces enlightened and forward-looking values as its starting point. It believes that each person is unique, possessing diverse abilities and talents. It affirms that diversity is valuable and enriches the community. It signals that society values individuals who excel in different fields, be it sports or arts. It promotes a more balanced view of success and self-worth, beyond just academic results.

I would like to highlight in particular four proposals in the White Paper for discussion.

First, the proposal to set up new Specialised Schools that cater to students with talents in specific fields, such as the arts, sports, mathematics and science. This would contribute towards broadening the range of career paths and opportunities for Singaporeans. Indeed, the promotion of arts, through the proposed arts school, cannot come at a better time, especially for the arts scene when Singapore is gearing up to be the art hub for the region, and with the building of the Esplanade. If this bold experiment succeeds, it will contribute to a higher quality of life for all Singaporeans.

Sir, the pursuit of excellence in any field requires substantial effort and investment. Many young Singaporeans I spoke to have felt that, for a long time, they have not been able to develop the artistic interests because of societal pressures to pursue the 5Cs via the tried and tested traditional academic route. There seems to be no room for the creative, the offbeat, the dreamer. With the specialised schools, they will have the flexibility to pursue their interests and passions in arts or sports without having to opt out of the system. They can combine academic study and the arts or with sports. The signal to society is profound: the softer side of life matters. It redefines the conventional definition of success in Singapore.

But these specialised schools in arts and sports would not succeed or take root if there are not enough jobs waiting for their graduates at the end of the day. Hence, I would like to urge the relevant Government agencies, such as MITA and MCDS, at the same time to actively develop the cultural and sports industries also. If not, then all this effort and investment will go down the drain as parents and students realise very quickly that the arts and sports in Singapore do not offer viable career options.

We must also cultivate an appreciative audience for the arts and an interest in the humanities, such as literature. This brings me to the second proposed change I want to highlight and that is the proposal to integrate an arts and humanities component into the core education curriculum in regular schools. This is to be welcomed.

As we know, more and more schools have been dropping literature as a subject for their students because it is difficult to score high marks for the subject, and the poor scores were pulling down the school's ranking and the school's average.

Sir, literature is important not only from the perspective of promoting the arts and to help them to speak better English, but it is also important for the personal development of an individual, to help them express themselves better and to see the world through different lenses. Literature has elements of history, geography, philosophy, sociology and psychology. It deals with the intellectual and emotional realm. In short, life itself, in all its richness and complexity. Literature is not known as the "Queen of Humanities" for nothing. But given the emphasis on school ranking, I am not hopeful if this proposed change would see more schools offering literature or more students taking up literature again. They will more likely go for other subjects which are easier to score, such as geography. I would urge the Education Ministry to relook the ranking system, a point I will come to shortly.

There also needs to be a comprehensive drive to address the serious shortage of qualified literature, arts and sports teachers.

The third proposal I found exciting about the White Paper is the added emphasis on non-academic curriculum with more weight given to co-curricular activities. I commend the move to introduce a holistic certification whereby the CCA achievements and academic grades of students are reflected in a single "A" level certificate and the proposal to give CCA additional weights in the university admission criteria.

Frankly, when we look back on our school days, we do not think "Oh yes, I had a great time solving that mathematics problem." No, more often than not, the memories that stay with us for the rest of our lives are times singing around the campfire as a Girl Guide or staging a school play, or running around in the netball field. Our memories intuitively give more weight to CCA.

Sir, we should review how we rank schools, now mainly based on academic results. Ranking criteria also have to be broad based, in tandem with the broad based education we want to introduce, and the school ranking should give due recognition to schools that do well in literature, the arts, sports and CCA.

I know that all schools in Singapore use the School Excellence Model for self-appraisal for their performance. The School Excellence Model recognises achievement and effort beyond academic results, in the arts, physical fitness, sports and uniformed group activities, and so on. But as I understand it, this model does not contribute to the ranking of schools.

With the green light for a few private schools to be set up, perhaps we should consider setting up an independent body in Singapore, equivalent to the UK's Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. Its core business is to review the quality and standards of UK's higher education. Such an agency in Singapore should audit the way in which each JC and secondary school manages the overall quality and standards of its provision and review academic standards and the quality of teaching and learning in each subject area, and also give points to CCA in the ranking of schools. This will also help the public to be better equipped to make informed decisions on which school to select for their children.

The fourth proposal I want to highlight is that allowing a few privately-run and privately-funded secondary schools or JCs. This is a good move, despite the allegations of elitism, as this will allow those who could not fit into the regular system a menu of other choices. But why not go all the way and also allow at least one private university, privately-run, privately-funded, to complete the track and to compete with our universities for the good students in each cohort? Or else our good students produced up to JC level, then already used to a more rigorous intellectual climate, would have little option here but to go to Ivy League universities in the US, such as Harvard and Princeton, if our own universities do not also revamp their teaching methods or their curriculum. This would not help us to achieve our vision of being the Harvard of the East. The American system offers the choice of both a public and a private system. At the university level, private institutions outnumber public institutions by a factor of three to one.

Sir, there is a need to align our universities to the changes as part of this education reform and, at the same time, to broaden the choices for our students with at least one privately-funded university. I do not believe that this greater differentiation will necessarily lead to a more elitist system where only the rich and powerful would benefit. In Harvard in the US for instance, those who can pay full fees are charged full fees. The middle class and poor get financial aid of a sliding scale. All financial aid at Harvard is based on need, and almost half of its students get direct grants which come up to just under half the tuition bill. Or take the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It also offers an array of financial assistance schemes for deserving students. Each admission criterion is based not on the ability to pay but on a complex evaluation of the applicants' aptitude as well as their attitudes.

As the Dean of MIT Admissions, Marilee Jones was quoted as saying in one article, one way they sort applicants, other than the academic qualification, is to rate them on three specific dimensions of the student's life - initiatives in co-curricular activities; initiatives in inter-personal skills; initiatives in extra-curricular activities.

The applicants may vary greatly, but that is what the MIT wants. As Ms Jones explained, and I quote,

'The key word, as you can see, is initiative because this is the most important characteristic we select for. We try to admit people who take initiative in their lives, who take responsibility for their education. Many students study hard, get good grades and good scores. But many of those do it because it is a family expectation or community pressure or a myriad of other reasons.' She added that it was passion that they look for. We have a high tendency to admit students, she said, who pursue their activities at a very high level of distinction but these activities can be anything. "It is the passion that counts."

Sir, it is the passion that counts indeed. And it is no wonder that you do not hear many MIT students complaining endlessly of stress.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the White Paper offers an exciting vision of the future. There are so many opportunities for the students to maximise their potential. That said, however, the dazzling array of choices can also be quite confusing. How are the students going to know which subject to take and which combinations of those subjects, which route to take and which school to opt for to give the courses and the route that they choose, whether they can afford to go to a particular school, private or public and, if not, what financial aid is available, and so on? Students from low income families, in particular, will be disadvantaged as their home environments may not provide them the support and guidance that they need.

