Goh Keng Swee
Singapore
“Sir, since that was not a supplementary question, may I be allowed to comment briefly on that. When we form a Committee of the House to inquire into an activity of the Government, the assumption must be that there has been something improper. In this instance, where is the impropriety?”
“The career of Brig-Gen Lee is well-known to the public. It has been published in the newspapers. Why then does he come out with all this drivel, other than to impute improper motives? Mr Jeyaretnam: Sir, I object to the term "drivel" as spelt out by the First Deputy Prime Minister. He should know better as a Member of this House.”
“Sir, this is getting most tiresome. So I will just say this - that Brig-Gen Lee Hsien Loong has proved himself in so many ways, both inside the Army and outside the Army, to be a person of outstanding quality. When the Member for Anson says the public are worried, he is again talking nonsense.”
“Sir, I rise to clarify. Actually, the limits are not set by me. I do not have a heavy hand. I regard the MAS as the implementing agency of Government, and in this respect I have to listen to the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Trade and Industry.”
“How you set them, how restrictive or how liberal, would determine two things: (1) the degree of imported inflation from abroad via goods and services from abroad, and (2), the degree of capital inflow from abroad which will affect our money supply in Singapore.”
“Sir, if the land could be more profitably used, say, for commercial or residential purposes and if the Minister for National Development requires such land, then, of course, the land will be acquired and the generous terms will apply.”
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“Let us not fool around and experiment with what is called "mixed ability classes." In England and in America, there are honest and good people who believe that the poor must be given a good chance or the same chance as the rich. If your child is not bright, that is because you are disadvantaged; the society is not being fair to you. So they have what is called "comprehensive schools" where bright students and less bright students all mix together. These comprehensive schools are decided on political grounds, not on educational grounds. So they tried comprehensive schools and they found that the less bright students still did worse than the more bright students. Now they say, "The examinations are not fair. Let us have 'O' level examinations where you have difficult questions and easy questions and then everyone can pass equally well." What these authorities have not understood is that equal opportunity does not lead to equal outcome. In Singapore, we give everybody equal chance in education, in jobs, in everything. And if the outcome is unequal, fair enough. It reflects differences in ability. But let us not look down on the school children who do not get four distinctions at 'A' level. Let us not look down even on the monolinguals. They can be good, honest bus drivers, factory workers. So long as they work hard, are honest, law-abiding citizens, they are a credit to the nation.”
“The proportions concerned have remained remarkably consistent over time despite constant repetition of the claim that these are the kinds of differences we want to avoid.' The Member for Ayer Rajah went on to observe that Singaporeans go increasingly for prestigious brands of clothing, bags, shoes, motor cars and even schools. Of course, he is quite right about this. But I think he should have deplored this practice. Let us talk about clothes. For some years, it has become the fashion to wear trousers called jeans. Now, it is quite often that we see advertisements of jeans just showing backsides of people. This causes the Singapore consumer to pay quite exorbitant sums for these products. I did a study some years ago on a very popular brand, I compared the retail price with the ex-factory cost of one pair of jeans. Ex-factory cost was $7 a pair and the Singapore consumer paid $45 for it. But RTS, as it was then known, got $10 for a pair of jeans through advertising and I assume the balance is shared by the proprietor/retailer and so on. So who is being rooked? Not only that, the consumer pays to be rooked, paying $45 for something costing $7. We are, what you might call, a parvenu society, nouveau riche. People like to show off, they are snobs; very deplorable, even though quite natural. But the solution does not lie in what the Member advocated. He said that the West was having second thoughts about streaming, and he went on to say: 'Perhaps the Prime Minister's observations on mixed housing apply equally to our schools - a good mix of abilities will certainly go a long way to discourage intellectual snobbery which I think is far worse than social snobbery.' I do not know about that. But let us be careful about these things.”
“When you talk about class division, you are talking about wealth, status conferred, not so much by merit and effort, but by privilege, by birth. The position in other countries is different from ours. I have to quote from Britain. But this really does not reflect badly on them because it shows that when a society has matured, you will eventually find that the same kind of social rigidity will take place. It will take place in Singapore in perhaps a generation or two from now. A study made in 1955 showed that 80% of students in Oxford and Cambridge came from the upper middle class. According to official statistics, this class constituted only 19% of the population. So 19%, the top upper class of the British society produced 80% of Oxbridge students. Not because the British educational authorities did nothing about it. For the best part of three decades after the war, they recognised that class division in Britain was a serious social problem and something had to be done to enable those who come from the working class, the poorer families, to rise up in the way that we have achieved in Singapore. This is what Professor William Taylor, Director of the Institute of Education in the University of London, said in one of his research papers: 'There were great hopes in the years after the Second World War that by making secondary education free for all and providing student support grants that the main obstacles to inequality of opportunity must be overcome. And yet in the past 25 years, we do not seem to have made dramatic progress.' And he gave figures of University entrance related to social class in other European countries, and he went on to say: 'Figures of this kind can be repeated for most advanced countries.”
