A very good afternoon to all of you.
Introduction
1. It is great to see all of you back here. I hope that you managed to get some rest over the last few weeks.
2. For many of us, school will start again next week. But for all of you, school has already started. Without your hard work behind the scenes with your team, school would not be able to start next week.
3. First and foremost, I would like to thank all of you – not just for starting school early, but more importantly, for keeping our schools open over the past three years, despite the tough challenges of COVID-19. Without you and your team, our students in Singapore would probably have lost months, if not years of their education like many around the world. Thank you all for the tremendous effort.
Recognising Retiring Leaders in Education
4. Today we are also gathered here to express our appreciation to 15 retiring leaders in education – let me read out their names. In no particular order:
- Ms Lim Bee Hiong Bernadette Jane, Mr Chia Chor Yann, Mdm Lee Eet Fong, Mr Boo Hian Kok, Mrs Sita Singh;
- Mr Robin Ong, Mr Teoh Teik Hoe, Ms Kok Lee Kwang, Mrs Mabel Leong, Mrs Tan Wan Yu;
- Mdm Tay Siok Hwa, Mrs Dolly Ong, Mr Lo Chee Lin, Mrs Stella Tan, and Mr Ang Pow Chew.
5. Let us put our hands together to show them our appreciation. I have one important message to all our principals who are retiring: even as you retire officially and take a well-deserved break, I hope that you will never retire from life or from the education fraternity. You will always be part of our education fraternity and we look forward to maintaining our ties with you, and to your continued support.
6. Even when you are no longer in service with us, if you see a better way of doing things, please let us know and guide us along. Thank you for your many years of service.
7. I thank you not just as the Minister for Education, but also on behalf of the generations of students whose lives you have touched. The seeds that you have sown will continue to blossom, flower, and grow more seeds. That is the power and impact of what you have achieved over the course of your career in the education service – from the very day that you became a teacher to the day that you retire as principals. It matters not what position you are in; it matters more the lives you have touched. I am confident that you have made a difference to many lives, and these students will go on to become the pillars of our society, and in turn transform even more lives to come.
8. Today I will touch on two examples, but I am sure each of you has many stories to share, and I hope you will document them for the benefit of our future generation.
9. Mr Ang Pow Chew is the Principal of National Junior College (NJC).
- He has served 37 years in the education service with a strong sense of personal belief.
- Before being called to serve in NJC, Pow Chew was the Principal of Victoria School, and Deputy Director in MOE's Educational Technology Division and Curriculum Planning and Development Division (CPDD).
- At CPDD, he was involved in the development and review of English Language and Literature curriculum, and oversaw its implementation in schools.
- When Pow Chew returned to NJC to serve, he carried with him a resoundingly clear hope and vision for NJC's students. The school's motto is "Service with Honour". This resonates deeply with Pow Chew's vision for his students to be givers, and not just takers; and for them to lead meaningful lives in service of others.
- I particularly like this because recently when I talked about broadening definitions of success, many people thought that we were talking about broadening the definition of success from academic achievements to other achievements. Actually, what I would like to see in Singapore is broadening the definition of success beyond achievements to contributions. If every Singaporean can do this, we will have a much more caring society that defines success not by achievements alone, but by our contributions.
- To that end, I would like to affirm and acknowledge the efforts that Pow Chew had made in NJC in guiding generations of students to serve, in line with NJC's motto "Service with Honour".
10. I would also like to highlight Mdm Lee Eet Fong's journey in leadership, which started when she was appointed as Vice-Principal in Coral Primary School in 2002, and subsequently Principal at Punggol Secondary School and Mayflower Secondary School.
- In the various schools that she has led, Eet Fong's belief has remained steadfast, grounded in the spirit of humility, consultation with others and building others up.
- Her focus has been on making small, incremental but meaningful changes in consultation with others.
- She gave Mayflower Secondary the latitude to innovate, and her boldness in implementing new structures and processes encouraged her colleagues to put their ideas forward.
- Together with her colleagues, Eet Fong led the school to develop a partnership with Pathlight School. This was borne out of her firm beliefs about inclusivity and friendship, and education being about care and love for others.
- Through meaningful and organic opportunities that the Mayflower students have had to interact and learn from Pathlight students, they would now be able to tell you what autism is and is not, and that those with special needs are not that different at all.
- Our students will carry these moments and learnings with them for the rest of their lives.
11. All our retiring principals have valuable experiences that they can pass on to the new generation of principals. All of them have touched the lives of many students, and are inspiration for us to touch the lives of many more.
Recognising Rotated and Newly-Appointed Leaders in Education
12. Today, seated amongst us are also 44 principals who have been called to lead in another school, and 26 who have been called to this considerable responsibility for the first time.
13. For every teacher who goes through the gates of the National Institute of Education (NIE), there is no higher aspiration than to lead a school as the Principal one day.
14. To be able to lead a school of a hundred teachers and a thousand students and impact their lives day in, day out, is more than a privilege.
15. There is a Chinese saying '一日为师，终生为父'- a teacher must be treated with respect akin to a father. Indeed, our responsibility to the many children under our charge is no less than that of parents watching over their children.
16. In fact, whenever I visit the schools, many of you proudly show me your children – because they are yours to shape, nurture, and care for.
