Digital world problems require analogue world solutions, and it goes back to our values, morals, and humanity, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said during the Committee of Supply debates on March 4.
Ong announced several new initiatives by the Ministry of Education (MOE), chiefly the refreshing of MOE's curriculum, such as Character & Citizenship Education, Knowing Asia, and Digital Literacy, and the SkillsFuture initiative for Educators.
Move with the times
Ong said that the curriculum needed to be updated to evolve with the needs and realities of the times.
Ong added that the new curriculum aimed to "reinforce the teaching of values in our children from as young an age as possible", and that "schools can then work with parents and make a big difference too".
Refreshing MOE's curriculum: Character & Citizenship Education
Ong said that Singapore face new challenges and realities that necessitate a refreshing of our curriculum in terms of "what we teach, and how we teach".
They are in three areas: 1) Character and Citizenship Education (CCE); 2) Knowing Asia; 3) Digital Literacy.
Ong said that a comprehensive review of the entire CCE curriculum started in 2016, and explained why this change was needed.
"Because the young today are different from previous generations in one major aspect, which is their exposure to technology.
For those who follow comics and watch superhero movies, they are like Bruce Wayne, who is also Batman, you know, one day, one night. So they have one real world that parents can see, and another one online, which they spend a lot of time on that parents do not see.
As adults who have grown up without this duality and without this space, I don't think we fully understand what our young are going through."
Ong said that the impact of technology on children is a complex and multi-faceted subject.
For example, in an online world, a child can be anonymous, and choose to be nasty or convey falsehoods, with very little consequences.
Ong posed the following question: how do we ensure that our young make the right choices, and survive well in the online world?
Five changes
In response, Ong announced the following five changes:
1) MOE will restructure formal CCE lessons to reinforce the teaching of moral values.
2) MOE will place more emphasis on cyber wellness, and devote more time, and develop more materials to teach this subject.
3) The CCE curriculum will have greater focus on mental wellness, which is closely related to cyber wellness.
4) MOE will expand efforts to engage secondary school students more actively on contemporary issues through CCE lessons. Examples include government policies, social inequality, online falsehoods, race and religion, and climate change.
5) MOE will further integrate CCE into school lessons and activities, such as CCAs, camps, cohort learning journeys, and Values-in-Action.
Ong said that the new CCE curriculum will be progressively implemented from 2021 in all primary and secondary schools.
Refreshing MOE's curriculum: Knowing Asia
Ong said that the education system will do its part to reflect the changes in Singapore’s economic strategy.
Ong said that Southeast Asia, together with China, India, Japan and Korea, all form Singapore's natural hinterland.
This means that Singapore-based enterprises need to be able to venture out into the region.
In other words, MOE needs to equip students with the knowledge, language, and cultural skills to succeed in the region.
Ong said that the changes will come in three ways:
1) MOE's humanities curriculum must provide students with a deeper appreciation of the geographies, histories, cultures, languages, and economies of countries in our region. The study of Asia will be given its due emphasis in humanities subjects.
2) MOE will leverage overseas trips and organise more trips to Asian countries, and encourage students to participate in them.
3) MOE will encourage students to know our region better through the learning of languages. MOE will pair the learning of conversational ASEAN languages with overseas school trips, starting with Vietnamese and Thai.
Refreshing MOE's curriculum: Digital Literacy
Ong said that Singaporeans need to think about digital literacy more deeply and holistically, rather than simply implementing populist initiatives, such as making coding compulsory in schools or giving every student a laptop or a tablet.
He said that one can look at digital literacy such as language literacy, the need for an immersive learning environment, and the breaking of digital literacy down into productive and receptive components.
To address this, Ong said that MOE has adopted a framework: find, think, apply, and create.
MOE will also launch a National Digital Literacy Programme (NDLP) to recognise the importance of digital literacy.
This is MOE’s contribution to the national effort, with a focus on schools and the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs).
Here is how Ong defines the framework:
1) Find: Gather and use information and data from digital resources, doing this in a constructive, safe, responsible, and ethical manner.
2) Think: Form the ability to manage, analyse, interpret and understand data, and solve problems systematically. While the skills are largely found in computational thinking, the elements are present in existing subjects, particularly mathematics, where there is a strong focus on problem solving.
3) Apply: Teach students to use software and devices productively to learn, for work, and for daily living, across different contexts A major initiative is the Singapore Student Learning Space (SLS), a dynamic and live online learning portal.
4) Create: It is the productive mode, i.e. the ability to code a program, develop an App, create a website, or design a game, and collaborate with others in the process.
Ong noted that the universities have trained around 1,000 ICT graduates annually in the last three years.
With the industry hungry for more talent, universities will be taking in 2,800 ICT students a year, almost three times the annual number of ICT graduates in the last three years.
SkillsFuture for Educators
Ong added that MOE will create a new initiative for teachers, calling it "SkillsFuture for Educators".
Ong said that Singapore has "the best teaching force in the world to make our education reforms a success" but noted the teachers' requests on the competencies they told MOE that they need.
These include:
1) Assessment literacy: As MOE reduces exam load, teachers want to learn to use other assessment tools such as project work, quizzes, and class presentations, to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
2) Inquiry-based learning: They want to be able to design and conduct a class that encourages active learning, giving students more time to explore, pose questions, and find answers.
3) Differentiated instruction: Teachers can adapt their instruction and assessment for students with different strengths and learning needs in more diverse classrooms.
4) Support for students with special educational needs: About 80% of students with special educational needs are in our mainstream schools. Teachers want to have a better understanding of their needs and support them better.
5) E-pedagogy: Teachers want to use digital technology effectively to enhance learning, especially with the NDLP.
6) CCE: Ong used Heng Swee Keat's "every school is a good school" tagline to say that the aim of CCE is so that "every school experience is a CCE lesson, and every teacher a CCE teacher".
Always a work in progress
Ong concluded this speech, saying that this is "why the education system must always be a work in progress".
Ong said that the Government will continue to improve it, raise its quality, while keeping school fees to a few dollars a month for the large majority of schools.
Ong said that the government will make sure that no one is denied a good education because of their family background.
Top photo from Ong Ye Kung Facebook.