Future of Learning: Empowering Contributors to Build a Better Tomorrow
Introduction
1. Chair, we thank all members for your suggestions, comments on our education system, and most importantly, we want to thank you all for your support for our educators.
2. Our education system has done well by most conventional measures. We continue to surpass ourselves in the rankings for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s Programme for International Student Assessment. Our least privileged students, on average, do better than the OECD average. The vast majority of our graduates find employment quickly, with good starting salaries.
3. But we must be careful not to become victims of our own success, by chasing yesterday's metrics of success, instead of building the competencies we need for our future. We should also be keenly aware that others are catching up, and aiming to overtake us with new disruptive technologies, and new pedagogies.
4. To stay ahead and prepare our next generation to learn for life, we must evolve our vision of education. We need to work with fellow Singaporeans, parents, and industries to redefine success and redesign education in three parts.
5. First, as a continuing journey, where we learn not just in the first 15 years, but throughout the next 50 years of our lives. Second, to celebrate the diverse strengths where we appreciate a diversity of talents, for our collective resilience. Third, it must be a collective effort, where students learn not just in schools and from teachers, but from the community, society, and even in the virtual world.
Education as a Continuing Journey
6. Let me first start with education as a continuing journey. Many of us worry that the system will only allow us one chance, that our futures will somehow be set in stone if we fail an exam or get into a less-popular school or less-favoured course.
7. When in fact, we have a lifetime ahead of us. In the decades after formal schooling, there is time to discover new strengths and interests, to find our purpose and calling, and to pursue them in different seasons of life.
8. We will continually invest in our people to help them to do well – not just for the first 15 years in school, but over the next 50 years and beyond.
9. Today, up to the secondary school level, we invest around $200,000 in every student. This establishes the strong academic foundations and values for the rest of their lives.
10. Next, at the post-secondary level, we make another major investment to help our students acquire a work-ready qualification – through the ITE, Polytechnic or University pathways.
11. Using an ITE student as an example, the subsidy will be around $70,000 for a Nitec and Higher Nitec qualification. So on average, we would have invested more than a quarter of a million dollars on every Singaporean child to prepare them for their first career.
12. As announced in the Budget Speech, we will invest more in our ITE graduates, through the ITE Progression Award (IPA). Upskilling to a diploma can help ITE graduates secure a better starting pay, and a better lifetime earning trajectory through their improved skills and competencies.
13. We will hence top-up $5,000 to the Post-Secondary Education Accounts (PSEA) of ITE graduates when they enrol in a diploma programme. For example, an ITE graduate who upgrades via a part-time Polytechnic diploma will not need to pay any fees out-of-pocket after using the $5,000 top-up. When they graduate, they will receive a further $10,000 top-up to their CPF Ordinary Account. This can give them a head-start in buying their first home, or saving for retirement.
14. Some Members have asked how we are supporting younger working adults. For those under 40 years old, they are in the earlier stages of their career, and their first work-ready qualifications should still serve them well. But they may need regular, shorter skill top-ups. For this, they can use the SkillsFuture Credit of $500 that they receive at the age of 25 years old to offset their course fees.
15. Those aged 40 years old and above, who have left school for a longer period of time, will require a more substantial skills reboot. Many in this group recognise the importance of lifelong learning and want to build career resilience through reskilling and upskilling. However, due to financial and other commitments, the course fees and potential loss of income during full-time training can hold them back.
16. As announced in the Budget Speech, we will introduce the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme to support these Singaporeans. Members have asked for details of the new initiatives.
17. First, we will provide more help with course fees, through the additional SkillsFuture Credit top-up of $4,000. How is this different from the existing SkillsFuture Credit of $500? The $500 credit is meant to cultivate a national culture and broad-based interest in continuous learning. It supports bite-sized, just-in-time upskilling and reskilling. It can be used for a wide range of skills-related courses, whether you are at the start of your career, mid-way through, or in your silver years. This will continue to be the case.