Sir, we cannot presume that somewhere along the way, a teacher, administrator, or coach will take a special interest in each student or help the young person to recognise his or her strengths and abilities, and encourage that student to plan for the future.

I would urge the Minister to place more emphasis on providing schools with good qualified counsellors. Without adequate counselling, students have no choice but to revert to self-selection and, too often, that is the base where their friends are. Low-income families must be assisted if you are to substantially increase the number of students of different races, cultures and backgrounds in higher education. We have been working on class-size reduction, higher standards and greater accountability. We have begun to address the importance of preparing more and better-qualified school administrators. To complete the job, we need to be sure we have enough qualified counsellors.

Teachers already complain of being overloaded with work. With enough counsellors on hand, teachers and administrators can better focus on their primary responsibilities. The provision of high quality, readily accessible counselling must be at the heart of a culture that is committed to enabling each individual to realise his or her full potential. With adequate counselling, we will reap the full benefits of this education reform.

On that note, Sir, I support the motion.

Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed (Aljunied): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the motion.

Sir, while in Delhi last week attending the Asian Network of Major Cities Meeting, I met the Governor of Tokyo, Mr Shintaro Ishihara, who is also a well-known writer and a critical thinker. He was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for the novel "Taiyo no Kisetsu" (or "The Season of the Sun"). He was indeed full of praise for our education system. He cited what he saw in how music was taught in our schools as an example of what he would like done in Tokyo. Similarly, he thought that it was strange that Singapore was already using the ERP technology, he said from Japan, but yet that system was not even introduced in his own country.

This is the beauty of our system. It is a subject of praise in many countries, both in third and first worlds, but that did not stop us from improving and fine-tuning it.

This is indeed the purpose of this exercise. The proposals put forth by the Junior College/Upper Secondary Education Review Committee, in the words of Minister RAdm Teo Chee Hean, will assure future cohorts of Singaporeans of a relevant and forward-looking education that is always in time for the future. I strongly agree. Senior Minister of State Tharman Shanmugaratnam and his able Committee deserve our encouragement and support for bravely venturing into those proposed changes, although there are those who feel that they could still be bolder.

Mr Speaker Sir, the future challenges awaiting are innovation-driven and more globalised. Present standards of secondary and JC education will not be adequate. I share the confidence that the changes proposed will nurture the skills, spirit and values required for the more competitive world. In fact, the inherent spirit shown by MOE, indeed Singaporeans as a whole, to make refinements to an already successful system of education, will bode well for our future.

I think the broader the education system, the more flexible our students will be and thus the easier they adapt to changing needs. We must move away from strait-jacketed systems that will hamper our movements. I realise that many of us, especially parents, are often hamstrung with outdated ideas about education and careers. Parents often think of their children in terms of being a doctor, lawyer or engineer. But the profile of the economy has changed so much that we have to change our mindsets and look at alternative routes.

At the North East CDC, for example, we have chosen Creativity and Entrepreneurship as one of the key areas of our activities. The idea being, not just to create more entrepreneurs but more important, to instill a sense of enterprise in the hearts and minds of our citizens.

Sir, when I was in secondary school, the mindset was to go for medicine. When I failed to get a place for Medicine in the Pre-University class, I remember my mentor friend', a retired British Major, telling me, not to worry, I could be a good nurse. Little did I know that I would end up nursing' the community. Community development and upliftment became my passion for life. This helped after I switched from the science stream to doing arts or humanities.

I was also glad, Sir, that during my secondary education, the Principal of RI then, the late Mr E.W. Jesudason, introduced Current Affairs, as an examinable subject. I remember counting the number of coconut trees in the school compound and the question came out in the test paper. And I scored. Sir, not to be accused of failing to see the wood for the trees, my point in mentioning this anecdote is to emphasise that education is more than just a matter of passing the conventional subjects taught in class. Current affairs taught me the importance of knowing what is going on around us, and it gave me a good foundation for my journalistic career of more than 20 prime years of my life.

I am glad that now "diversity and flexibility" is the "way forward". A broader and more flexible JC curriculum, with a focus on skills, more than content, giving students breadth and more flexible options, will certainly open new horizons for what education means. This has implications not only for JC and secondary education but also at the lower levels of primary and even pre-primary education. Parents not only need to be alerted but they must also be garnered to support the proposed changes. While communications skills will be given due and greater attention to the JC students, I hope and trust MOE will also polish its communications skills with parents to win over their support.

Sir, the issue of competition in the system needs addressing. As criticisms seem rife as to the fact that the new system only encourages further elitism and an even greater struggle to get into the band of 'elite' students who will get to benefit from the more 'flexible' options in the system, I think we, as a nation, must be prepared to realise, welcome and cherish competition rather than shy away from it. Yet, it does not mean that students who do not fit into the top bandwidths will be forgotten.

Flexibility should be tailored to ensure that students who do not excel in the normative system of education, be given a chance to excel in different fields. This is something which Singapore has been consciously striving for through the Polytechnic and ITE education systems. I was among those who visited the MOE-arranged ITE visits and I am very impressed with the attention given and progress made in those areas.

But further flexibility is required. We should be prepared to recognise talent from within these systems which are seen as secondary in stature to the contemporary secondary education-JC route, and hence be prepared to offer them and welcome them into further education in their later life. In this respect, I support the proposal to continue with the three-year Pre-University Centralised Institutes system and, if necessary, open another to provide more opportunities for those on the borderlines who might have the potential as late-bloomers. The proposal to allow some JC students to do their course in three years is also worthy of support.

Our education system must be prepared to recognise that the future of national educational systems must take as their top priority the infusion into young minds the hunger for knowledge, the ability to learn and the freedom of expression. This hunger for knowledge and ability to learn should be given a longer leash, so to speak, by allowing students to choose at an early age areas of interest and to encourage their development.

It is pointless to encourage creativity in general while keeping the options of student encased within what are deemed as 'guidelines for success'. It would be an even greater mistake to try to teach a person to be creative and expressive. It is something that has to be realised, or released . not taught. One sure way to encourage it is to ensure that students know that wherever their passions may be, they will be supported and given an avenue of expression by the education system.

Mr Speaker, Sir, however sound the principles proposed, the teachers must be prepared to play their part. Teachers come with their own mindsets too. A good remake programme is necessary to help prepare teachers for their new role. This needs time and closer scrutiny.

One other area which would help the proposed changes to take root faster is to infuse more foreign students especially from countries which have a more open and liberal structure. Scholarships could be offered for some of such students to encourage our students to also open up and benefit from the new system.

On a final note, Sir, these proposed changes clearly send a strong signal on the needs for change. Similarly, I hope those running `alternative' systems, the madrasahs, for example, will take note and heed of the changes also needed there. I hope that the MOE will also be able to provide help to ensure that the secondary madrasahs also measure up to the changing demands for secondary education for the future.

