Speech by Guest of Honor Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister for Education, at Polytechnic and ITE Staff Appreciation Day, Launch of Singapore Polytechnic (SP)'s 70th Anniversary Commemorative Book and Signing of Memorandum of Understanding Between SP and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF)

1. Good afternoon. First, let me wish all of you a happy POLITE (Polytechnic-ITE) Staff Appreciation Day.

2. As Wai Wah (PCEO SP, Mr Soh Wai Wah) said, you are responsible for touching the lives of 70% of every cohort, if not more. Beyond every cohort, if you look at the actual number of adult learners, you would have touched many more than that.

3. You are more than just a teacher. Very often, you are called to be a teacher, a facilitator, often a mentor, if not a life coach.

4. This morning, it struck me that I should call you "POLITEE" instead – Partners of Lifelong Innovation, Transformation, Empowerment and Education. Each of these words have a special meaning.

1. I will talk more about creating new things and not just about answering yesterday's questions with yesterday's answers.
2. Transformation is not just about business process transformation. It is also the transformation of the lives of people and students whom you touch.
3. Empowerment - because students who were guided by you - have a sense of empowerment, and of course lifelong learning.

5. Today, I would also like to congratulate SP on the start of your journey to commemorate and celebrate 70 years of success.

1. 70 years may sound like a long time. But I hope the pioneering spirit of the 70 years will continue not just in SP, but throughout the POLITE sector.
2. That you continuously pioneer new things, and not just do existing things, which will help us to break new ground.

6. Today, I have three wishes for SP and the wider POLITE sector. They are what I call the 3x2Cs. I hope this will be the spirit of the POLITE sector.

7. First, a commitment to create.

1. New technologies will continuously allow us to create new connections. Yet at the same time, these new technologies will disrupt the conventional business and learning models. Therein lies our challenge and opportunity.
2. How do we create new value, as Singaporeans and as a sector?
3. With generative AI and other new technologies, knowledge will become increasingly commoditized.

8. The only way for us to make a living for ourselves and to take good care of our people is when our people can grow up throughout life, knowing that they have the capacity to create something new, create new value add and propositions, not just for themselves, but also their companies and our country.

9. This ability to create must be within our DNA. It cannot be left to chance.

10. Recently I met the set of Board of Directors from one of our Autonomous Universities (AUs). They asked how it is possible for all of us to be creators.

11. Many people think that creation is something that happens continuously. But, discovery and creation is really about a disciplined pursuit and a disciplined inquiry. To do this, we must start young, in our IHLs.

12. The path of anyone who tries to be a middleman will increasingly be disintermediated.

13. The past whereby we know how to answer yesterday's questions with yesterday's answers will also be gone.

14. The only way forward is to create new value propositions.

15. SP and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) will be signing an MOU today, for SNEF to be sited within SP, to create new opportunities for collaborations to mentor the students, and to work in closer partnership.

16. I hope the partnership does not end with SP. If I could have one wish come true, it is that I would like to see many more trade associations and chambers (TACs) having their offices in our IHLs, where collaborations and the finding of new value propositions between industry and academia can occur every day, and in time, retraining and reskilling our adult workers throughout life.

17. The partnership we see between SP and SNEF today, will hopefully be but the start of many more partnerships between our POLITE sector and employers.

18. In all this, our value proposition to the industry partner is that we can all create something better together.

19. It will be a better product, it will be a better marketing campaign, it can be a better production process, or it can even be more industry-ready students, a more ready adult learner.

20. I have always said this about today's education system across the world. The needle moving part is not about how we can further strengthen our school system. This, we have done quite well in Singapore.

21. The needle moving part for us is how we can refresh the skills of our adult learners at speed and at scale. Because every year the cohort size is about 40,000. That is a challenge of one order of magnitude.

22. But every year we need to reskill half a million Singaporeans, and that is a different magnitude of challenge. To that end, our staff and institutions have our work cut out for us.

23. So, the first set of values we are going to see moving forward is this commitment to create something new - a new value proposition.