18. This $4,000 credit is geared towards boosting employability. It will not expire, so that you can use it at a juncture that suits you. The top-up can be used for over 7,000 full-time and part-time courses with better employability outcomes, and they will cover academic full qualification programmes offered by our institutes of higher learning (IHLs).
19. These include diplomas, post-diplomas, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees that are well recognised in the market, as well as shorter modules that can stack to these full qualifications, to offer more flexible upgrading options. It will also include industry-specific training, such as SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG)'s SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme (SCTP), which is a train-and-place programme that supports individuals moving into sectors with good hiring opportunities.
20. It will also cover courses that fulfil the training requirements in Progressive Wage Model sectors, to support the career and wage progression of lower wage workers.
21. Singaporeans aged 40 to 60 years old in 2020 received a $500 top-up that was similar in intent. We will merge any remaining balance with this new mid-career top-up, and the balance will likewise no longer expire at the end of 2025.
22. For those who wish to pursue another full-time Diploma, we will now provide additional subsidies to do so. Currently, Singaporeans can only receive one bout of government subsidies for a full-time diploma at Polytechnics, ITE and the Arts Institutions.
23. From 2025, we will subsidise Singaporeans aged 40 and above who enrol in a second full-time diploma. Using the earlier example of the ITE upgrader, if he wants to pursue a career in a new sector like the digital economy, he can pursue a full-time SCTP. SSG provides approximately $10,000 in subsidies for the training and the remaining course fees will be fully offset by the $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit.
24. He can also pursue a second full-time diploma in a high-growth area. He will receive subsidies of about $60,000, and his out-of-pocket course fees for the full-time diploma can also be partially offset by the $4,000 credit.
25. Using the example of the ITE upgrader, the lifetime investment in education and skills could go up to $380,000 in total. This is a substantial investment and commitment on the part of the Government.
26. But we know that course fees are not the only constraint when it comes to upskilling. Adult workers may have other financial commitments and concerns. For example, it could be difficult to take time off work to upskill, and to lose income during the training period.
27. Hence, on top of our investment in educational programmes, we will provide a Training Allowance for Singaporeans aged 40 years old and above who pursue full-time IHL full qualifications, or full-time SCTP.
28. Eligible individuals will receive an allowance of 50% of their average monthly income for over a year, capped at $3,000 per month for up to 24 months over their lifetime. In other words, up to $72,000 over a lifetime. Individuals, including self-employed persons and freelancers, will receive the allowance as long as they have earned income based on the Government's records in the latest available 12-month period.
29. Members have asked whether long-term unemployed and caregivers who have left the workforce for some time will qualify for the training allowance. At this point in time, they will not, as the allowance is meant to provide support for workers who experience income loss when they commit to full-time training.
30. However, they can still make use of the $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit to refresh their skills through industry-relevant training. They can also tap on career facilitation services and placement programmes that offer training allowances offered by Workforce Singapore and NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute.
31. Overall, the training allowance thresholds reflect our carefully considered approach. The supported full-time courses are chosen to facilitate placement and entry into good jobs. The amount of support provides enough coverage for the median mid-career worker, while preserving the incentive to return to work. The duration of support will cover more than one bout of full-time upgrading via SCTP and at least half the duration of a full qualification.
32. In total, our lifetime commitment to help an individual will be around $300,000 or higher, not counting the Training Allowance of up to $72,000. While the exact amount may differ for different paths, the concept is similar – continual investment for the next 50 years, beyond just the first 15 years in school.
33. The SkillsFuture Level-up Programme will cost the Government around an additional $100 million each year, and more if there is stronger take-up. This is a significant investment by the Government, and it underscores our commitment to SkillsFuture as a key pillar of our social compact.
34. Members have asked more broadly, how do we measure the success of SkillsFuture? The spending and course attendance numbers are just input and output indicators respectively. The real outcomes we want to track are employment, wages, and the competitiveness of our workers and industries.