17. Being a new Principal is never easy. There will be challenges, and there will be moments when you may be daunted. But you can be assured that you have been well prepared. You can also be reassured that you have fellow principals who will walk this journey with you. To all the new principals, I want you to remember this – challenges do not define us; our responses to them are what defines us and the path ahead. The Ministry of Education will back you up as you carry out your duty with conviction.
18. To encourage all of you today, I would like to share a quote by the late Theodore Roosevelt:
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
19. So go forth, and go forth boldly. I would like to urge you to be bold in three areas today.
Be Bold to Reach Out
20. First, be bold in reaching out. In the coming year, there will be many uncertainties, from COVID to the difficulties on the economic front. Many of our children, especially those from high-needs families, will face many more challenges. It falls on us to reach out to touch their lives beyond the schools; to reach out to the families, community partners and the industries.
21. No matter how well-resourced our MOE schools may be, we should never forget to reach out and bring everyone else on board. Remember that the more we reach out, and the more we rally our stakeholders together, the more we can do for our schools and students.
Be Bold to Innovate
22. My second message, particularly to those principals who are moving to a new school, is to be bold to innovate. The world will continue to change and evolve. There will be new challenges and opportunities. Every school is a different school, with students from different backgrounds, and with diverse profiles and needs. There is no one-size-fits-all solution that MOE can provide which will work wonders in all schools.
23. Our principals are the ones who will close the last mile. They understand the needs of their unique student profiles, and are best placed to choose from the menu of options and skillsets that MOE has provided and supported. To use an analogy, our principals are the 'chefs' who will put all the ingredients together to create a dish that best suits the students under their charge.
24. There will be times when the directions from MOE may not fully address your needs, or when the resources provided by MOE may not be tailored for the challenges faced by your schools. That is when our principals will need to innovate – to try new things, and challenge yourselves and your teams to come up with new ways to do even better. Many of the best ideas that we have today in our education system did not originate from MOE HQ, but come from the ground. When we have 300 schools, each experimenting and trying out new ways, we can evolve faster and better together.
25. Our principals, in charge of your respective schools, have the autonomy to do that. I want all of you to innovate and thrive in context in order to better serve your students.
Be Bold to Lead
26. Last but not least, I want you to be bold to lead. I want you to remember that there is a difference between a leader and a manager. A manager is someone who is given a mission and certain resources, and then figures out the best way to complete the mission. But a leader is more than a manager. A leader is someone with vision and conviction who will not just passively accept a mission, but seeks to understand the higher intent and reason, and is able to adjust the way the mission is accomplished according to the circumstances.
27. This requires conviction, and in exercising your leadership, I would like to encourage all of our principals to not be distracted. Our work and the benchmark of our success is not about the here and now or what we achieve tomorrow for ourselves or our students. Instead, our benchmark of success is when our students come up to us, many years down the road, and say, "Thank you for touching my life and making me who I am today." Your benchmark of success as a leader is not your students' examination scores – but how much you have value-added to our students' lives, inspired them as the next generation, and how many more leaders they will in turn go forth to groom and inspire. Each and every one of you has what it takes to succeed. When you go forth and take up your leadership position in your school, I hope to see that sparkle in your eye, and the conviction to groom new and stronger leaders along the way.
Conclusion
28. On that note, I would like to thank all of you for stepping forward to serve as a principal. It is not just an appointment. We can appoint our principals, but they must step forward to serve with deep conviction and the passion to want to do better for the next generation.
29. The quality of the future Team Singapore is in our hands – how we mould them will shape the future of Singapore.
30. Some of you may know that I started my political journey in the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF). After one year in MSF, I decided that my key priority was not the number of people we could help, but rather how we can increase the number of people who do not need to be helped. When I moved to the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), we focused on enabling every family to have a breadwinner with a meaningful job. At NTUC, I realised that if you want everyone to have a meaningful job, you need to find the investments. During my time at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), my team and I knocked on the doors of companies around the world to try to interest them and give them a reason to come to Singapore to create good jobs that we desire for our children. And this is why I am in MOE – because whenever we knock on the doors of companies, they do not ask about tax privileges and access to land. They always ask – what is the quality of your people that deserve my consideration? That is why in MOE, our job is to make sure that MTI has every reason to go around to tell the world that we are a worthy partner for their ventures. If we can do that well, we will raise the quality of the future Team Singapore, and will not need to be worried about reaching SG 100. In fact, the task of reaching SG 100 will depend on the charges whom you are grooming now. If we plant the right seeds in our children, I am confident that they will fulfil their aspirations and potential, and bring us to SG 100 and beyond.
31. As you take care of the teachers and students under your charge, I want all of you to also remember to take care of yourselves.
32. Leadership can be a lonely journey, but you are not alone because all of you are in this together and will support one another. At MOE HQ, I will make sure that we will back you all the way. So go forth, do it with conviction, reach out to the stakeholders and do it together, and continue to innovate and never assume that the same practices applicable in one place are suitable for another. Most importantly, remember that you are leaders and not managers. I am confident that our hundreds of school leaders have the right conviction to inspire hundreds of thousands of students under our charge.
33. On that note, thank you very much for your service to our nation, and I wish you all the best. I look forwarding to seeing you in your school next year. Thank you.