My Parliamentary Colleagues
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. A very good afternoon to all of you.
2. I am very happy to be here at the annual Appointment and Appreciation Ceremony for Principals.
3. I hope all of you had a good break over the school holidays because for all of us here, the school year has started. As per MOE tradition, all of our School Leaders and Key Personnel start the school year about one to two weeks before school reopens, and end the school year about one to two weeks after the school year ends.
4. First and foremost, let me congratulate our new Principal appointees, particularly the 15 new Principals who will be leading schools for the first time.
5. Let me also thank the 17 leaders in education who will be retiring from today. But I hope that while they retire and take a well-deserved rest, they understand that they will always be part of the MOE family. If I may read out their names:
- Miss Sandra Gwee Su Pin, Mr Phua Huat Chuan, Mr Phua Kia Wang, Ms Foong Yin Wei, Miss Melanie Ann Martens, Dr Foo Suan Fong;
- Mrs Grace Chua, Ms Christina Teo, Mdm Foo Mui Chuw, Mrs Lay See Neufeld, Mr Peter Tan Chong Tze;
- Mdm Rita Raj Lal, Ms Chan Wan Siong, Mrs Low Chew Lian, Mr Michael de Silva, Dr Shirleen Chee Yan Hoon and Ms Low Yoke Kiew.
6. Together, they have contributed much to MOE and Singapore. Today, I will just pick a few of their stories to share, which represent the broader range of contributions they have made.
7. Shirleen was Divisional Director of MOE's Educational Technology Division when the Student Learning Space (SLS) was conceptualised and as President of the Academy of Principals (Singapore). She worked with colleagues to nurture young leaders and empower them to do more. Yoke Kiew, Michael and Chew Lian have also been involved in the development of school leaders as Zonal Director and Cluster Superintendents. They have supported and guided their school leaders as they go through the highs and lows in their leadership journey and showed them possibilities of how they can shape the future of learning.
8. Melanie, Suan Fong and Kia Wang contributed to the professional development of teachers in the areas of physical education, mother tongue languages, and adoption of educational technology in schools. They have dedicated time working with teachers, understanding their needs and tailored programmes to help them explore new pedagogies to enhance the learning of our students.
9. Lay See, Sandra, Huat Chuan, Yin Wei, Grace, Christina, Mui Chuw, Peter, Rita and Wan Siong all led schools of different profiles, working with staff and stakeholders to meet the needs of the students under their charge. Their work has impacted and transformed many lives, inspiring both staff and students with a love for learning. Many of them have also mentored younger Principals, helping them to grow within our fraternity.
10. We celebrate with our colleagues their well-deserved retirement, and thank you all for your many years of dedicated service. Please come back when you can to check our blind spots as you look at us from another perspective. Thank you all very much for your years of contribution.
11. Recently, we received the 2022 results of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA. Our 15-year-olds topped Reading, Mathematics and Science. The PISA questions are not the type that require one to recall formulas and regurgitate what they have learned. Instead, one must be able to apply thinking and reasoning in different real-world contexts.
12. For example, students were asked to use a given spreadsheet containing raw data on the amount of forested areas in different countries over time to identify the countries with the greatest gain in forested areas between 2005 and 2015. To successfully complete that task, a student would first have to examine the raw data carefully, which would require good observation skills. This is followed by good reasoning and critical thinking skills to not just pick out the relevant data to be used, but also how to use them. And also good IT skills to correctly use the spreadsheet tool to perform the necessary computations, before finally using good inferential skills to derive the correct answer. Anyone who has dealt with spreadsheets in a real-life context would agree that each of these steps is non-trivial, and certainly cannot be regurgitated.
13. Our Primary 4 students also topped the 2021 Progress in Reading Literacy Study, or PIRLS. What is more important is that Singapore's PIRLS results improved over that of 2016, despite the pandemic in 2020 when PIRLS data was collected. This makes Singapore the only country with steady continuous progress in literacy skills over 20 years.
14. Taken together, the recent PISA and PIRLS results reflect the resilience of our education system through the pandemic. Our students are resilient. Our teachers and Principals are resilient, and our schools are resilient. They persevered with their learning despite challenges imposed by COVID-19. The results have led many to ask how Singapore, unlike many other countries, did not suffer significant learning loss over the last three years.
15. Our educators are resilient. They pivoted quickly to online learning to support our students' learning, and prepared 'offline', in-person classes for students who required this to continue their education. They also continued to look out for our students' well-being. My deepest gratitude goes to all our educators, especially you, the Principals gathered here today. Your steadfast leadership in the face of unprecedented challenges has ensured that our students' learning continued effectively. You took good care of our teachers, who in turn took good care of their students, both during and after the pandemic. These unexpected yet precious frontline experiences are part of what we want to pass on from one generation of Principals to another.