24. The second pair of 2Cs is for all our POLITE institutions to be able to collaborate with confidence.

25. Why collaborate and why confidence?

26. We all know very well that no matter how good we are, we cannot do everything by ourselves.

27. In today's world, the value add and value proposition, especially in a fragmenting world, in a world with many troubles, is our ability to distinguish ourselves to be connectors, to bring people together. To bring two different disciplines who are seemingly unrelated together, to bring two groups of people from different backgrounds and cultures together.

28. This must be one of our goals going forward.

29. In order for us to do that well, we will need to refresh the competencies within our system.

30. Our students and our faculty alike must know the world beyond our institutions. We must know the people and cultures in other countries, the latest that is happening in the markets, the latest demand by the consumers, the latest technologies.

31. Only when we have grasped all these, will we be able to have the confidence to say that we can help bring people together to collaborate. If we can do that, we will distinguish ourselves.

32. For me, I believe that the best gift that I can ever offer to our polytechnic and ITE educators and staff is this - it is not how many more 'thank yous' I can say, it is not how many more staff appreciation events that I can hold for you.

33. I truly believe that my greatest service to you is to make sure that you maintain your cutting-edge currency. This is why you have always heard me say that I want to find all ways and means for you to be able to collaborate with the industry partners outside.

34. I want all my POLITE staff and educators to have the cutting-edge knowledge of what is happening at the frontier of business practices, the frontier of technologies.

35. When you can do that, you will be able to collaborate with confidence, and to share and teach our students with confidence, be they PET or CET learners.

36. So, my goal as your Education Minister is this: I want to make sure that all my POLITE educators exemplify the spirit of lifelong learning. When your students see you learning, and that you are always at the cutting-edge of your fields, they will be inspired by what they see.

37. My greatest hope and gift is to find a way to institute a system where you will never lose your currency, and you remain current in your roles in the public sector.

38. Finally, I hope you will imbue in all our students, PET and CET learners alike, the ability to contribute with conviction.

39. Life is not just about the pursuit of material success.

40. Many of our younger students and increasingly, the adult population want to feel a sense of purpose.

41. What they are doing must be purposeful, beyond just meeting the material needs for themselves or their family.

42. That regardless of my academic abilities alone, I can always make a contribution according to my diverse abilities.

43. Academic abilities is one of the many dimensions of abilities that our students have, and it is incumbent upon us to bring this out in them, for them to feel confident that they can make a contribution in society, and they have a path to succeed.

44. Learning to live a purposeful life goes beyond grades, material success.

45. Importantly, I hope that as they go through the ranks, they will also be filled with the spirit of not just trying to find meaning in what they do.

46. Very often I meet students who say they like to find meaning in what they do, but I always remind them that beyond finding meaning in what you do, it is equally, if not more important, to give meaning to what you do.

47. Finding meaning in what you do may not always be in your control, but by giving meaning to what you do, you will always be in control. Because you can take charge and make sure that every job you do is meaningful and you bring alive the role that you play. There must be a larger sense of purpose beyond self.

48. On this note, SP has been a pioneer in the IHL sector since 70 years ago. There are many things that we can continue to collaborate and share with one another so that together, we can learn and move faster along the way.

49. All of you here are not just deliverers of content, and not simply passing on knowledge.

50. All of you here are truly partners of lifelong innovation, transformation and empowerment for our students.

51. I hope all of you here will also remember that our larger mission goes beyond just helping our students to master the content or the skillsets.

52. The larger vision for us is to make sure they have within them first, a commitment to constantly create new value propositions for themselves and our country.

53. Second, they must always understand that in order for Singapore to distinguish ourselves in the world, Singaporeans must be connectors even in troubled times. We must have the ability to collaborate or connect with confidence, with a depth of understanding of other people.

54. Finally, all students and staff must know that everyone can make a contribution with conviction regardless of their starting points in life.

55. On that note, I wish you all the best in your onward journey to inspire our students, be it in their ability to create, to collaborate, or to contribute.

56. A big thank you to all of you for going out of your way to help our students in so many ways beyond content mastery, but most importantly, in helping our students to transform themselves, to inspire in them the confidence to contribute.

57. My promise to you is that I will find all kinds of ways to make sure that you are the sharpest in your trade because you have the most opportunities to keep yourself covered.

58. And your currency will be the greatest gift of appreciation that we can do for you as a sector.

59. Thank you very much.