“The Schools Division has specialist subject inspectors attached to them and officers of this branch do visit schools and are available for consultation whenever the schools want advice. However, here again, the problem is that although we have many posts in the Ministry, a good number of them have not been filled. The Member for Ayer Rajah hit the headlines yesterday [Straits Times,18th February, 1981, page 13]. Here it is, Mr Speaker [indicating]. It is rather a nice photograph of the Member in a very happy mood. The headline says: "School system helping to create class division: MP." This is really an absurd statement. I hope the Member attended the function last night at the Istana and heard the very excellent speeches by the Minister without portfolio and the Minister for Trade and Industry. The point they made is that it is our school system that allows able children from poor families to rise and become professionals. That is why we have general cohesion and contentment in Singapore at all strata of society. Let me quote from a speech I gave at the Reunion dinner of the Christian Brothers Old Boys' Association on Saturday, 24th May last year. After the break I will give this copy to him free of charge. It explains the difference between our system and the system prevailing in western countries. I discussed the awards, over ten years, of President scholars, Overseas Merit scholars and Colombo Plan scholars. They total 670. The largest single group were children of manual workers, 39% of the total. The smallest group were children of professional families, only 13%. These figures follow quite closely the general occupation distribution of Singapore.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, Members must understand that the T-scores in examinations are the responsibility of the professionals in the Ministry, not the systems engineers. Actually, my Permanent Secretary, who is the chief of them, makes it a point to visit at least two schools a week. He has spoken to hundreds of teachers and, heaven knows, hundreds of students. One of the systems engineers spent one and a half years at the Institute of Education and she has spoken to literally thousands of teachers. Well, I would not labour the point. But I do ask the Member to do a proper study before he gives advice to Ministers, otherwise his advice will be taken very lightly. The Member for Jurong raised some points about school inspection. He believes there are so many schools that it will not be possible to visit a school more than once in six years or even eight years. The school appraisal system is one that we have adapted from Australia, as I have explained in the Addendum. It is the policy of the Inspectorate to concentrate on the weaker schools with more problems. The better schools can look after themselves. They will present no problem. But in between visits by the Inspectorate, the schools themselves do their own self-appraisal. And they do write up annual appraisal reports. No doubt the system can be improved because it has been introduced just over a year ago. The professionals will pay greater attention to this. But there is one problem area which has been mentioned in the Addendum. We want to attract better teachers to the Ministry and under the present system of salary scales and promotion this is rather difficult. The Member for Jurong need not fear that nobody helps schools in between these periodic inspections.”
“The Member for Ayer Rajah and the Member for West Coast thought that the examinations place too great an emphasis on languages so that those good in mathematics and science will be penalized and, in this way, we may prevent or inhibit the emergence of scientists and engineers. I think these Members must have been influenced by a recent letter to the Straits Times by Mr C.C. Leong. There will be a reply forthcoming. I will just give Members a few figures to show that fears that those good in mathematics will suffer because they are bad in languages are not well founded. The systems engineers did a study of the 1972 PSLE cohort which went into secondary schools, and compared their performance in EL 1 with the general performance in 'O' level. Of those who had a raw score of 90 or more, 86% got seven or eight 'O' levels. On the other hand, of those who had less than 50 marks, 85% of them failed to get even three 'O' levels. The whole table and explanation will be published in due course in the Straits Times The Member for Telok Blangah claims that the systems engineers are high-fliers and must come down to earth and see the teachers, principals and the parents. I want to seek some clarification from him. What evidence has he got? How many teachers and parents has he seen? How many systems engineers has he interviewed? Can I ask him for a clarification?”
“To their credit, teachers' unions have not exercised this right, even though they must have found circumstances frustrating at times. It is inconceivable that the PAP Government will allow matters to reach such a point that teachers will go on strike, something which happens quite frequently in other countries. Education is an essential service and if gazetted as such in Singapore under the Emergency Regulations, strikes will be illegal. So when the need to strike had not, does not and will not arise, nor will the occasion to do so be allowed to happen, why not become "respectable"? I do not want to take issue with the Minister without portfolio. He may not have a portfolio but he has got lots of other things. Why not become "respectable" and convert into fully professional associations? Look at the doctors and lawyers. They do not have trade unions but their professional associations look after their interests very well - some would even say too well. Now, I have noted useful ideas from various Members about how the Schools Council should function, for instance, the Member for Bedok, on the involvement of parents, the Member for Buona Vista, concerning the grouping of principals by catchment areas. I will bear these in mind, The Member for Telok Blangah asked whether a Schools Council for primary schools should be formed. The answer is no. Let us start with secondary schools first. If this turns out to be more or less successful, then we can think about primary schools. I will now turn to specific matters raised by some Members.”
“' When I was discussing the composition of the Schools Council with my professional and administrative staff, the inclusion of members of the five teachers' unions was debated at length. We reached the conclusion, and rightly, I think, that so long as they remained trade unions, primarily concerned with the terms and conditions of service of teachers, their membership in the Schools Council would not be right. This answers the point raised yesterday by the Member for Kampong Ubi. I therefore strongly recommend that the five teachers' unions be dissolved and be transformed into one or more professional associations, preferably one; if that is not possible, then they could federate with the other existing professional teachers' associations. When that happens, they will be invited to join the Schools Council where I am sure they will make a valuable contribution. In particular, they can help us to get teachers out of the state of inertia, even despondency which some of them have got into, by tackling the root causes and not the symptoms. As members of a professional association, they are entitled to represent the teaching profession on claims, grievances and grouses about the terms and conditions of service and other matters. But their principal area of concern must be the raising of professional standards. The teachers of our National University had recently closed down their unions, which should never have been formed in the first instance, and formed themselves into a professional association. I strongly urge the five teachers' unions to follow their example. In fact, I see no advantage in the continued existence of the Teachers' Unions. The ultimate bargaining strength of the trade union is the right to strike.”
“" Since then the school inspector made it a point not to visit this school. Perhaps as a result of this, the school came out to be the best of the girls' schools. It has been scoring 100% passes; if not 100%, it is 99.9%. The Member for Anson made some observations on the role of teachers' unions, now that we are going to establish a Schools Council. This is a matter of some importance and, Mr Speaker, with your permission, I will use the prepared text. I must ask the ladies of the press to check against delivery because this was prepared in a rush this morning. Let me remind Members of what the Member for Anson said, and I am quoting from today's Business Times.- 'The Addendum contained a proposal to set up a Schools Council and to venture into the areas of moral education and comparative religion. If these proposals presage an intelligent and determined effort in these directions, as I believe they do, the teachers' unions in Singapore will need to perceive their roles in an altogether new light. For nothing is more important than producing the rounded, balanced and motivated Singaporeans of tomorrow, which can only be the result of conceiving the educational process as an integral body-mind-spirit affair, involving a creative and continuous interaction between students, teachers, the Ministry and the community at large.' The Member for Anson went on to say: 'I do not suggest that the machinery for processing the claims, grievances and grouses of teachers should be dispensed with. But what I do think is crucial is the transformation of teachers' organizations in Singapore into primarily professional bodies much more concerned than they are today with formulating, monitoring and promoting the range of professional interest, standards and values of our educators.”