35. This is not always easy to measure. It is neither short term, nor a one-to-one causal relationship. For example, reskilling may have helped workers keep their jobs or transit to new careers, beyond getting a pay rise. Often, it takes time for workers to accumulate and apply their newly acquired skills, and for employers to see the tangible benefits of a higher skills base.
36. There are also other intangible benefits for our economy and society, which are important but are not easily measured, such as greater confidence for businesses to invest in Singapore, with our highly skilled and adaptable workforce.
37. Hence, the success of the SkillsFuture movement is about ultimately, whether Singaporeans have the confidence and competence to seize new career opportunities and tackle the future, and whether our enterprises are well-positioned to capture new business opportunities because they have the quality of manpower required.
38. This vision of success cannot be achieved by the Government alone. In the spirit of Forward SG, we must journey together – IHLs, employers, and individuals.
39. Our IHLs are doing their part. They are responding to industry needs to offer relevant courses, and developing new programmes in emerging economic sectors. They are also refreshing their Continuing Education and Training (CET) capabilities to meet the wide range of workforce needs. More and more of our IHL capacities will shift towards CET, beyond the conventional pre-employment training, or PET.
40. Employers, unions and enterprises will need to play their part too, to support workers with flexible working arrangements when they are upgrading, to work with employees to identify the new skills and competencies needed by the market and the companies, to recognise and remunerate employees based on those skills and competencies, rather than just credentials, They will also need to create a culture of learning in every company, both small and medium enterprises, and large companies alike.
41. And every individual will need to take ownership of their own individual path, to plan their directions and way forward, and to have the courage and conviction to take their first step.
42. The Government will do what we can to partner our people and industries to achieve this vision for SkillsFuture to be a key pillar of our social compact. This will help to keep our people competitive and employable over the long haul.
Education as a Celebration of Diverse Strengths
43. Second, education must celebrate our students' diverse strengths. We must resist the temptation to 'teach to the average', and instead focus on bringing out the best in every child.
Full Subject-Based Banding
44. We have introduced Full Subject-Based Banding (Full SBB) for the Secondary 1 cohort. We are now overcoming the challenges of reorganising the classes, and shuffling timetables to match the resources available. But the positive outcomes in learning and social mixing give us confidence that this is the right thing to do, notwithstanding the challenges.
45. Today, I will touch on what students can expect at the end of their secondary school experience under the new system.
46. As the culmination of their Full SBB journey, in 2027, this year's Secondary 1 students will sit for the new Singapore-Cambridge Secondary Education Certificate (SEC) examinations. The SEC examinations will replace the current Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education (GCE) O- and N-Level examinations.
47. Today, students take different exams, with different provisions for different streams. For example, students in the Normal stream sit for N-Levels in September, while Express students sit for O-Levels in October. O-Level students have two exam sittings for Mother Tongue Language (MTL) – one mid-year, one end-of-year – while N-Level students do not.
48. Under Full SBB, there will no longer be separate N- and O- Level exam periods. Instead, there will be one common SEC exam period, with different papers for different subject levels.
49. We will streamline the multiple exam sittings. This means we will have one written SEC exam sitting for all MTL subject levels. I understand that some may be concerned that they will have one less chance to improve their MTL grades. But we need to strike a careful balance between striving for excellence, chasing the last mark, and allowing our students to learn at a better pace.
50. When we introduced the mid-year O-level MTL exam sitting in 1980, less than 40% of our students passed both their First and Second Languages. So we allowed students to take their MTL exam twice, to meet the Second Language requirement for Pre-University.
51. Today, almost all our O-Level MTL students already meet the language requirement within their first sitting. Our analysis shows that taking a second sitting only changed the post-secondary posting outcomes for less than 2% of the students taking the exam.
52. Most importantly, the new system will allow our students and teachers to better pace the MTL curriculum, with 4 more months of learning, rather than squeeze everything into less than 3.5 years in preparation for the June sitting.