I support the motion, Sir. 1.45 pm

Mr S Iswaran (West Coast): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I first say what a pleasure it is to be able to rise in support of a motion on education in this House. I say this with a lot of feeling because, in this House, over the last five or six years, I have witnessed numerous debates on education policy, some of which had been quite pungent, all motivated by very fundamental concerns for our educational system and our children. But this is the first time I find myself heartened by what I see as a broad-based systemic response from the Ministry of Education to a long-term challenge that we face.

It was therefore with some concern that I listened to some of the speeches we heard yesterday, where a lot of focus and attention were drawn to various concerns and aspects of these recommendations which are likely to be problematic. I fully agree that there is a whole range of concerns to be addressed, and one could argue that no debate on education would be complete without such concerns. But the key point really is that we should not lose sight of the bigger picture, as Dr Wang put it yesterday, not lose sight of the wood for the trees.

To me, Sir, this Report and the changes it recommends represent a watershed in our education system. Why? Because, over the years, the education system has had a host of criticisms levelled at it, and I believe that we have here, after several decades, a robust systemic response to such criticisms. What were these criticisms which still continue to occupy a big part of our discussion? We say that our students are too narrowly or academically focused. We say they lack creativity and thinking skills. We say the system is rigid, it does not have enough flexibility or give enough choice, and that it does not cater to those who have specific strengths, whether it is in one or two particular academic subjects or to those who may excel in sports or the arts.

Hitherto, many of the Ministry of Education's initiatives, I felt, addressed these criticisms in incremental steps. But the Report and its recommendations represent a systemic review and an overhaul of the upper secondary and JC education system that substantially address these points. In terms of the curriculum, as the Report says, it is broader and more flexible. We talk about breadth through this Knowledge and Inquiry component or Project Work. We talk about variation or diversity in the education landscape through specialised independent schools and integrated programmes. I believe these will go a long way in addressing many of the concerns that we have had and will continue to have.

Secondly, Sir, I believe these changes are profound because of the principles that are embedded in the recommendations, specifically, the principles of flexibility and diversity. I believe they provide a foundation upon which we can build an even better education system for - as the Minister put it - an innovation-driven future which, by implication, is going to be less deterministic. But these principles are two sides of the same coin. Many of us have argued, in this House and outside, for flexibility and diversity. But when these are in the offing now, we need to also squarely face up to the challenge they pose to all of us who are part of the Singapore system.

What do I mean by that? I believe that when we have greater flexibility and diversity in the education system, we are now seeing that the equilibrium, in terms of the responsibility for education, shifts towards parents and students, and away from the Ministry of Education and the school system. And I think that is a shift that is in the right direction. What it means is, for example, when we have greater flexibility in our system, it allows an individual to explore his interests and discover his strengths. But what it also means is that that individual has the onus upon himself or herself to make the most of what is presented to him or her. There is no one-track cookie-cutter approach which is going to deliver a definitive outcome. It is now a lot more variable and we have to take responsibility for it - the parents and the students together.

The same could be argued for the point about diversity. The Report outlines numerous initiatives on how the educational landscape in Singapore will or can be different. If you contemplate it, it is, as the previous speaker, the hon. Member Ms Irene Ng put it, quite exciting. We would have a range of schools, all of good quality, some within the public system who will be outstanding in certain areas, whether it is in Science, Mathematics or others; there will be private schools with foreign students making up to 50%; and there will be schools that offer integrated programmes and a variety of other choices. In a sense, the mind boggles at the kind of options that will be presented to parents and students.

But the flip side of such diversity or differentiation in the system is that there is the risk of elitism. And we cannot run away from that. What we have to ask ourselves is: on balance, is it a good or a bad thing? Does it enhance our system as a whole, providing benefits to all? I believe the answer would be an unequivocal yes, especially if the Government - which I believe the Minister has already given some level of undertaking - will address some of the issues pertaining to the negative aspects that might arise from such differentiation, eg, enhancing access to these schemes, so that one's socio-economic background is not a factor, but rather meritocracy. I think that is a fundamental principle that needs to be upheld throughout.

At the same time, the benefits that accrue from such flexibility - and the Report here focuses primarily at the top tier - must percolate to all levels of the education system. These are the ways we can ensure greater equity and broader benefit from what I consider to be such path-breaking moves in the education system.

Sir, I do not think this Report and its recommendations are a panacea, and this should be obvious from the debate so far. There still remain many issues in people's minds. And it is by no means the end of the debate on education. But I think it sets a firm foundation upon which we can build the future of our education system to meet the challenges ahead.

I would like to ask the Minister to consider doing two things. One is to do more; the other is to do less. Let me take the do-less first.

Sir, as with any change in the curriculum, we are faced with the tension between breadth and depth. I readily concede this is not an easy trade-off. After all, we do not want to have students skimming the surface for a whole range of subjects without really having a deep appreciation of any one of them. Neither do we want boffins who drill so deep in one particular area that they are lost to the world when it comes to other aspects.

But when I look at the Report, I felt that, yet again perhaps, we seem to want to have our cake and eat it. With the new system at the JC level, students will take at least seven subjects - Project Work, General Paper, Knowledge and Inquiry, Mother Tongue - at least three core subjects and a contrasting subject. That compares with the minimum of three "A"s and two "O"s in the current system or, if you are a student doing a full load, then it is four "A"s and two "O"s.

In terms of curriculum time, we are told that for the Science students, there may be a 10% reduction and, for Arts students, there may be no reduction. My concern is this: curriculum time represents the front end of any education process in the schools. It is a measure of the direct contact time that the student has in his classroom or in the lecture theatre in the junior college. But there is a lot that happens outside curriculum time and that indeed ought to happen outside curriculum time which, in a sense, we cannot capture with this arithmetic. There is a multiplier that we will need to factor in, whether it is in self-study, research or any other endeavour that is related, peripherally or otherwise to the subject at hand.

So, I would like to urge the Minister to do less, ie, having taken the bold step of creating these differentiated pathways in the secondary, upper secondary and junior college system, and acknowledging the need for diversity, why not go a step further and ensure a more substantial reduction in the curriculum time, say, by 20%? I am not saying this because it is going to be a solution to the question of stress. I think stress has many sources. The time spent on curriculum is but one, and I do not think any amount of reduction will necessarily solve that. But I am saying this because, first, the same curriculum time under this equation does actually mean a heavier workload for the students. So, we would be disingenuous if we say that as a result of these changes the students have the same workload. The answer is that it is not. The reality is that they will have a higher workload. So, let us face up to it and let us all be prepared for that.

Secondly, I do believe that a certain amount of downtime, especially from such diverse educational opportunities, is necessary to allow the student to reflect, to synthesise - whether it is through project work or other activities - in order to allow the different educational disciplines that he or she is exposed to, to have an impact on him or her. After all, Sir, we have to let the land lie fallow for a while before we seed it for the next cycle. In the same way, it may be useful to give our students a little bit more time to pursue something in greater depth or to look at the inter-linkages or through other measures, and not look at it as a container or a vat that needs to be constantly topped up for fear that any vacancy will be misused or mis-spent.

