Mr Thomas Chua, President, Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan,
Members of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan,
Fellow educators,
1. Good evening to all of you, and Happy Teacher's Day in advance.
2. I just came from the Istana, where we conferred the President's Award for Teachers (PAT) and celebrated the achievements of our teachers. And now I am joining you to celebrate your achievements and commitment as well.
3. Tonight I only intend to make three points as I usually do. This is the first story that I am going to tell tonight. Recently, I met some of my counterparts from overseas virtually, and we were discussing the challenges that we faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them shared with me that they were very worried about a lost generation. Whether the children in their countries, some of whom had not been to school for the past two years, will be able to catch up. And if so, how? They turned to me and asked, "So, what about Singapore? Will you have a lost generation? Have your students been able to go to school over the past two years?"
4. I reflected upon it, and said, "Well, actually we did have our challenges, but by and large, we were able to be spared from the worst impacts of COVID-19. By and large, our students were able to continue learning." Many of them were very surprised, and one of them asked me, "What is the secret behind this?" Some of them thought that it was because Singapore was a rich country, and we had sufficient resources to support our students: laptops for home-based learning (HBL), with the necessary broadband Wi-Fi, dongles, and so forth. But actually, the fact that we are not going to have a lost generation is not because we have the means and the resources. The reason that we are confident that we are not going to have a lost generation for two years is because we have teachers like you. Teachers who, through the crisis, were committed to keep on teaching, to keep on helping our students to learn, even at the height of the crisis.
5. When we did not have all the teaching materials, teachers like you swung into action, picked up new learning skills, created new learning modules for our students. Teachers like you, who returned to school, even when the schools were on HBL, so that we could continue to help our high-needs students to learn, so that they can continue to have a positive and constructive environment to acquire knowledge. The secret sauce is people like you. So, thank you very much to all of you for doing this for our students.
6. The second story that I would like to share tonight is this: just a few days ago, MOE opened our new Heritage Centre at Balestier. As I walked through the Heritage Centre, I could not help but notice three things that touched me personally, and I think will touch all of us as we walk through the galleries. The first thing was that in the early years we had far fewer resources.
7. Many of our early schools were started not because we had a good Government, or strong Government. Many of the early schools were started by businessmen who stepped forward to contribute, by people from all walks of life, chipping in to build the schools even when the Government did not have the resources. Groups like the Hokkien Huay Kuan and its predecessors, contributed so much in order for us to have many schools with such a long history today. That was my first observation. So thank you to Hokkien Huay Kuan and the many other community organisations that stepped forward to educate our children even before MOE was formed after independence.
8. The second thing is that in those early years before independence, and those early years after Independence, we were not that rich a country. Our people were not that well off. But what has not changed over all these years is that no matter how rich or poor we were, we were committed to make sure that our next generation should get the education that they deserve so that they all can have a better life. So, even through the toughest of times before independence, and after independence, we have never stinged on education.
9. Today, as per the past many years, education continues to command one of the biggest budgets in our country. And education continues to attract one of the largest amounts of philanthropic funds in our country. Without this commitment, we would not be here. Without this commitment, we would not have generations and generations of Singaporeans who are able to say that as long as you are born in Singapore, you will be able to realise your potential regardless of your background. And this is what we are committed to do for many more generations to come, regardless of how poor or how rich we are. Our commitment to the future generations will never change just as our forefathers have taught us.
10. As we walk through the Heritage Centre, we also see how our education system has evolved. In the early years, education was rather rudimentary. We focussed on literacy and numeracy, and we pretty much only had one mainstream school system catering to the mainstream needs. Today, with much more resources, we are able to cater to many more diverse learning needs of our special education (SPED) Students. We have many more SPED schools, we have schools for the sciences, for the arts, for sports and we want each of our schools to have their own distinctive features in their applied learning programme. And we will continue to invest in the diversity of the schools because we believe that to bring out the potential of each and every child, we cannot have a one-size-fits-all model.
11. In 2024, we will be rolling out the Full Subject-Based Banding (SBB) in full force. We have no illusion that Full SBB will require more resources from the system. But this is our commitment to this generation and the next: as long as we can find the resources, we will keep investing in our people so that everyone in Singapore can say that they will realise their potential regardless of their starting point.
12. My last point for tonight, my third story is this: we have always said: "十年树木，百年树人". And more recently, I have said the benchmark of our success for education system is not how well our students do in their exams for the first 15 years of their life. The benchmark of success for education is how well our students continue to learn and grow in the next 50 years of their life, beyond the education system. That message of commitment to our students, I hope, is loud and clear.
13. But tonight, I want to add another dimension to this: when we say that we want to keep investing in our people, I do not just mean our students. My personal belief is that we also want to keep investing in our teachers, and that is you. I have said this before when I visited all of you in your various schools. As long as I see the sparkle in the eyes of our teachers, I need not fear for our students. So long as our teachers feel that they are growing every day in their job, learning new things, I need not worry for our children. Because you will become the living role models of how our students need to embrace lifelong learning. So, when we say "十年树木，百年树人", we do not just mean it for our students. We also mean it for our teachers, and it is my job and the job of my MOE team to make sure that we take care of all our educators and enable you to keep growing.
14. This is why in MOE, we will make a commitment to keep helping our educators grow, and enable you to have a meaningful and fulfilling career as you do your best to take care of our next generation.
15. On that note, may I wish all of you a Happy Teachers' Day. I would like to thank the Hokkien Huay Kuan once again for honouring all the teachers and educators present tonight, and many more who are not with us, with the support that you have given to us in the education system.
16. And thank you to all of you for your service to our country.