53. To spread out the exam load at the end of the year, students will sit for their English and MTL written exams in the second week of September – one month ahead of other subjects. After taking their exams, students will receive a common certificate, the SEC, which will replace the current O-, N(A) and N(T)-Level certificates.
54. The certificate will reflect each student's subject combinations and levels. Just like the 'A'-Level certificate, which reflects each student's subjects and the level they are completed at – H1, H2 or H3.
55. The certificate will continue to be jointly awarded by MOE and Cambridge, to preserve its standing. The SEC will allow students offering a mix of subject levels to access a wider range of post-secondary pathways.
56. For students applying to Polytechnic Year 1, admission today is based on the 'ELR2B2', otherwise known as English Language, Relevant 2 subjects, and Best 2 subjects, computed into a net aggregate score comprising five O-Level, or G3 subjects. From 2028, we will allow one of the 'Best' or 'B' subjects in the ELR2B2 score to be taken at either G2 or G3. 2M Maliki will provide more details.
57. From time to time, some call for MOE to remove exams like the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). Others ask us to bring back mid-year exams. First, let me state that if we see our worth as being defined by exam results only, removing the PSLE will not remove stress. Neither is removing all stress our goal.
58. Instead, we need to help our students manage and overcome stress. We need to understand that exams like the PSLE and SEC exam are not an end in themselves, but a means to help our children find a suitable learning environment in the next stage of their education journey.
59. As I have mentioned before, there are non-trivial issues to overcome with a through-train concept, such as, how will we select students who are suitable for the school at age 6? If we cannot select, how will we support diverse learning profiles for the next 10 years – for us to be able to stretch the high ability students, while supporting those with higher needs?
60. We may end up 'teaching to the average', which does not bring out the best in any child. And this will make it even more challenging for our already stretched teachers to cater to a class with such diverse abilities.
61. If we allow transfers out of the school, who gets to post out, and to where? Will the stronger students try to transfer out, leaving the through-train as an option for weaker students only? If it is the weaker students that leave, school assessments might become the new frontier of stress, as students worry about performing well enough to remain in the school. And which school will take these students to integrate them back into the mainstream curriculum, and at what point in time?
62. So MOE is considering this, but let's be upfront about these proposals – they are not without merits, but certainly they come with trade-offs and non-trivial implications.
63. So, let us help our students to understand their strengths, approach stress and challenges with the right mindset, and use exams to right-site themselves for the next stage of learning, rather than as a competition to beat others.
Enhancements to Edusave Awards
64. In fact, we know that good grades alone are not enough to prepare our students for the future. We also need to equip our students with 21st Century Competencies (21CC), like civic literacy and adaptive thinking. Hence, we will improve the balance of academic and non-academic Edusave awards.
65. Today, the EAGLES and Edusave Skills Award are given to students who have excelled in non-academic activities or who have demonstrated leadership qualities and served the community.
66. We will increase the number of these awards to recognise 21CC and LifeSkills. Younger students will receive the award if they demonstrate attributes like creativity in generating ideas to solve problems in their school or beyond, while older students in Polytechnics and ITE might demonstrate interpersonal and collaboration skills by working effectively with their colleagues in an internship.
67. With this, an additional 21,000 students could receive the awards every year, bringing the balance of academic and non-academic awards given out to around 60:40, from the current 70:30.
68. This signals our commitment to reducing the overemphasis on academic results, and preparing our students more holistically for the future.
Support for Students with Special Educational Needs (SEN)
69. Our efforts to celebrate diverse strengths must also extend to students with Special Educational Needs (SEN). One key challenge for the families of children with disabilities are the significant out-of-pocket expenses.
70. As announced at Budget, we will alleviate these pressures by reducing school fees in nine higher-fee SPED schools. But beyond financial support, I also want to share my vision for the SPED sector, which has been close to my heart since my days in MSF.
71. I want our young people to aspire to join the SPED fraternity, be inspired by its deep sense of mission, like any school teacher in the mainstream school system. want our SPED educators to have promising careers, that will encourage them to stay in the sector, like the mainstream school system.