“This really shows that the time has come for the old guard to retire! I think the Member for Anson has put his finger on the real trouble spot of our education system. He said that schools must not be knowledge factories and the trouble began with the mass production of teachers and mass production of students. Those were the early years and there was no way that we could have avoided it. And now with numbers stabilizing, the time has come when we can spend more time on developing schools and teachers at a more deliberate pace. He mentioned one particular defect in the school system with which I totally agree and, that is, the depersonalization of Government schools because policies were determined by edicts from the Ministry without proper explanation. He made an observation about this with which I totally agree and, that is, aided or mission schools perform well because they ignored the circulars of the Ministry of Education if they thought that it was nonsensical. In fact, quite early when I moved into the Ministry I asked to see an old college colleague of mine, Miss Tan Sock Kern, who had just retired as Principal of the Singapore Chinese Girls' School. I asked Miss Tan, "What is really wrong with this system?" She did not go so far as to say that the Ministry was a complete madhouse, as a teacher was recently reported to have said. She said that the trouble was that directives were issued without proper explanation, and recounted one memorable occasion on which she asked the inspector of schools, "Tell me, why should I comply with this directive?" And the inspector said, "This directive came from on-high." She said, "You go and tell your on-high to explain why I should do it. Otherwise, I refuse to do it.”
“Mr Devan Nair, you are from Mountbatten? An hon. Member: Anson.”
“Sir, I am afraid I am in no position to give the Member an answer. First, we have not got the people with such certificates. Secondly, I do not want to pass the buck but really my colleague, the Minister for Finance, and the Public Service Commission, have got to assess them and equate them to the kind of jobs available. I am sure when the time comes, the exercise will be done.”
“And we decided that that is the wrong way. That is one reason. The second reason is that we want the Institute, concerned with curriculum work, to be close to the Institute of Education because this is where they teach teachers. This is where new ideas should develop about methods of teaching. We are also thinking of the interaction between the curriculum developers and those in the Institute of Education which later would become the College of Education. This is a good place for them. Anyway, that is what we have decided upon. We will give it a try. I now leave the other matters raised by Members to my colleague, the Senior Minister of State for Education. 4.30 p.m.”
“So I hope that our local teachers will not view this exercise as a threat to their career. This does not exist at all because of a serious shortage of graduate teachers; our teachers should regard this exercise as an opportunity and a challenge. The Member for Alexandra wants a progress report. Actually one year has not passed yet. It is a bit early for a progress report. We have from time to time published and made available to the public the various studies we have made about the short-comings and proposals for improvements, such as the one that was published last week about setting up the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore. In a way, we can call this a progress report. But I think the summing up will take a long time. There is a Chinese saying, shi nian shu mu, bai nian shu ren ( ). So he will have to wait 100 years before he can get a proper progress report! The Member wants to know whether or not we could restructure the Ministry's Education Development Division instead of dismantling it, so to speak, and setting up a new Institute somewhere else. My colleagues and our professional staff have been discussing this for many months. We think that the best solution would be to take curriculum development out of the Ministry completely. There are several advantages. One is, if you are in the Ministry, you must report for work at 8.30 a.m. and leave at 5.00 p.m. regularly. If you want to write curriculum work, textbooks or whatever, there is no reason why you should go to office. You can do it at home. In fact, the French Inspector-Generals do all their work at home. But once you are in the Ministry, you become part of the bureaucracy. There is a hierarchy. You have got to progress the matter from one level to another.”
“I just had a report from the selection team yesterday, and the Member for Serangoon Gardens might be interested in a description of some of the applicants. It says: 'Quite a number of them (the applicants) are presently holding responsible positions like Heads of English Departments in secondary schools presiding over sight to 12 English language teachers with freedom in the setting of curriculum and syllabus for the Department and the choosing of school textbooks. Some have experience in the development of new examination papers for use by the local education authority. One of them was an examiner in the Cambridge Examination Board 'O' level and he said he was very impressed by Singaporeans' attitude towards education and life as expressed by a great number of essays which he marked at 'O' level.' He therefore decided to come here and teach. We get good material. Several of these Heads of English departments in the schools have got Masters degrees. So this is the reason, as I said, why we are mounting this special exercise. The result is that we will give for many of our children the kind of education which, if we depended on ourselves, we will not be able to provide maybe until the late 1990's. So it is our children who will benefit. We have to compare the benefits which our children can derive from these teachers tom England, with the benefits from our 317 local English language graduates. Our teachers need not be frightened because, as I said, there are more than 1,000 vacancies. Only 400 will be filled. So there are still another 300 vacancies. And if these expatriate teachers are better, have more experience, and have published books, what is wrong with appointing them as senior subject teachers? Our teachers can learn from them and benefit from them.”
“But as a result of the good terms that we offer, the response to our advertisements has been quite good. There were more than 300 applications. But my guess is that we will probably select only the best, 40 or 50. Some of them are just attracted by the chance, as the Member for Serangoon Gardens has said, "to escape British winter and have a nice time here." We do not want such people. An hon. Member: Hear, hear!”
“The solution is: we must have more qualified teachers to teach English in our secondary schools. Today there is a shortage of 1,000 graduate teachers in English. We are going to recruit another 350; this plus the 50 we have, gives us 400. We are still short; not only is this so in the English subject but also in all other subjects. Again in good schools in the advanced countries, whether they are in Europe, Japan or Australia, teachers in secondary schools are all university graduates. And if we apply this standard, we cannot immediately get so many graduate teachers. But I asked my staff to calculate how many graduate teachers would be needed by the end of this decade to fill all the teaching posts in the secondary schools. The answer was: lower secondary schools 2,900, upper secondary schools 4,500, total 7,400. We have 2,000. So we have to recruit 5,400 graduate teachers in the next 10 years, or 540 a year. There is no chance of getting them. The Public Service Commission has already recognised this as a serious problem. Each year they are offering teaching scholarships. In 1976, they offered 59 teaching scholarships at the University of Singapore. In 1977, they offered 56. In 19,78, they offered 129. Last year, we made a special appeal and the number was increased to 240. But unfortunately most of these scholarships are for the sciences. So we are still very short of graduates in the humanities. Hence it has become very necessary to recruit expatriate teachers. They are of a very high quality because, as the Member for Moulmein has said, we are offering them a lot of pay. The Member for Serangoon Gardens also said that "they will live very comfortably here." I agree.”