The second point, on doing more, Sir, I am convinced of the benefits that a system embedded with the principles of flexibility and diversity will bring to our students as well as our general system. My lament is that the proposals here are confined primarily to the top quartile of our cohorts. It can be argued that, actually, the top quartile are the most resilient of any cohort, and perhaps the most flexible in a cohort because, presumably, they have the turn of mind to be able to adapt themselves to different challenges more readily than the next quartile or two in a cohort.

That being the case, I would like to ask and urge the Minister to see how quickly at least core elements of the proposal that have been laid out before us can be extended to the broader education system in Singapore, so that all students and, in particular, those who might be weaker have the opportunity to benefit from such multiple pathways - pathways that will enable them perhaps to find their strengths much earlier and capitalise on them.

Today, we have a system where after 10 years they go to ITE or, beyond that, to polytechnic, JC or university and so on. But in the secondary school itself, giving them those opportunities to discover their strengths and to capitalise on them earlier is critical. I think we have the seeds of such a possible system in what has been recommended today.

The other aspect I would urge the Minister to consider - and this is a point that Dr Jennifer Lee made yesterday and which I want to echo - is that whilst we focus at the upper secondary and junior college levels, it would be a natural progression - some might argue, as Dr Lee did, it might be an inverse progression - for us to consider what can be done at the primary level, maybe even pre-primary. I know the Ministry is already doing a review for pre-primary education, but for primary education we have used our core subjects - Mathematics, Mother Tongue and English - and, I think, Science after Primary 4. The question is: is there scope to do more to create greater latitude within the primary school system? That, I know, is an open-ended challenge. I do not have a specific proposal for the Minister but I do ask that he and his team commit to finding a broader-based primary school education system for Singaporeans as well.

Sir, I support the motion. 2.00 pm

Ms Indranee Rajah (Tanjong Pagar): Mr Speaker, thank you for allowing me to participate in this debate.

The report on the JC/Upper Secondary Education Review Committee contains two broad proposals - a broader and more flexible JC curriculum and, secondly, a more diverse educational landscape.

I fully support these proposals which I feel are long overdue. In fact, the proposals are comprehensive, considered and, most importantly, take into account a lot of feedback which we have obtained from parents, students and employers. It is a common complaint among Singaporeans that they give a lot of feedback but nothing happens. But I think this is one example where people have given feedback and it actually finds its way in a concrete form in this report which I hope will be implemented.

There are three proposals in the report in which I have particular interest. First, the recommendation to focus on skills more than content. Second, the recommendation to give students more flexibility on subjects. Third, the recommendation to place emphasis on the non-academic curriculum to develop strength of character, leadership and team skills.

On skills rather than content, we do acknowledge that the weakness of our education system thus far has been over-emphasis on content. Sometimes, I cannot help comparing our educational system to the production of foie gras. Foie gras, as you know, is a gastronomic delicacy. It is duck or goose liver, very high quality, very expensive, top of the range, very painfully produced. It is the fatty liver which is produced by over-feeding ducks and geese. Just let me describe the process which may sound vaguely familiar. In order to achieve the desired taste and texture, ducks and geese are force-fed two or three times a day with up to half a kilogram of grain and fat. After two or three weeks, the birds are ready for slaughter and their livers would have swelled to about between six and ten times their natural size. Apart from being fed for more than they would eat naturally, the diet of foie gras birds is deliberately deficient in basic nutrients and this makes the liver accumulate so much fat that they can no longer function properly.

I am not saying that our entire education system is quite as bad as that, but we must admit that our JC students have been stuffed with quite a lot of content and many of them have been stuffed with Science at the expense of the humanities, which leads to a certain imbalance. I will speak a bit more about that later. The point I am making is that the over-emphasis on content means that they have not been able to think out of the box. They have not been trained as much as they ought to have been in critical and independent thinking. I fully support the recommendations from this Committee because I think they are aimed at promoting and developing critical thinking which is going to be extremely important in an innovation-driven global society.

In fact, I know of one university lecturer, a Caucasian, whose daughter was in a local school. But he transferred her out of the local school after a while to an international school because apparently, the teachers at the local school complained that she kept asking too many questions. She always wanted to know "why". She just could not memorise the answers but asked, "Why this? Why that?" But given the new global circumstances that we find ourselves faced with, "why" is an important question, "how" is an important question. Can I do it better? What are the reasons? Can I get round this? All these are questions that we need to encourage our students to think and to develop.

I firmly believe that the function of education is not just to prepare people for jobs. It is to prepare people for life. And that brings me to the next recommendation which is having more flexible options for our students. Currently, about 40% of JC students offer only Mathematics and Science subjects with no humanities offered beyond their "O" levels. One of the reasons for this, as my colleague in this House, Ms Irene Ng, has pointed out, is that it is easier to score in Mathematics and Science subjects which are either formulae in nature or heavily memory-based, at least at JC level. Another reason is that in the past, these subjects were emphasised to equip the students for specific jobs. But the job landscape has now changed.

I think Singapore and our society as a whole have suffered to some degree from an over-emphasis on the Sciences at the expense of the Arts and it is high time that we corrected this imbalance. Science and Mathematics teach you how to construct a gun. It is humanities, philosophy and the law that tell you when to pull the trigger. Having one without the other is like "yin" without the "yang" - you have a serious imbalance. This lack of emphasis on the humanities would, to some extent, explain the lack of creative thinking, the weakness in our communication skills. And I dare say if we improve on the humanities, MCDS may be a happier Ministry because it might actually improve the marriage rate of highly educated single women. I do not promise this but I am saying that it may have an impact.

It would also improve on Singaporeans' social skills. Yesterday, in his speech, Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee mentioned the fact that we were first in Mathematics and second in Science. That is true. But we are the only society in the world, when you are driving and you signal because you want to change lanes, the car behind you in the other lane speeds up, it does not let you go into the lane. When you are in Europe, when you signal, they slow down and they let you go into the lane. But in Singapore, this is what we do. We are first in Mathematics and second in Science, but we will not let somebody get into the lane ahead of us.

Have you tried going into the lift, not just HDB blocks, but any office blocks? Somebody is actually there in the lift, but when he sees you coming, he quickly presses the "close door" button. This is an educated society. Our town councils are in despair because we always have a problem of urinating in the lift. Then we have things like the "Hello Kitty" queues where Singaporeans jostle one another to be able to get the free gift. The point I am simply making is this. We may be very good in the Sciences, we may be very good technically, but we still have a certain way to go in the social graces which I think the humanities will help in some measure to enable us to bridge that gap. We are a developing society, granted, but our education system has a lot to do with how we develop.

I come now to the next recommendation on the emphasis on the non-academic curriculum to develop the strength of character, leadership, and team skills. I think that is extremely important. We will be excellent technocrats but without leadership skills, without values, without principles, we are really not anything at all. There is one international law firm when I asked them what was the criterion that they used for their recruitment, they said that one of the things that they looked at was to see whether a potential candidate plays team sports. They actually prefer people who excel at team sports rather than those who excel in individual sports simply because it means that the person is better able to work in a team and that is more valuable to them as an organisation than someone who is a prima donna. I fully support this recommendation.