16. But today, we are also at a tricky juncture in MOE history. Why so? We have done well by all current metrics – PISA, PIRLs, and many others. But the world is changing. Technology is changing faster than ever before.
17. This reminds me of stories of commercial companies who were doing very well in the market once upon a time. They kept perfecting what they had, until they were suddenly displaced one day. This is why I want to sound a little alarm bell today for us to not be complacent. We are doing well by all current metrics, but that is not our definition of success. We need to stay vigilant about the forces that are and will be impacting us. As leaders in the education service, it is our duty and responsibility to look farther ahead and ask ourselves if we will continue to excel in tomorrow's metrics as well.
18. Geopolitical contestations will continue to remain intense. Our demographics are also changing. We will face complex global problems from pandemics to climate change.
19. Technology is advancing rapidly. Just a year ago, Chat GPT was launched. Today, generative AI has already disrupted and transformed many industries, including education. However, the impact of such technology has not been fully felt yet.
20. The teachers you will lead also have diverse aspirations and needs. They come from different generations: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials. The Gen Z have just joined the workforce. How do we bring them together as a team?
21. Our students are also different today. They are hyperconnected and exposed to multiple sources of information that are readily accessible. How do we help them to distil, discern, and discover, while bearing in mind that they may know more than us in terms of content knowledge?
22. Therefore, we must not be complacent. Given the fast-changing world and a more uncertain future that our students will face, how do we equip ourselves to prepare them to thrive in the future beyond our schools? Do we continue to do what we have done well, and risk 'perfection to irrelevance'? Or do we constantly challenge ourselves to come out with new teaching and learning methods, new pedagogies, so that our students are ready for tomorrow?
23. Our real definition of success for our education system is not how well our students score in the first 15 years of their lives when the students are in the schools. Our real definition is how our students are able to thrive on their own in the next 50 years of their lives beyond our schools.
24. Today, we welcome 15 more Principals who will be leading schools for the first time. I want us to remember that we cannot do everything by ourselves, and all of us need to be 'multipliers'. For all of you Principals, you may have been a very good teacher. While being a very good teacher may be necessary, it may not be sufficient to be a good Principal.
25. You are now on the threshold on a new phase of your personal development. All of you have been chosen because you have demonstrated the potential to excel in those new skillsets. What are these new skillsets and roles? I will elaborate on these qualities.
26. First, being a Principal is not just about being good individually, but being good at building teams to multiply their team's capabilities.
27. Second, a Principal must not just be good at maintaining the system, but constantly studying it and checking blind spots to improve the system and draw in more resources and support to maintain our relevance.
28. Third, they must be able to multiply our students' capabilities. We must take it that the time they spend in school is the time to establish the foundation that will allow them to excel in the next 50 years of their life. In order to multiply our students' capabilities, it has to go beyond the content knowledge and academics. In fact, what will enable our students to multiply their capabilities throughout their lives will be their zest to learn, their independence and confidence to learn on their own, and techniques to keep learning.
Multiply Staff Capabilities
29. First, a Principal will need to multiply individual staff and team capabilities.
30. Every teacher and staff member in our schools matter. The quality of education that our students experience ultimately depends on the quality of our teachers. We need to ensure that our teachers are motivated and have the 'sparkle' in their eyes. Therefore, the most important role of a Principal is to help develop and grow every teacher and help each of them to become more skilful. To grow your teachers, we need to create opportunities for them to remain current, and at the cutting edge of their profession and help them understand how the world operates beyond our school gates, so that they can best contextualise what they teach and how they help our students understand the world.
31. Our definition of success for our students also applies to our teachers. It is not about how good they are when they become a teacher, but how they continue learning throughout their lives. Our teachers have demonstrated the real meaning of lifelong learning during the pandemic, when they pivoted to online learning. Many of you have continued this good habit of learning new skills every day, and continue to lead by example MOE's vision of lifelong learning. As Principals, I urge you to continue learning and growing in spite of your busy schedules, and inspire your teachers to do so, who will then inspire our students to do so similarly.
32. Building your team is critical. With a diverse profile of staff in your school, how do you bring everyone together with a shared vision and inspire your staff to go on the journey with you? How do you lead beyond yourself to multiply leadership in the school? Sharing leadership responsibilities with every teacher involves helping them to understand the 'why' and empowering them with the 'what' and the 'how' to realise the vision. It is more important for every teacher to understand the 'why', as the 'how' and 'what' can and why change according to circumstances. This is how I will empower you, and I hope that this is how all of you, as School Leaders, will empower your teachers as well.