“Are they not good enough? The answer is they are good but there are not enough of them. The Member for Moulmein does not like figures but nevertheless I must pour some figures on this. Let us take only English teachers in our secondary schools. In any decent school in England, America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, which are good countries, if you want to teach the language, you must be a university graduate specialising in that language. In other words, our teachers of English in a secondary school should be graduates of English from our universities or other universities. If we impose that requirement, today we will need 1,324 such graduates. How many do we have? We have only 317. So that is one of the reasons why the standard of English here has been going down over the years. More and more pupils in English schools learn English but there are not enough English graduate teachers. That is why last June the Prime Minister called up the senior officers in the Civil Service and the statutory boards and told them that the standard of written English is very poor. May I quote from what he said on that occasion? Some Members might have been present and might be able to recall the caustic comments that he made. He said, "there was a lowering in the standards of both spoken and written English. It will take 10 to 20 years to make up for the omissions of the last 20 years." Then he gave some illustrations from official records "of writing so sloppy that I had to seek clarification of their meanings." Unfortunately, one of the examples he brought out came from the Ministry of Education. He quoted a passage and then said, "I read it over and over again. It made no sense. This is gibberish!" These are products of our schools and our universities. What is the solution?”
“the new exam would become a depressant force, and encourage mediocre teaching and learning.' Yet another critic (Dr P.H. Andrews, Chairman of the Standing Conference of CSE Boards) said that "the common examination was being used as a political football." So let us not believe that just because the British have abolished the CSE, we should also do the same. I think we had better wait and see. If by 1985 and after, this is accepted as something good, maybe we can follow them; but not until then. 4.15 p.m. I now come to expatriate teachers raised by both the Member for Moulmein and the Member for Serangoon Gardens. The Member for Serangoon Gardens raised a number of points on terms of service. I will deal with them first. He says, "Are they graduates of English Language?" In this present exercise, the answer is yes. Not only that, they must have 10 years' teaching experience in a good English secondary school as an English teacher. "Would they have to do ECA?" The answer is yes, they have to do ECA. He might have got the impression that some of these expatriate teachers do not do ECA. We had recruited six grammar school teachers who would concentrate on training a special group of pupils we sent to Hwa Chong Junior College to prepare for Oxford University or Cambridge University entrance examinations; others we intend to send to Redbrick University. So they have to coach these selected pupils of about 150 or maybe a bit more; four teach in English, one in Economics and one in Geography. On hairstyle, there is no problem. We prepared a brochure for applicants and we said that in Singapore they must conform to our hairstyle. We have to ask ourselves: why have we mounted this big exercise to recruit some 400 expatriate teachers? Why can our own local teachers not do it?”
“So the ideologues of the Labour Party say, "Why distinguish those who are less bright from those who are bright? Why not give them one common examination?" That is the idea behind the abolition of the Certificate of Secondary Education. So they appointed a Commission of Inquiry headed by an academic called Dr Waddell. He has tried to devise examinations wherein some questions are difficult and other questions easy. Those who are not so bright will answer the easy questions and those who are very smart will answer the difficult questions. But the problem is that if both categories of pupils pass, how do you grade them? So they have a complicated system of grading, from A to B to C to D - different types of grading. The reaction among the professionals in Britain is highly critical of this move to abolish the Certificate of Secondary Education and to com- bine the CSE and 'O' level. I quote some opinions expressed in the Times Educational Supplement (21.7.78): 'The problems of devising a system that allowed both very bright and less bright children to show their abilities were still there. - Colin Vickerman, Secretary for Examinations of the Joint Matriculation Board.' 'Waddell says they can be overcome but does not say how... - H.O. Childs, AEB Secretary.' 'The scheme . . will greatly affect credibility of the system and perhaps decide whether universities are prepared to put their names on the certificates. - Anthony Hearnden, Standing Conference on University Entrance.' Another critic said (Times Educational Supplement 27.10.78): 'It is only too easy to see how the political desire to bring as much as possible under a single umbrella could cause syllabuses to be trimmed to the limitations of a single examination. If this were to happen . .”
“If after several years we find that they really cannot make the grade, they will go to the extended bilingual stream, and if they cannot pass the extended bilingual stream then they can go to the monolingual stream. I hope I have assured him on this point. Now, on the Certificate of Secondary Education. There is a lot of misunderstanding about this matter. Pupils who sit for and pass this examination will get this certificate as a means of helping them out and not to penalise them, because normally these are the pupils who would have failed their 'O' levels or would have left school with no certi- ficate at all, or they would have dropped out after being over-aged at Secondary 2 or Secondary 3. The purpose of this examination is to help the pupils to complete their education and have the satisfaction of passing at least the Certificate of Secondary Education examination. If they pass well enough, we can give them additional years to do the 'O' levels. The Member has mentioned that this examination is going to be abolished in England. Actually this is a very controversial matter. Even if it is abolished, it is not likely to be abolished before 1985. The British were caught in the egalitarian approach to education. They do not believe in elite schools or super-schools. They say that everybody must go to the same comprehensive school, and classes must not separate the clever children from the less clever children and from the backward children. They have what they call "mixed ability" classes. Once you have that situation, you will still find that when it comes to examinations, some pupils perform better than others. Only 20% of those who start in primary school will get three 'O' levels or better; another 20% will only reach the Certificate of Secondary Education level.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I share with my colleagues, Dr Tony Tan and Mr Chai Chong Yii, the pleasant duty of replying to the points raised by hon. Members. I will confine myself to matters raised by the Member for Moul- mein and the Member for Serangoon Gardens, because I think they have raised some very basic matters. The Member for Moulmein obviously does not like systems engineers. I also suspect that he is weak in Mathematics because he does not like numbers. However, let me hasten to explain to him that there is a difference in the outcome of this year's streaming exercise with that predicted in the Report. The reason is very simple. We decided to be very kind to the children in this year's streaming exercise. The Primary 3 examination was set and 16% failed, which is not very far off from 20%. However, we decided to send only 6% to the monolingual stream. These are the very bad failures, and they have failed once before. 10% were sent to the extended bilingual stream. We are giving them a chance to show their worth. We are so lenient this year that it has become necessary to remind principals that this is not the end of the matter. The idea of streaming is that if a child has no chance to pass the PSLE, then he should go to the monolingual stream and be literate in one language. If he has a chance to pass the PSLE in seven or eight years instead of five years, he should go to the extended bilingual stream. Therefore, those who remain in the normal bilingual stream will be the balance, that is, the brighter children. We, therefore, expect about 95% of PSLE students to pass. But it will take some time to adjust this. I fully agree with the Member for Moulmein that we have to carry out this exercise very carefully and give the children every chance to prove their worth.”
