Vocational and Technical Education Development in the Post-pandemic Era needs to focus on 3Cs: Continual Learning, Connections and Collaboration, and Creation of New Solutions for Tomorrow's Challenges
Your Excellencies;
Distinguished Guests;
Introduction
1. Good evening. Thank you for inviting me to speak today.
2. The theme of today's conference: Vocational and Technical Education Development in the Post-pandemic Era – New Changes, New Ways and New Skills, is indeed an apt one for our generation.
3. We will experience three major forces that will shape the long-term vision of education:
- First, the half-life of technology is shrinking, and skills and knowledge are becoming obsolete faster than ever before.
- Second, a more connected world creates more opportunities for all, but also greater inequality of opportunities and outcomes.
- Third, as we become more interdependent, forces of globalisation will require us to build better coordination and collaboration within the region.
4. Our vocational institutions need to evolve, not just to respond and react; but to anticipate, adapt and advance. We will need to innovate through these three 'C's:
- First, Continual Learning. 终生学习, 学以致用, where our students are learning for life and applying these lessons in life.
- Second, Connections and Collaboration. 通力合作， 相辅相成 where we collaborate to complement one another's strengths.
- Third, Creation of new solutions for tomorrow's challenges. 勇于创新， 开拓未来: to innovate so as to create solutions for our future.
5. Let me elaborate.
Continual Learning – Learning for Life; Learning Through Life (终生学习, 学以致用)
6. The traditional way of preparing a course, training the trainers and finally graduating the students, which typically takes a few years, will need to change as skills taught may become obsolete not long after students graduate.
7. No amount of prior learning in school will be adequate. Therefore, we need to shift our mindsets from frontloading education to Learning for Life; learning for the rest of our lives and learning throughout life.
8. This must start with our trainers. We must equip our trainers with the right industry-relevant skillset so that they can in turn equip the learners to meet the demands of a fast-evolving market. Trainers must also have the right teaching tools to enhance the learning experience for our students. But most importantly, our trainers must have the right mindset for lifelong learning and be willing to upgrade and retrain themselves to acquire the right skillsets.
9. Next, we need to overcome the asymmetry of information and awaken the interests of the working adults in reskilling and upskilling. In Singapore, we have gone some way with the SkillsFuture Movement but more remains to be done. Three key areas that we need are to help our companies articulate the demand for future skills, aggregate these into sectoral demand for new skills, and lastly to activate the supply of such future skills to meet these needs. Only then can we ensure individuals are interested in learning for life and learning through life.
10. But no party can do this alone. Our institutions need to partner with government agencies, industry associations and companies to identify skills in demand and co-create, and even co-teach short and stackable courses for working adults.
11. This brings me to my next point.
Connections and Collaboration (通力合作， 相辅相成)
12. We must be connectors to collaborate.
- In an inter-connected world that is becoming more fast-paced, with greater inequality of opportunities and outcomes, we will need a strong network of connections to keep us current and together.
- For example, SEAMEO and ASEAN play important roles in facilitating and encouraging collaborations and exchanges within the region and beyond, through regional programmes and the formation of the ASEAN TVET Council.
13. Our institutions in Singapore also continue to connect and reconnect with the world through their overseas exchange and internship programmes. For example, the Institute of Technical Education has an agreement with Shenzhen STS Microelectronics Co. Ltd, allowing students to participate in virtual internships.
14. The example also shows the importance of the connection between academia and industry.
- As students go through our vocational institutions, they must also have access to quality internships, without being constrained by time and subject of study.
- We can also bring our institutions into the workplace and allow students to learn by working with real-life tools to solve real-life industry problems.
15.. This brings us to our final 'C'.
Creation of New Solutions for Tomorrow's Challenges (勇于创新， 开拓未来)
16. Education cannot be about solving today's problems with yesterday's or today's solutions only.
17. Instead, education needs to draw out and even create knowledge from all institutions and industries together, not just locally but also internationally, to pre-empt and solve tomorrow's challenges with new ideas and new approaches.
- Imagine a system where frontier industries and trade associations have "corporate labs" or other active collaborations with our vocational institutions. In these collaborations, industry and institution co-create the curricula of tomorrow, tackle the global challenges of tomorrow, and produce new products and services for tomorrow's markets.
- In Singapore, we set up Centres of Innovation and technology centres in our polytechnics, for our SMEs and vocational institutions to co-develop new ideas and solutions. We invite our Chinese and international participants to visit our Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and share best practices with one another.
- That will help make our industry, students and workforce more future ready.
Conclusion
18. Constant innovation to our education system is essential. As a nation, we can be more resilient learners and innovators, who make connections and collaborate with people of different cultures and backgrounds, to improve lives.
19. We look forward to learning from your sharing and best practices in this conference. Thank you.