72. I want our SPED school leaders to have structured and rigorous leadership development opportunities, like the mainstream school system, and I want our SPED sector to have their own Communities of Practice specialising and developing deep authoritative professional body of knowledge for each of the SPED specialisations;
73. I want mainstream and SPED educators to grow together, with porosity of pathways, sharing best practices, and supporting each other. I want the SPED students to have pathways integrated with their post-18 work, life and care arrangements.
74. Chair, recently, I met the leaders of our 25 SPED schools. I shared this vision with them. I want to say that after the meeting, it is no longer my vision. But hopefully, it is now our vision.
75. I want to thank all the SPED School leaders for agreeing to work together, towards our shared vision for the sector. We agreed we are not where we want to be – not yet. But we know where we want to get to, and we are determined to get there for the sake of our children. 2M Maliki will share more details about our efforts.
Education as a Collective Effort
76. This leads me to my last point – education must be a collective effort from all of society. We must fundamentally reshape the way we see education. I hence want to thank two groups of our stakeholders for their contributions.
77. First, the over 150 industry partners who have come forward through MOE's Partnerships Engagement Office to collaborate with our schools, and to create authentic learning opportunities for our students.
78. Second, we want to thank our Parent Support Groups (PSGs), which have stepped up to support our students' well-being and development. MOS Gan will be sharing an update in her speech on how we have expanded the PSGs and strengthened their capabilities to partner our schools.
79. Above all, I want to recognise our educators. More than any policy change, it is our teachers who are key to preparing our students for the future. We recognise the challenges that our teachers face. And we will continue to support them, through what I call the three 'Ts'.
80. Firstly, technology must serve as the multiplier of teachers' capacity. We will continue investing in EdTech, and adaptive learning systems, to help our teachers support those who need more help, while stretching those who can do more. For example, our Language Feedback Assistant for English provides feedback on basic language errors in students' writing.
81. This allows our teachers to spend more of their time guiding students on higher-order elements, such as logic and persuasiveness, and creates time for teachers to work with students in the same class who require more attention or support.
82. We recognise it is not always easy to use new technologies. It takes time for us to feel at ease with them, and trust them to complement our work. For example, many of us struggled in the early days of COVID-19, in shifting our work online.
83. So I want to salute our teachers, who are challenging themselves to adopt these new tools – not just because they are new and exciting, but because they will help our students to learn better and relieve the load on our teachers.
84. Technology is linked to a second T – time. Technology will not replace our teachers, but it will change their roles and responsibilities. Going forward, our teachers will spend less time delivering information, as information becomes commoditised. But they will spend more time facilitating learning and collaboration, which are higher order skills. They will play a bigger role as coaches and mentors, guiding students in developing 'softer' skills and navigating complex issues.
85. We will hence be committed to make time for our teachers' growth: Professionally – to learn new pedagogies and skillsets; but also personally – to spend time away from the classroom and gain exposure and new perspectives, so that they can broaden their minds, refresh themselves, and bring new ideas back to share with their students and fellow colleagues.
86. But the third and final T is the most critical – and this is trust. We must maintain our trust and support in our educators. Our teachers undergo years of rigorous training and professional development.
87. They are experts in their subject areas and pedagogy, and invest their time and energy to nurture our students, often going above and beyond their official responsibilities.
88. So we ask that everyone respect and trust our teachers to do their work as professionals, and to support them in giving the best opportunities to develop their talents, find their footing, and understand their strengths and weaknesses.
89. Sir, the collective effort of education requires communities to work hand in hand not just in the classrooms, but beyond the classrooms. Together, we can show our children that their growth matters more than their grades.
Conclusion
90. Change is not easy, especially if we are to reshape our own perspective and redefine our definitions of success. But change will be impossible if we do not try.
91. If we can come together to refresh our understanding of education and what this means for all of us. It can underscore Singapore's success for the next 50 years and beyond. MOE and our partners are committed to delivering this for our children and our nation.
92. Thank you.