“As we have explicitly stated, the brilliant 8% can look after themselves. We make no recommendations. It is for the 92% who somehow do not fare as well as the 8% that we have to make various adjustments so that they too can develop at their own pace to realise the fullest potential during their school career. That is the purpose of the Report. Mr Speaker, Sir, I have explained why I accept the amendments moved by my colleague, the Minister for Health, and my other colleague, the Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Labour.”
“So there is fierce competition for entry into the best schools. The average students have to be satisfied with average schools, and the slow learners go to the slow schools. So it solves itself. The slow learners can learn at the same pace because they are all slow learners in the school. But since the Japanese parents are also like Singapore parents, they also believe that their children will become dragons and they all want to send their children to the best university, that is, the Tokyo University. Once you have gone into Tokyo University your life is made. You can choose jobs because the big businesses will woo you into their service. You can choose the Government Ministries. Every prestigious Government Ministry, like the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will want your services. From then onwards there is only one way you move - upwards. There is something about Tokyo University which is called Todai - in Chinese it is Tung ta. If you acquire the aura of Todai, this will ensure you success in your post-graduate life. So to get the Todai, you must get to the best secondary schools. To get to the best secondary schools, you must get to the best primary schools. To get to the best primary schools, you must get to the best kindergartens. Therefore, competition begins at the kindergarten stage. Whichever way you arrange your education system, there will still be competition. The best will want the best. The average will lose out to the above average. Many Members have said that in future we must pay greater concern to the majority. This sentiment was warmly received by Members of the House. Quite rightly so. Indeed, the purpose of this Report is to pay more attention to the great majority.”
“Perhaps "wily" or "cunning" is not the right term. But they are a very ingenious people. They know how to get the best of all systems. Look at their school system. They know that if they have common examinations, as we have in the primary school and secondary school at 'O' and 'A' levels, then children of different abilities will be 'showed out' to be different. Many of them will fail and they think that is bad. So they do not have any common examination. Every school sets its own examination and everybody passes. Everybody is happy. Now, what will happen if we were to try it here? At one time we had a semblance of the Japanese system in the sense that we had automatic promotion. The result was that for many school children, as they got promoted upwards, they under- stood less and less of what was being taught. In the end when they failed the Primary School Leaving Examination, they joined the Army as illiterates. But in the Japanese system it does not matter. Here in Singapore you are teaching them in English and if they cannot understand what is being taught in school, they cannot speak in English. But in Japan, if they cannot understand all the kanji and katakana, they can speak Japanese. That is one option open to the Japanese which is not open to us. All Japanese school children move from primary to secondary school and 38% of them go on to the universities. And yet we know for a fact that competition under the Japanese school system is extremely fierce, much fiercer than it is here, How do you explain this? The difference is that their streaming is not within schools, that is, slow learners, average learners, above average and brilliant students. They stream between schools. The best students try to get to the best schools.”
“I think this is really an exercise in semantics. If you cream off the better students and put them in a four-year stream and allow the rest to do the five-year stream, then what is the difference between his so-called common system and the one proposed in the Report? In fact, it is not a common system because there are two streams, one four years and the other five years. Some Members have recommended that when streaming is done they should remain in the same school. I agree with this proposal. I think it is a very practical one and should be a feature of the system. Streaming is invidious and it is against egalitarian instincts and yet most Members have recognised this as necessary, an evil necessity as one Member has put it. The experience in Japan as well as in Taiwan could be instructive. According to the Systems Engineers who studied the Japanese system in more detail than I have, the Japanese do not tolerate inequality among themselves. For instance, in the big Japanese companies, like Mitsubishi or Mitsui Company, the big multi-national companies, the difference in pay between the President, the top executive, and the office girl is only six times; a very narrow margin. This means that, taking the case of a bank which I know of, if the office boy gets one-sixth that of the Managing Director, you have to pay him $30,000 a year. But this narrow margin of income in Japan is just an illusion. The Japanese know that if you want a good man you have got to pay him well. The take-home pay of the Managing Director is peanuts. He finishes it off in one evening out. What he gets is an unlimited expense account, Somebody has calculated that the expense account of Japanese business executives is greater than their total defence budget!”
“Everyone knows that accelerated promotion is seldom practised in schools. Further, he forgets that the five-year stream 'O' level is meant for those who could not do 'O' level in four years. If they can get 'O' level in four years, why spend an additional year? I see no point to this. Where is the stigma in getting your 'O' level in five years or getting your 'O' level in four years? I would have thought that the stigma is more on those who do not get 'O' level at all.”