I will comment briefly now on the workload and stress. I notice that one of the recommendations in the report was to trim the curriculum and I hope that the Ministry will take due note of that. In comparison with the United Kingdom and United States, for example, where the average curriculum time for "A" level-type subjects over two years is 280 hours for the United Kingdom, 240 hours for the United States, it is 330 hours in Singapore. We have commented a lot on stress in the system and MOE's usual response is that this is due to society's distorted definition of success. That is only part of the story. I would ask MOE not to keep trotting this out as the usual answer because it does make parents grit their teeth with frustration. The truth is that it lies in between. Stress is a combination of societal expectation and that is attributable to society. But it is also partly due to the system and that is attributable to MOE.

Parents want their children to succeed. That is a given. They would measure that success by the benchmark that the system sets as indicia of success. So ranking matters, results matter, grades matter. If we want to reduce the stress and if we do not want to do away with the ranking system, then what I would do is to ask MOE to look at the other indicia of success, to signal to society that just because you do not make it to JC or university, it does not mean that you are not a success. That is why I fully support the recommendation for specialised schools for arts and sports, for example. But I would ask MOE to consider some form of signalling to parents that just because their children are in EM3 and land up in Normal (Technical) and ITE, that ITE is not the end. Find some form of signalling to parents that ITE is actually a beginning. Find some form of giving indicia to society whereby they can understand that their children are in this stream rather than in that stream, their children are not failures. It has to do with both the system as well as society.

Having said all that, one area of concern I have, which is the same concern expressed by some of my colleagues in this House, is implementation. Who is going to design the curriculum? If it is the same people with the same ideas, you may have the same old things but just in a new packaging. I sincerely hope that when the new curriculum is designed, it will be what it was intended to be, which is fresh, new, innovative and exciting. And the teachers too matter because teachers obviously cannot change their mindsets overnight. If it is the same teachers, they have got to either be retrained or think of a different way in which to teach. Sir, I hope that the MOE will look at that as well. I am sure that MOE has already thought of these.

These recommendations are for JCs alone, but obviously, you cannot expect a student, who has always been thinking in the box, through nursery, primary, lower secondary, to suddenly to be able to think out of the box once he hits JC. If you have ever gone to the wet market and bought persimmons, they put these persimmons when they are not fully ripe into these boxes with carton grates and the cardboard grates are square. So after the persimmons ripen, they all come out square which is not their actual shape. If we have all these little "square persimmons" going through nursery, primary and lower secondary school, you cannot expect them to suddenly become round in JC. I am sure that MOE will be looking at this but I would urge them to reconsider the whole system.

Finally, I come to how we measure our success. In today's Straits Times, Tan Tarn How in his column "From the Gallery" commented on the "mind-numbing surfeit of middle management minutia" and he said that the question that cries out to be asked is this: how does one know when one has succeeded? How should this recommendation be measured in terms of success? I agree, as he said that you cannot measure it by the usual pure academic yardstick of whether we are first in Mathematics or Sciences. He suggested that one way was using the measure that we lag behind in, the number of Nobel prize winners you can produce and the world famous academics, the number of patents filed. I disagree with that. The number of people who can actually achieve a Nobel prize and the number of people who become world-famous is very few. Our education system is for Singaporeans as a whole. This is what will be the measure of success. We will know these recommendations have succeeded when Singaporeans are no longer afraid of foreign talent, when we are no longer afraid of competition, when we know that we are innovative, creative enough to take on competition and foreign talent anywhere, anytime, any place. We will know we have succeeded when our SMEs are not afraid of our GLCs. We will know we have succeeded when we become internationally known, not just for being good stewards but good CEOs and good leaders. We will know we have succeeded when you signal and the person actually drops back and lets you change your lane.

With this, I support the motion.

Dr Ng Eng Hen: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am heartened that all Members who have spoken thus far have supported the motion and the recommendations of the JC/Upper Secondary Education Review Committee. However, not a few have said that these changes were good and worthy of support and implementation should be extended to the majority.

Yesterday, MP Amy Khor and NMP Dr Jennifer Lee have called these educational changes to be extended to more, so that more can benefit. And, today, Mr Iswaran echoes this call. Intended or not, these points raised by speakers before me may have given the wrong impression that MOE would be neglecting the majority, as these measures largely benefit the top 10% who, in Dr Jennifer Lee's words, "are more than able to fend for themselves''.

Sir, I would like to address this concern. Implicit in their comments that MOE may be neglecting the majority are two assumptions, both which are debatable. One is that parity of attention is achieved through the provision of similar programmes; and, two, better treatment is accorded to the top echelons of our students at the expense of the weaker students. Sir, let me state in umabiguous terms as clearly and succinctly as I can - when it comes to paying heed to the educational opportunities for the masses, especially the weaker students, we have, we do, we will continue to do so. Let me substantiate my assertions.

First, we have. Educational reforms for the masses, as hon. Members Cedric Foo and Wee Siew Kim have pointed out, require enormous will and courage and effects take, in political time-scales, well, forever, which is why beyond the political dimensions, countries which had the temerity and succeeded in educational reforms have done so because of added strategic reasons. Those that have succeded are like Singapore, Ireland and Denmark, island states or countries surrounded by competitors with greater hinterlands and resources. To survive, we had to get the best, not from some but all our people. In contrast, large countries with better resources have had less strategic reasons to enable the masses to `level up' in education. Do not get me wrong. All countries want it but the need to achieve that egalitarian goal is less urgent for these countries. So, like Senior Parliamentary Secretary Koo Tsai Kee recounted, Bush Snr. promised reforms but like so many before and indeed after him, failed to deliver. Politically, it is a card they play because people keep hoping that finally someone will deliver. And even if you do not, because so many have previously failed, people forget. So, when previous MPs declared that we should also pay attention to the majority, I was bemused because it seems, in Singapore, even when you have succeeded magnificently, people also forget.

Sir, for the last 20 years or so, since a similar motion on educational reform standing in the name of the then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee was accepted, we have been doing just that - paying attention to the masses, not those on the top.

Let me elaborate. Prior to those educational reforms, only one of two students completed secondary school education. Even now, the adverse consequences are felt. This is the group of 400,000 or so that NMP Jennifer Lee alluded to. But we broke the back of that problem, and now more than 90% finish secondary education. The problem of masses of uneducated will not be repeated. So, if I were asked the question, who benefited the most from the educational efforts in the last 20 years, I can objectively assert that it was the masses and not the academically brightest. Because, as Members themselves have said that in most countries, even in the USA, the rich and able are able to take care of themselves. Streaming of aptitude and resources occurs spontaneously and to the disadvantage of the less able and less well off. A strong central system is inherently stacked against the elite because it enables the rest to catch up. This is exactly what happened in Singapore.