Multiply System Capabilities
33. Second, our Principals must be able to multiply the system capabilities. Many of you have said that we cannot do everything by ourselves no matter how hard we work, or how much resources we have. There are resources beyond the school that we need to mobilise and bring into our system. These could be resources from other parts of the fraternity, the wider community, or other sectors in our country or economy. They all can bring valuable things to us. At the same time, beyond bringing resources to help us to achieve our mission, they also bring with them invaluable perspectives to help us check our blind spots.
34. Leadership can be lonely. Talk to your fellow students, people beyond your school, and your colleagues in MOE so that we can all collectively check each other's blind spots.
35. For example, Mr Goh Soon Hoe, former Principal of Kranji Secondary School and who will receive his appointment as Principal of Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School today, believes that it is critical that our Singaporean youths are well-positioned in knowing Asia and have a network of friends from the region.
36. During the pandemic, Kranji Secondary School initiated "The World is My Classroom: Knowing Asia", where they tapped the affordances of technology for exchanges and collaboration between students from different countries. Through the school's curriculum and internationalisation efforts, students developed greater awareness of Asia. This initiative eventually led the school to co-organise the 2022 ASEAN Symposium for Secondary School Students with ASEAN Studies Centre at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
37. During the 2-day online symposium, students from 78 local and overseas schools collaborated and learnt from peers, and worked with researchers from ASEAN Studies Centre to explore new perspectives on ASEAN regionalism. They also had the opportunity of discussing with Ambassador Kok Li Peng, Permanent Representative of Singapore to ASEAN, the future of ASEAN, and how it presents opportunities for Singapore and Singaporeans so that we can all benefit from this.
38. Such experiences will certainly shape our students' mindsets and develop their 21st Century Competencies (21CC). But this would not have been possible if not for the partnership with researchers from ASEAN Studies Centre from ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and the SEAMEO Schools' Network.
39. Soon Hoe is but one example of someone who has demonstrated how the school leverages the currency and capabilities of external partners to bring about authentic experiences for our students.
40. Other schools have also started partnering other non-school, non-education partners, to help our students to understand the world beyond schools, and to expose our teachers to the world beyond our schools. All of this have created new possibilities for us. For example, some schools have also partnered other schools, in and beyond their own clusters, to multiply resources that they individually have.
41. For example, for the "Inter-School Pentangular (ISP) Sports Carnival", five schools, Bedok South Secondary, Junyuan Secondary, CHIJ Katong Convent, Pasir Ris Secondary and St. Hilda's Secondary collaborated to provide sports competitions for students who are in non-sports CCAs and are keen to participate competitively. Through representing their schools in the competitions, students develop sportsmanship and positive values.
42. Dunearn Secondary School and Nanyang Girls' High School in the same cluster promoted friendships between the two schools through shared inter-school Arts experiences such as dance and painting.
43. Gan Eng Seng Primary, Hong Wen School and River Valley Primary in the same cluster organised a combined Primary 5 Camp at MOE Dairy Farm OALC.
44. There are abundant possibilities for us to multiply the capabilities, but we have to start with the right mindset. Never believe that we can do everything on our own. The more that we tap on the resources beyond our schools, the richer the experience for our teachers and students.
Multiply Student Capabilities
45. Third, we must multiply each student's capabilities to establish the critical foundations throughout life.
46. Our students have achieved remarkable performance at PISA and PIRLS. We can be very proud of their achievements. But what we really want for our students goes beyond doing well at the present with the current set of metrics. At this year's Work Plan seminar, I had said that for our students to thrive in the future, every student needs to be a creator, a connector and a contributor. To this end, we have enhanced the 21CC Framework this year. In the next bound of our 21CC efforts, we will strengthen the following: Adaptive Thinking, Inventive Thinking, Communication and Civic Literacy.
47. As a school, our challenge is to create authentic experiences for our students to strengthen the 21CC and the attributes of being a creator, connector, and contributor. All these will require new ideas and innovations.
48. I want all of you to go forth and thrive. All of you would have teachers and students from different profiles. So long as you understand the 'why', go forth and take your own initiative, and make use of your resources, and let us know when you need additional support. Try different ideas to bring alive the intent to grow our students' 21CC.
49. We need our Principals to keep trying. Some of you have asked, what if we fail? We have to try again. We do not fail unless we stop trying. There are plenty of good ideas amongst all of us, and if every school shares with us an innovative idea every year, we will have about 350 new ideas for all of our schools to try each year.
50. To our new Principals, we believe in your potential to rise to the occasion. We do not expect you to be perfect from the start, as the only perfection comes from Principals who have retired.
51. Together, we will keep learning and growing. I will continue to visit as many of you and your schools can, cheer you on, and support you to do the great things that you want to do for your students and teachers. Be bold, go forth, and try with conviction. MOE will back you up and support you.
52. On that note, congratulations to all of you and I wish you all the very best. Thank you once again for stepping forward to serve, particularly for our retiring Principals. Thank you very much.