“For instance, the team of systems engineers who helped me with this Report. They could have got much more pay if they left Government service and work in the private sector. But they found that the work is of value. They found that it was a challenge to their intellect. They believe that the outcome of their work, if successfully implemented, will be of value to Singapore as a whole and they derive enormous satisfaction from this. If we want to get commitment from them we must put them in jobs which are challenging to their minds and in which they can produce results. I must say that quite often they have to work as a team because in solving complicated problems one person alone cannot achieve results. We need a management team to do the job. I make this point because some 45 or 48 engineers have recently been recruited into the Administrative Service and they are now being distributed to the various Ministries. So I do urge my colleagues, the Ministers and Ministers of State in charge of those Ministries, to bear in mind that if they have high-quality talent they must know how to use them. Otherwise, they will lose them. And that is because if the talented ones feel that they are not making any contribution and that their work is not challenging, then the fault is not theirs. I entirely agree with the Member for Anson that we should train our talented young men and women to the highest level of excellence they are capable of and we should not place any constraints or handicaps in the path of their development. That is why I cannot agree with the proposal by the Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Labour that all students should have a common five-year stream for 'O' level and we allow double promotion for high-flyers.”
“Unfortunately, too many of them come back as Engineers. There are not enough engineering jobs in the Government Service to employ all of them. After all, the Public Works Department workshops repair trucks and broken-down bulldozers. How many engineers can they employ? The Telecommunication Authority of Singapore can employ some of the electronic engineers but only a limited number because they find that those produced by the Polytechnic are more useful and down-to-earth. When I returned to the Ministry of Defence in 1970, things were in an awful mess. Quite frankly, it was far worse than the Ministry of Education ever was. This was because of the very rapid expansion that took place in 1968-69 which outstripped all our manpower capabilities. So there was a desperate need for talent of any kind. Fortunately, there were lots of these engineers around. So we got them into Mindef and they assembled themselves into all kinds of teams in logistics, manpower and so on. Eventually we found that their skills acquired in engineering colleges abroad could be put to good use in solving management and administrative problems. We also learned a number of lessons from this exercise. It may be useful if I were to relate this experience to Members, not because it is directly relevant to the Motion but it is relevant as to how best we can make use of high-quality manpower. Of course, there are some who are basically selfish. There is nothing we can do about it. They serve their bond and after that, whatever we do, they say, "Goodbye. Now I want a job in the private sector." There is a lack of commitment. Unfortunately, there are some like that. There are others to whom money is less important than the satisfaction they get from their work.”
“Most Members have to be responsible to their constituents and they want fair play all round. The mere idea of streaming slow learners from fast learners lays it open to the criticism of being elitist. No Member of Parliament can be more fair and more conscious of the rights of the working class than the Member for Anson, Mr Devan Nair. I think what he said on this subject bears repetition and I would want to read extracts from the excellent speech he delivered four days ago. I quote him: 'Egalitarian societies which have sought to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator have invariably come to grief. Thus it is that even in the professedly egalitarian society like the Soviet Union, special schools are provided for the exceptionally gifted and talented, in the spheres of music, art, mathematics and science. My colleagues and I in the NTUC have had no difficulty in satisfying the working class on the ground that talent and ability must be assessed and paid for at their market value and sometimes at their international market value.' Then he goes on to sound a note of warning to the elites, the high-flyers who make their way to the top, and he said: '... our meritocratic elite must never forget that the rewards of their excellence and high performance are ultimately justified only by the quality of their commitment and service to the general social good.' I want to say a few words about the meritocratic elites produced by our educational system over the last decade. Unlike the time when my colleague, the Minister for Law and Science and Technology departed for England on a Queen's Scholarship (I think there were only two of them), today we send more than 200 of our best scholars abroad on various scholarships each year.”
“I stand corrected, Mr Speaker. I am very grateful for the Minister's clarification. My colleague, the Minister for Labour, believes that the standard of Chinese taught in schools should be raised and that an additional year should be allotted for this. I am not sure whether this proposal would be acceptable to the majority of parents. Singaporeans are an impatient people. They want returns from their children very quickly. If we tell the children, "You spend one more year so that your Chinese language can be more proficient", I think it is likely to generate opposition to the Chinese language and may well be counter-productive. However, it is provided in the Report that if some parents want the teaching of Chinese or Tamil or Malay to be of the highest possible standard, then we will make provision for these children. But I do not think we should enforce higher standards all round and ask that 'O' level be done in five years as a consequence of this. I do not think the Chinese schools are going to vanish. In fact, at the instance of the Prime Minister, nine of the best Chinese schools have been selected for special assistance. They will be given extra attention by way of allocation of teachers, provision of teaching aids, new buildings, and so on. They will also be encouraged to receive the best of our primary school leavers. In this way, we would minimise the negative effects on Chinese education in Singapore as a result of parents' preference for education in English. I now come to the controversial subject of streaming. I agree it is a beastly thing to do to children at Primary 3 or Primary 4. I also agree that it offends against the egalitarian instincts of most Members of Parliament.”
“I listened with great attention to what my colleague, the Minister for Health, said about how the brain absorbs knowledge on language when it is presented in the form of phonograms or ideograms. It is just as well that I did not take up Medicine. When I left school I was toying with the idea of becoming a doctor. Then someone told me that I had to know the names of all the bones. I decided that this was too tiresome. Anyway, after listening to his account, I am very glad that I did not take up a medical career. I have great difficulty following his talk. If I understood him right, he was against bilingual education because in the learning of one language one part of the brain is working and if two languages have to be learnt, the same person will find -”
“I assume their approach to the teachers was such that they had to gain their confidence. So I concede the point to the Member for Nee Soon that the morale of teachers is a problem and it is a problem which we have to tackle. Two Members said that we should not take a decision on this and that we had better wait until we get more opinion. I completely disagree with this view. It is not necessary to wait any longer. We spent four days debating on the Motion. Some Members have gone out of their way to seek the opinion of their constituents, parents and teachers in their constituency, and I think we have got inputs from all strata of society and at all education levels. Now, to defer a decision on this is to show a pathetic indecision on the part of the Government, an inability to decide to come to a conclusion when on the whole the response of the general public has been favourable. Secondly, it is implicit in the Motion that there will be flexibility in implementation and that parents' views will be fully taken into account. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Labour has moved an amendment proposing an additional resolution which I accept, that is, in two or three years' time the working of the new system will be reported to Parliament and debated again. The Minister for Health has tabled an amendment proposing two resolutions which again I think will be very useful. In the face of all this, I think we should proceed with the Motion and the amendments. We will be voting on them and not defer a decision on this. Bilingual education has always been a very tendentious issue.”