In 1980, only 5% of each birth cohort went to university. Now, if you were in families of the 5%, why would you want it changed? When others are less able, with less access and untutored, there would be less competition and, yes, as many Members have mentioned it, less stress. Indeed, this occurs in the States even now. By gravitational affinity, students from the more resourced families congregate at specific schools followed by better teachers. They therefore do better. But, in Singapore, we do not send all our best teachers to only RI and RGS. We spread them out. These systematic changes opened up access to all and sundry. As I said, it is school proof - any school will get you there if you have the aptitude.

In 1999, the International Mathematics and Science Competitions conducted a study and chose our students at random. And as we have mentioned, our students scored very highly. In Mathematics, 93% scored above the median. In Science, 80%. Let me try to present this in mathematical terms. Mathematically, it means that if you closed your eyes and plucked any student in any school in Singapore and transported him to an equivalent grade anywhere else in the world, even if the student was 91st out of 100 positions, he or she would be above average in that system. Is it any wonder that parents come back who have brought these students overseas and said how their children `blossomed' when they went overseas?

So, contrary to what was implied, we have enabled the bottom 90% to be the best that they can be. We added to the stress because now one in every four students comes within striking distance of a local university education. And because we have grounded them so well in fundamentals, about 40 to 50% of each cohort get a local or overseas university degree finally. 40% get a diploma and another 25% ITE certification, and this latter group with above 80% employability, even in this recession.

"Who is looking into the educational needs of the bottom 90%?", NMP Jennifer Lee asked yesterday. The Government has for the last 20 years, thank you.

Second, we do. Having raised the water level across our nation, are we now poised to spend inappropriate resources only on the more able - cries of elitism? Not so. Minister Teo, because of these changes, wanted to convince ourselves at MOE that we are expending appropriate resources to those with lesser academic aptitude. He asked for comparable figures of spending between JC and ITE students, ie, different ends of the spectrum in terms of academic ability of similar ages. We did not quite know what the results would be, but the results are illuminating and indeed gratifying. Let me share them with you.

First, developmental cost. Both ITE and JC institutions cater to similar sized intakes, about 1,500 students. We spend $37 million to build one ITE institution and $36.8 million to build one JC. MPs know because they have seen it with their own eyes that we do not shortchange weaker students, when it comes to facilities! In fact, equipment donated by industry, such as in the case of Balestier ITE, can come up to $10 million more.

Ah, but you say, JC students get better and therefore more expensive teaching. Well, let us look at the figures. The recurrent operating cost for JC is $11 million and $7,879 per student per year. For ITE, $10.5 million and $8,030 per student per year. The ITE student is worth 102% compared to the JC student in terms of spending. And for both JC and ITE students, Government charges for their education a `princely' sum of $25 a month. Let me say that MOE does not a priori provide educational programmes to different aptitudes based on equivalent spending. In other words, we do not start by saying that this is the sum, we will spend the same amount for all groups. That would be unenlightened. Our guiding principle has and will be, enable each student according to his aptitude to realise his potential. And for an ITE student to have 80% employability at a starting salary of $1,300 is something we can be proud of.

Finally, we will continue to do so. Our educational system, though streamed and segmented by aptitude and pedagogy, is nonetheless interconnected. In other words, changes at any point will have an impact throughout the system. NMP Jennifer Lee asked another intelligent question - and Mr Iswaran also repeated it - if changes are to be effected, why did we choose to start after the student has had about 6-8 years in our current system? Our response is a practical one. It is easier to do and that is why we chose to work at the `product'. The University Sector Review is also concurrently underway and the recommendations will be presented in January. The recommendations will reinforce and be aligned to the objectives of this present preview. And I believe to start at the end is a smart thing to do. If we chose to start at the primary one level, we would have to systematically train and enable all 45,000 of students and their teachers to effect these changes.

I have said educational reforms take quite long to effect, but some of us would wish to see changes in our children's lifetime! I also think it will work because Singaporeans, by their very nature, respond to clear signals. Take project work in schools, for example. Even though it is not yet implemented as a criterion for university admission, already project work has been introduced at the primary school level, as every parent who has to spend nights preparing his child's project work will testify. Similarly, the JC/Upper Secondary recommendations, while physically affecting only 10% initially, will have a leavening effect on the entire system. For example, once the specialised sports school is well established, I foresee students who excel in sports, but are continuing in the mainstream schools, participate in and upgrade through events in the sports school. Similarly, the Arts school, the Science and Mathematics schools will have spillover effects. Indeed, the training of teachers to facilitate these programmes that we have talked about will also have an uplifting effect. Singapore is small and teachers meet regularly and interact. They will discuss new methods and challenge outdated ideas. A change in the overall educational milieu will result and will make it easier to effect changes in the mainstream schools.

I do, however, agree with Members who feel that these changes may not reduce the workload. Regardless of the system and beyond educational goals, students will still want to go that extra mile, put in that extra hour of mugging to be one up on his fellow students, to enter into a top university. How and should we ameliorate this drive? Realistically, we can only aim to influence not how much but what they spend their time on. That is why the JC review calls for a contrasting subject to achieve breadth and for co-curricular activities to be considered in university admissions. A recommendation which the hon. Member John Chen, I am sure, would fully support, as it would have enabled his `borderline example of a badminton player' who excelled in sports to enter university.

Sir, let me reiterate that these changes do not in any way signal that we are going to neglect the majority and focus only on those who are more able. We continue to be guided by the vision of to each his ability, so that we can get from each his best.

Sir, I support the motion.

Assoc. Prof. Low Seow Chay (Chua Chu Kang): (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, the main recommendations made by theWhite Paper are:

(i) Introducing broad-based education and asking students to study both science and humanities subjects.

(ii) Emphasising on thinking skills and not on contents.

(iii) Enhancing students' communication skill and to

be more creative.

The main arguments in support of the recommendations

are:

(i) To remedy the problem of a lack of communication skill among our students.

(ii) To prepare the students with necessary qualities needed by the new era of knowledge-intensive economy; namely, independent thinking, broad-based knowledge and creativity.

I suppose if we accept the said two main arguments, I would say that this White Paper provides a very comprehensive and very thorough solution for our future needs. It also takes care of the likely queries and doubts resulting from the newly proposed JC structure. It could be said to be an almost perfect White Paper for the JC educational reform.

However, after having carefully read the White Paper, I feel that there are many points which are debatable. Firstly, in order to satisfy the needs of the knowledge-based economy, do we really need to have a very broad-based education? If it is going to be broad-based, that means there will be no avenue for specialisation. Except those subjects in the H3 level, most of the subjects in H2 and H1 levels will have lower standard after the recommended reform. The results of the reformation will be contrary to the requirements of the knowledge-based economy which requires people of specialised and in-depth knowledge in specific fields. This is because in the knowledge-based economy, we must have some unique or specialised knowledge which other people do not have, so that other people would be prepared to pay a premium for the access to the knowledge or in order to benefit from the knowledge. So who are the people who can claim to possess this specialised knowledge? I think they must be the specialists. They are certainly the jack of all trades, and master of none.

