Minister Desmond Lee
Prof Leo Tan
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. A very good morning to all of you. Let me thank all of you for inviting me and the Ministry of Education (MOE) team to join you today at the opening of the 11th edition of the Festival of Biodiversity.
2. Today, I intend to share two sets of issues with you. First, I would like to talk about MOE's efforts to collaborate with the community to develop our next generation. Second, I would like to personally affirm the work that all of you are doing for our community.
3. Let me start with the first set of issues. The world of tomorrow is shaped by our youths of today – their passion, participation and potential make them constructive agents of change in developing a green, livable and sustainable Singapore. As we say in MOE, today we plant the seeds in our young. Tomorrow, our young will grow the seeds of the future.
4. This is why we are committed to involving all our young Singaporeans in embedding sustainability as our mainstream culture and part of our daily lives; and coming up with transformative solutions that will take our sustainability efforts much further.
5. A year ago, MOE introduced the Eco Stewardship Programme as part of the Singapore Green Plan 2030.
6. We set out four key thrusts to inculcate informed and responsible sustainability habits in our students for life: Curriculum, Campus, Culture and Community – or what we call the "4Cs".
7. We are grateful for the community partnership with the National Parks Board (NParks) in nurturing greater awareness of sustainability issues and providing avenues for them to be involved in greening and conservation efforts through their various programmes and initiatives.
8. Such partnerships play a critical role in creating opportunities for our students to connect with nature in different ways.
9. For instance, events like the Festival of Biodiversity educate our students about local biodiversity in a fun and engaging manner and highlight our role in protecting our planet's natural heritage.
- We are heartened to see that more schools and students have been participating in the Festival over the years.
- For example, there has been more than a four-fold increase in the number of schools that participate in tree-planting activities under the Green Wave initiative, from 50 schools in 2015 to around 260 today.
- Additionally, an average of more than 20,000 preschool students have also joined NParks' Playtime series since it began in 2015, to learn about Nature Parks and Nature Reserves in Singapore.
10. Beyond the Festival, NParks also works closely with our schools to reach out to various groups of young Singaporeans, building awareness on the importance of conservation.
- Our pre-school to secondary students have benefited from the suite of educational programmes and initiatives organised by NParks, which introduce Singapore's flora and fauna through our textbooks, classroom lessons, and experiential activities beyond the classroom, such as learning journeys, school plays and work attachments. Thank you very much to all the NParks colleagues for partnering MOE in this.
- I also observed in my visits to schools, that these programmes and initiatives help our students gain new insights about our local natural heritage, spurring them on to play their part in protecting local biodiversity.
11. One of NPark's key efforts is the Every Child A Seed programme. First launched in 2013, it aims to enhance students' appreciation of nature through growing their own plants.
- Over the past ten years, over 400,000 students from primary schools and special education schools have grown their own plants through this programme.
- Such hands-on activities complement the Primary Science syllabus and aim to reinforce the values of patience, perseverance, care and responsibility – values that are important in building our City in Nature.
12. To commemorate its 10th anniversary, I am happy to share that NParks will be launching a special edition of the Every Child a Seed programme. This will provide all students in our 185 primary schools with even more seed packets, as well as supplementary learning materials on plant science, to nurture in our students a deeper love for gardening and nature.
13. We hope that all our students – regardless of their age or ability – will continue to play a part in shaping our City in Nature.
14. Let us also take this opportunity to acknowledge the educational institutions, educators, and students who have contributed significantly to local biodiversity conservation efforts.
- To our educators, thank you for incorporating the understanding and appreciation of nature into your teaching and learning, and nurturing future leaders in biodiversity conservation.
- NParks launched the Community in Nature (CIN) Schools Award in 2020 to recognise your commitment to educating students about conservation.
15. Today, we celebrate your efforts and achievements.
- Each of the nominees for the CIN awards have found innovative ways to incorporate nature into the school curriculum.
- For instance, at Westwood Primary School, students conduct biodiversity surveys within their school grounds to monitor populations of butterflies and birds and post updates on the total number of species encountered on their biodiversity website.
- Meanwhile, Kranji Secondary School has hosted various guest speakers and have reached nearly 700 teacher and student participants from more than 30 secondary schools and organisations through their outreach efforts over the past two years.
16. I would like to end my speech by affirming the very important work that our community does for our country. The world is urbanizing rapidly today. An increasing number of the world's population will live in urban cities. In conventional thinking, we tend to divide the city from nature; the urban from the rural. This dichotomy has been and perhaps still is, how many people think about spaces.
17. In Singapore, we have distinguished ourselves, and we want to continue to distinguish ourselves by breaking down this artificial divide. We have embraced the concept of sustainability since our founding in 1965. We knew then, and we know now, that we only have this little island of 700 square kilometres. And as the Chinese saying goes, "麻雀虽小，五脏俱全". Just like a sparrow, we must have all the vital parts within this little ecosystem. But therein lies our challenge and our opportunity. Our challenge is having all these essential functions in a small city state, and yet at the same time, preserve the biodiversity that we so treasure; and to merge the artificial divide between urban and rural. We don't have the luxury to demarcate the urban from the rural. And more importantly, we don't want to do that. And this is why our efforts, including the good work by NParks, the Ministry of National Development and our community over all these years, have allowed us to reach this stage today, where we can be a living testimony of how a forward-looking, progressive community can live in harmony with nature, and live with nature all around us without that artificial divide.
18. But more remains to be done, and we have plans to do even better. Our goal and aspiration is to be a leading city in the world where high-density urban living co-exist with the biodiversity that we treasure. Most importantly, we want to have a quality of life where enjoying the efficiencies and convenience of urban living, need not be at the expense of preservation of nature. Thank you for all the great work that you have done, because your work allows Singapore to be that shiny green dot in the world of urban cities, where we embody how these competing demands can be reconciled in a small city state.
19. Thank you also to the MND team for partnering MOE, and we will do what we can to continue to plant the seeds in our young for them to grow the seeds of the future for us. Thank you very much.