“If anybody in the Ministry does not know that the better schools are produced by better teachers and that better teachers are more dedicated, then he should not be there. We have to deal with the practical problems of the world and there are enough at hand to occupy our attention. As I said, a new working relationship must be established between the Ministry, schools and principals. We have started it and I hope in course of time it will show results. Many Members were concerned about the morale of teachers and questioned the conclusion of the Study Team that the low morale of teachers was more apparent than real. The Member for Nee Soon put the proposition very succinctly. He said that 72% of those interviewed believed their social status was poor, 92% were worried about too many changes, 82% said they had no chance to air their grievances, 74% claimed that they have no chance for promotion. Then he asked this question: how can only 18% have low morale? The logic of this argument is relentless. If this were a chess game, I say, this is "checkmate." I concede the point to him that the conclusion drawn by the Team is faulty in logic. Having said this, I go on to say that those Members who doubted the conclusion of the Team on the ground that we interviewed only 140 teachers and not 18,000 teachers were on the wrong track. We did in 1977 send confidential questionnaires to 18,000 teachers. Only 30% of them expressed dissatisfaction with the work as compared with a much higher level of dissatisfied teachers encountered by the Systems Engineers. So it is not the number of teachers you get data from that counts, but the way you approach them. It is not true that teachers were overawed by the Systems Engineers who in most cases are much younger than the teachers.”
“Sir, I think the reasons why Government-aided schools perform better than Government schools are known to all Members. It is not necessary to state the obvious. First, they are older schools. Many of them have histories of up to 100 years. My old school celebrated its Centenary only two years ago. Second, many of them, being private schools, have teachers with strong religious backgrounds. They are more highly motivated. I must really give the Member for Whampoa a word of advice. He is an academician. It is very praiseworthy for an academician to want to know everything. But when you are running a Government Ministry and you have to run a policy, there is one state of mind a good administrator and a good policy maker must avoid at all costs. I call it "Child in toy shop syndrome" - what do you want? I want everything! You cannot have everything.”
“Sir, that is the Member's inference. There is nothing said about policy on improving or not improving the teacher/pupil ratio. This is a study on the causes of variation. Then there are other factors listed out in paragraph 5.4: Dedication of teachers, Teacher's teaching method, and Quality of pupils. The Member says, "The Team should have gone into greater detail. Why did they not do it?" The answer is simple. It is not a Ph.D. academic dissertation. The Systems Engineers have to do a practical job and they have got to finish their work in time.”
“What we in the Ministry are thinking of is to make the objective of the Inspectorate different. We feel that they should go to schools, not individually to inspect the teachers but as a team, to see what are the problems facing the school and how teaching methods can be improved. In this way the Inspectorate could assist principals and teachers to achieve better professional standards. In fact, this is the way inspection of schools is done in other Commonwealth countries. But for some reason or other the system of individual inspection of teachers which originated in the long past just kept on going, with very unfortunate results. Here, I come to the comments of the Member for Whampoa about variation in school performances dealt with in Chapter 3 of the Report. The Study Team found considerable differences between schools, insofar as they are judged in terms of percentage passes in Primary School Leaving Examination and 'O' level examination. Some schools have 100% passes and others have about 20% passes. Then the Team examined some of the factors which gave rise to this variation. One would expect that where the ratio of pupils to teachers is small, the school would produce better results. That is the normal expectation: one teacher to fewer pupils. But, in fact, we found the reverse relationship. This is explained by the fact that parents know which are the good schools and send their children to these schools. Parents know also which are the bad schools and avoid them. That is what paragraph 5.3 is about. The hon. Member should have read the first two sentences and then he would have found the reasons.”
“It should be ready and in operation in about 16 months' time, after which if I am still Minister of Education, I will have less reason than my predecessors to make errors in decision making. I think the mechanics of management is not the core problem in our education 2system, even with the computers and even with a better system of decision making. We still have to solve other problems. Members have rightly identified that one of these is creating better relationship, better communication between schools and the teachers and principals and Ministry headquarters. The relationship at present is unsatisfactory. The Schools Division is overhauling the whole system of working. Why is it unsatisfactory? How did it come to such a sad state of affairs? I have gone into this problem in some detail and I have come to the conclusion that the Singapore Teachers' Union must bear part of the blame. This matter has a long history, probably going back to colonial times when teachers felt that they stood in great danger of being victimised by the principals, many of whom were Europeans. And quite rightly the Union insisted that evaluation of teachers should not be left to school principals. In any system in any bureaucracy, once a practice is introduced it goes on. It has its own momentum of inertia. So the result is that when the school inspectors go on their rounds they are regarded as a threat by the principals and teachers. They are there really to find fault and see whether the principals and teachers are doing their jobs properly, whether the drains are properly swept, tuckshops kept clean. We cannot have good relationship between teachers and principals and the Ministry headquarters if the relationship is basically an adversary one.”
“If the adult population which are parents today have not the right quality and the right moral attributes, I do not think we could have made the grade. What concerns me more is the next generation of parents. When children are more and more exposed to influences of modernisation or Westernisation, and their parents, especially the present-day younger ones, have not instilled in them the same conviction of the Confucian ethics or Christian values or what have you, so that they could rub off these on to the children, such moral values will decline. For this reason, we shall have to pay special attention to the teaching of moral education as a subject in schools. The Ministry administration has been criticised severely in the Report. I am very glad to hear some Members saying that Ministry officials should not be regarded as scapegoats. I entirely agree with this sentiment. In fact, the Report has explained at some length the defects of the system and not the inadequacies of individual officers who have to operate the system. In our discussion with them, we found that they are very concerned with the problems. They are very hard working. But at the same time, one gets the feeling that they found the problems facing them rather overwhelming. I brought the team of systems engineers with me so as to try and make improvements. Improvements cannot be done overnight. One of the things which needs to be done very quickly is the installation of a computer. We have asked the Finance Ministry for money, and approval has been forthcoming with unusual speed. It is quite an economical type of computer costing $588,000 only. It is a mini-computer with print-out facilities and 15 on-line terminals.”