Mr Philip Yeo, Chairman of A*Star, made some highly controversial remarks recently. His remarks coincide somewhat with the point I am trying to raise here. He said that in the field of bio-medical research, a basic science degree qualifies a person only to wash test tubes, a Master's makes him an advanced washer. A PhD makes him an ordinary worker. So Philip Yeo's point really hits the nail on the head, because if we want to go into this economy where it is knowledge intensive, we have to be specialists rather than generalists. The Provost of NUS, Prof. Chong, was reported as saying that the NUS would run their own JC in mathematics and sciences to train the students with the right aptitude to meet specific NUS requirements. He meant students with the depth in mathematics and science knowledge and not the breadth. So this recommendation to broaden the scope of curriculum would definitely reduce the standard of the students. Even if only 10% of the students read their subjects at H3 level, the standard of the other subjects at H2 level would definitely be lower than before. The trend nowadays seems to be that, not only in the junior colleges, even in the university, we are going for this broad-based education. I doubt this is really beneficial to our students, and wonder whether it will satisfy the needs of our knowledge-intensive economy in the future.

Secondly, the promotion of thinking skills in our curriculum. I come from the science stream. By learning the science subjects, it is already a good training for our logic analytical skills. In the university, those who are stronger in their studies will have no problem in their thinking skills. But for those who are weaker, the thinking skill is actually very, very low. But why is it that there is such a phenomenon? I believe this has perhaps something to do with our system of assessment in our education system. For the weaker students, they are not so concerned with the process of learning but concerned only with examination results. So long as they can pass the examination, it is not their concern whether they have succeeded in enhancing their power of analysis, their power of thinking and power of problem solving. To them, all these are not important.

On one occasion I asked a physics lecturer in a junior college why is it that the junior college students are weak in their power of analysis and problem solving. His answer came as a great surprise to me. He said, "Oh, of course, it should be that, because in the junior college it is the teachers who do the analysis and problem solving, not the students." In my view, the recommendation of enhancing the student's thinking skill would only be achievable if we do have a major reform to our assessment methodology. We must place attention to the process of learning and not purely based on the assessment on the paper and pen examination. This is particularly important if we wish to enhance the thinking skill of the weaker students.

Thirdly, the communication skills of our students. Generally speaking, if we want to compare the level of English of our students with English in the UK and US, I think we cannot compare with them because English is their mother tongue and they have a much better learning environment for good English communication skill than that in Singapore. In our case, we have to learn two languages and the students generally use Singlish in their casual conversation. On other occasions when they are discussing more serious matters, like their homework, they use their mother tongue. Among the students in our universities, some come from China. In order to accommodate them and to show that they are not a "banana race" (yellow outside, white inside), many of our students use Mandarin as their means of communication. Although it is recommended in the report that we want to improve the standard of English communication of our students, I think we have to endeavour to create an environment conducive to the students to communicate in English. Apart from our bilingual principle that cannot be changed, we have at least to create an environment in the campus whereby English would be the main language of communication.

I also feel that the science students are weaker in expression than the arts students because when they are learning the science subjects like mathematics, physics and chemistry, not much language skills are needed. They just need to know the equations and symbols.

Under such circumstances, the power of expression does not improve with their subjects. Perhaps the writing skill is stagnated before the JC level. In JC, the only subject that involves writing is the General Paper for the pure science students. As far as I know, the students write less than one essay a month. So how could the science students in the JC possess good communication skills? Although it is recommended in this report that the communication skills of the students be improved, the only subject reported to have some links in achieving this objective is the Project Work and not very much elsewhere. I hope the new amended curriculum would create more opportunities for our science students to be trained in this skill. They should be given more chances to write and to express.

Fourthly, improvement of creative thinking and writing skills. In the project work, generally, a lot of technicality would be involved. Now, in JC 1 and JC 2, if all the students spend two years doing these projects, this would mean that, at any one time, there would be about 24,000 projects being carried out simultaneously, and we can expect a lot of duplications. I would like to know whether or not we have any means to prevent the students from copying from one another or duplicating the work of others. Some years later, the colleges will have received more than 10,000 reports on the project works conducted by the students, and they are probably quite easily accessible to the other students. The good students would use them as reference, and the weaker students would just copy from them. If this becomes a trend, then this project work will become like a joke, because everyone would be plagiarising to get admission to the university. Besides, if every one of the students has to do project work, a lot of space and facilities in the school would be needed. Do our JCs have enough facilities to satisfy the needs of the students? If there is not, then the chances are more students will go for the software-type of projects rather than the practical ones which involve more hardware. We will end up with a lot of students doing theoretical work rather than practical work.

So, we can see that this recommendation for project work will have a lot of problems, and it is quite different from the traditional subjects. If we cannot resolve this problem on the project work, it will be an obstacle for us to attain the target that we have set out to achieve. No doubt, our existing JC system is not a perfect system. There are inherent shortcomings and these shortcomings are reflected on the weaker students, in other words, those who are unable to communicate, unable to analyse, unable to have creative thinking. Under this new system, although there are a lot of recommendations, which are structural in nature, we must also look squarely at the existing weaknesses in our existing system. If these weaknesses cannot be resolved first, it would be difficult for the new system to attain the objectives set out in the White Paper.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the motion.

Mrs Fang Ai Lian (Nominated Member): Mr Speaker, Sir, I too would like to fully support the motion to adopt the recommendations of the Review Committee with regard to Junior College and Upper Secondary Education. Indeed the Report is a very excellent blueprint to take the JC and the Upper Secondary Education into the future.

To me, the key is summarised in paragraph 26 of the report, which states that "The focus of education must shift from efficiency to diversity, from knowing to thinking, and from fitting people to specific jobs to equipping them for lifelong learning and creating their own opportunities."

In fact this is a very powerful statement with intent to empower people. It also sums up where we have been and where we want to be. In the past, our strategy has been to focus on efficiency, on knowledge and on fitting people into specific jobs. Every strategy, indeed in business, cannot be perfect, but the bottom line counts. And, the bottom line is that it has produced the results we have today. It has served us well as a small and fast growing nation and has brought us clearly to where we are today. And I think all Members have also agreed that in going forward, we have got to change our educational focus because the world we live in is vastly different. We now have a global economy. Information explodes all around us, and changes the world and our chosen careers. It is just inevitable and we just have got to continue with life-long learning in order to stay relevant. And businesses too are focusing on people who are creative, people with unique ideas, problem solvers who are able to communicate the ideas as well as focusing on people, on their well-being. And competition is clearly demanding that all of us have got to enhance our productivity in more ways than one to produce goods and services better, quicker and cheaper.

And most of the solutions can be shaped by education because education is a powerful tool to reshape minds, reshape attitudes and reshape behaviours. So it is timely that we relook and re-challenge our educational system to take us forward.

In the past, just like any investment, we look for the best yields. Happily, now, we can afford a lot more of the recommendations put forward by the Review Committee so that we can embark on broad-based education, we can do more for our students so that they can spend more time on non-academic projects, project work, as has been said, as well as on character building.

As a professional accountant and one trained with specialist skills, I am a firm believer in broad-based education, general-based education, at all levels. Most of my colleagues trained in Europe, in US and UK are trained in that way. They first of all have to obtain a General Degree first and we would prefer them to have a discipline, other than accounting. We would prefer them to have a degree in philosophy, in engineering, before they embark on their professional qualifications. This has made much better multi-faceted professionals, not only effective in their own individual's sphere of profession, but also well-equipped in business as well as social settings. I think this should apply to all professionals, as well as technicians, that create people as well. Just as we have moved away from the idea that accountants should be locked up in backrooms, buried in ledgers, we should also move away from the idea that technicians should hide behind machines and work quietly with their hands. All of us got to be equipped with multi-faceted skills so that we can operate more effectively as leaders and managers in the global economy and global marketplace.

As regards the concerns on JC and upper secondary education, my little concern has been answered by the Minister of State, and what further changes would be brought about by changes introduced at one level, the before and the after. Before, being at the primary and lower education, lower secondary education level to set the scene for the broad-based education to be experienced at the upper secondary education level, and the after, at the tertiary education so that students who had been brought up in a different and more challenging way will still continue to receive the same level of mental stimulation and challenges under the new system. I think this is nitty-gritty stuff that MOE would take care of. What I foresee is an education system which will get invariably more and more complex and I think it cannot be helped.

Much has already been said about the educational reforms, about execution and about training teachers. So I would not dwell on them. I would like to add further comments on reforms beyond the educational reforms. When I first read the Report, I said, "Wow, as a parent, this is going to cause more stress for parents and students alike." I think probably more so for parents. As it is, our existing streaming system is causing much stress. So as we open new channels, a superior education for our best and our brightest, parents, I feel, would invariably get more pressured to ensure that the students make it to this category. They will get a crack at Primary 6 to make it to one of these Integrated Programmes, if not at Secondary 2, and for the late bright bloomers at Secondary 4.

The Report did acknowledge that such changes would bring about some level of elitism. But it was felt that it was inevitable. And I must say I agree. I agree with streaming, I agree with segmentation, I agree with setting up new channels for our best and our brightest because these are the very people who will pull the rest of society forward.

Sir, I am not against elitism because it is a fact of life. It is required given the constraints as a small country. But it is important to recognise the stress, and we ought to recognise and manage the resultant stress. I also agree that much of the stress is self-imposed - by society and by parents. All parents want the very best for their students to excel in everything from academic to arts, to music, everything is just not realistic, but yet we push ourselves.

I read the New York Times article recently and it said the Singapore problem is experienced elsewhere and it emphasised that children must also lead a balanced life. To the Americans, they said they also need time to veg out. In our lingo, just switch off.

So it is heart warming that the Report has sent out a very important signal where they recommended that the hours be reduced for each subject. Some Members have argued that they should be reduced even further. But what is important is that they have sent out a very important signal that the hours ought to be reduced and more hours be spent doing other things.

Sir, I think parents ought to take cue to lessen the pressure on their children. But educational reforms can only do so much. At the end of the day, society, as a whole, must also change its mindset and seek a more balanced life. Because we can be a high achieving nation, but if we are completely stressed out, we become ineffective and it becomes a case of diminishing returns. It is also good that the Report therefore is also recommending that we alleviate the pressure on our students by allowing them to seek and to fulfil their own interest and their own inclination. Because when they pursue their interest, they excel through enjoyment. Frequently, students are channelled into programmes where they have no aptitude or motivation for. And this is because of peer pressure or family expectations. And it is a tragic waste of resources both on the point of view of the individual as well as for society.

Yet, another side effect of this proposal, elitism, is of course labelling. We already have so many labels in the marketplace - Normal, Express, scholars, non-scholars and we have got elites versus non-elites. Again, I like to emphasise that I am not against elitism. But it is important to recognise it and the downside that it would produce a greater divide on society and will produce more of the so-called quitters in society.

But I would also like to add that the elites themselves would also form a pool of potential quitters. As we raise the bar for our best and brightest, as we create more savvy, more creative people, more thinkers, more leaders, they would also tend to be brash, opinionated and self-centred. So it is also important as we teach them humility, we also have to alter our social, as well as political framework, in order to engage and accommodate a new breed of Singaporeans who might otherwise pack up and go, if they are not satisfied. So we need more social reform.

Over the decades, we have also evolved as a nation of small families, one or two siblings or no siblings at all, both parents working, the womenfolk getting better educated, they will pursue their aspirations and you will have more of family members working in the future. What we get is latchkey kids, we get kids subject to maid culture, we get lonely kids, and we also get ambitious and guilt ridden parents.

So more and more the traditional discipline and support system of the family will get eroded and we have got to face the consequences of this reality squarely. So what I would like to suggest, and I wonder whether it would be possible, is whether it would be reasonable for some of these family responsibilities to be undertaken by the State. Whether we could have, on a much bigger scale, across national level, after-school care for our children so that they can be minded, so that the value system and life skills can be better developed, better honed. Because when our children get better cared, they become better adjusted individuals and they will do better, not only in terms of academic, but in terms of pursuit of other interests, in terms of music and arts, it will create teamwork, it will create enjoyment.

Talking about music and arts, again, it is great that the Report is recommending academies for music, the arts, the drama, and so on. But it can only flourish if our society places value on such areas.

Sportsmen cannot just wait to win gold medals at ASEAN, the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games before they get rewarded. Even just being good, and not world-class, they must earn a living. So we have to create real economic opportunities for these people.

I also wonder whether our new commitment can also be endorsed to the highest level, in terms of State scholarships, whether the President's scholarships can be offered for the music, the arts, the drama and film-making. It is all very well that we develop our best and our talented in particular fields. At the end of the day, I agree that one of the primary goals of education must be to meet the needs of our economy and to provide jobs and gainful employment for our young when they leave school.

The Minister of State has very positively confirmed that the Ministry of Education has done and will always do more for the greater masses, and this is important. Because the true test of the success of our schools must be the preparation and motivation of the greater majority. And it will be wonderful if the greater majority, especially the less academically inclined, the late bloomers, can be motivated to excel and to contribute effectively to our society.

More importantly, and this is noted in the Report, education for all must be a lifelong process, a process which extends from infancy to the end of one's life. So we must create a learning society which will help us to progress and prosper in a world where creativity and knowledge clearly rule. So the primary goals of education must be, firstly, to provide our young preparation for lifelong learning; secondly, to launch them into careers where their aptitude, ambition and the skills match; and thirdly, to continuously develop their potential throughout their adult years.

This is not an easy subject. And indeed, it must extend beyond the educational reforms in order to draw the true potential of the next generation. We have got to look at the total picture - the family, the social and the political framework. We have got an enormous task at hand. I do not envy the Ministry of Education. But by just recognising the nature of the task, I think we have taken major steps towards tackling it. There can never be a perfect and all-encompassing solution. We cannot cure all the problems at the same time, and we must not postpone improvements today, taking one step at a time.

On that note, Sir, I commend the Report. I support the motion.

Mr Speaker: Order. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 3.20 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 3.01 pm until 3.20 pm. Sitting resumed at 3.20 pm