“I hope the Minister for Communications' committee will give some thought to this because this is a crucial element. Once we move from the realm of discussion into the realm of implementation, we must get someone who knows how to do it. There are many tricky problems here. Morality is not culture-free. In other words, different peoples and different societies have their own different moral values. Morality is also linked with religion and this is a very sensitive subject in Singapore. Therefore, we should really try to look for a fairly level headed, practical educational expert with experience of curriculum development in this particular field of moral education. It is not true, as some Members have suggested, that moral education is not taught in other countries. Moral education is taught in British schools for instance, though not as a compulsory subject which we intend to make in Singapore. This is a very crucial area in the future development of our educational system. The various views which have been expressed by Members coming from different school backgrounds, different cultural streams, different religions, will be valuable to the Ministry when we plan our programme in this field. Parents have come in for a lot of critical comment, not only in regard to over-pressurising their children but also in regard to their role as moral educators of their children. I am not as pessimistic as most Members are about present-day parents. After all, they must be a pretty good bunch of people. Otherwise we would not have made the grade in the face of so many difficulties, so many problems and so many crises in the last 15-20 years.”
“All these will be duly considered. But I think Members have missed the essential point. So far as the process of education in schools is concerned - and here I am concerned with moral education in schools - we have to embody these ideas, these norms, these principles or whatever we call them, into the teaching system, and this has to be spelt out in the curriculum and syllabuses. What we need now is not so much more ideas about what should be taught. We shall get a fairly good solution - at least I look forward to that - from the committee headed by the Minister for Communications. What we need is not so much more discussion of ideas or content but implementation - how to bring all these excellent and very desirable objectives into a system that can be applied in our schools. Let me explain more simply what I mean. Last night I was at the Conference Hall listening to a concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Then it occurred to me that the whole point about moral education was exemplified by the Conductor of the Orchestra, Choo Hoey. A year ago when I wanted to start the Orchestra, I invited him to Singapore and asked him whether he was interested in starting an orchestra here and becoming the Conductor. He immediately replied yes. He would like to take on the job. I asked him, "Why?" And this is interesting. He has two children and he did not want his children to be educated in Europe. He wants them to be educated in Singapore. He said he came from the Chinese stream. That is one cultural advantage of Chinese education. He is a colleague of the Minister for Communications. So what we really need is a Choo Hoey in the Ministry of Education who can advise the Ministry on how to spell out all these excellent objectives into a working programme.”
“Today, the opportunities for talented young men and women are vast. The whole world is virtually their oyster. Is it to be wondered then that they will try to excel? And they do their best to get four distinctions at 'A' levels, or even five distinctions if we allow them. There is nothing wrong about this. There is nothing wrong about parents pressurising their children to study hard, of course, with the caveat that all this must be done within limits of their children's capability. I do not share the alarm which many Members have expressed about too heavy a pressure on children because of curriculum or monthly tests or whatever. After all, the curriculum at 'O' level is very much the same as the curriculum for Senior Cambridge which the Minister for Labour and I had to sit for in our time. I now turn to moral education. Almost every Member who has taken part in the debate has expressed his strong opinions about this. In my view, we should take special note of the views expressed by the Member for Mountbatten and the Senior Minister of State, Prime Minister's Office, on the dangers of deculturisation. As we move more and more towards a predominantly English form of education, as we are more and more exposed to the media influences coming to Singapore, this would become an increasingly difficult problem to counter. It is a problem because the danger is greatest, not with the least educated but with the most highly educated, as the Member for Serangoon Gardens has explained. It is not a problem with the PSLE failures who are attracted by the counter-culture, but a problem with university undergraduates and even university post-graduates. Many views have been expressed on the content of moral education, how it should be conducted, what kind of citizens we want to produce.”
“Why is it that in our time we took our studies very lightly, whereas today's children are working very hard? Is it because our parents were enlightened whereas today's parents are not enlightened? I do not think so. I think the reason is an economic one. During our time the British were in charge. The good jobs were held by Europeans whether they be in the Civil Service, the Police, the hospitals, the University, in business or in the professions. So the schoolboy at that time saw very little prospect of a satisfactory career. There was very little inducement to excel. In fact, career opportunities were so poor that another colleague, the Minister for Health, seriously contemplated entering the priesthood. Fortunately for Singapore he changed his mind at the last moment and opted for a career as a scientist, so that we are not deprived of his distinguished services to the party, to the Government and to the country.”
“Fortunately, Latin was taught after recess, so I found time during the recess to do Latin homework with the generous assistance of considerate fellow students. When discussing this, Mr Speaker, Sir, you will remember, during the tea break two days ago, that my colleague, the Minister for Law and Science and Technology, did exactly the same thing. He never did his homework. However, he had the misfortune of being caught because I suspect he did not take the precautions which I did. So he was sent to a detention class. But thereafter he decided to do his homework and topped the class each year from then on. He became a model scholar and won the Queen's scholarship. Sometimes I wonder whether I am fit to hold this job. For instance, when I heard the Member for Kampong Kembangan complaining bitterly yesterday that school children instead of studying in tuition classes were actually spending their time frolicking around, I thought that was a sensible thing to do. I would have done it myself. However, as a Minister, I must suppress my instincts. I must work the system, however poor it may be. And I must commend my colleague, the Minister for Law and Science and Technology, as a model student and not myself. An hon. Member: You are being too humble.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, we spent four days debating the problems of education. I cannot, with the time at my disposal, give justice to all the comments made by Members on the subject. I therefore welcome the amendment made by my colleague, the Minister for Health, that a proper account should be taken by the Ministry of Education of the wise words spoken by wise men and that at various stages of implementation, due consideration be given to them. What I can do, with the time at my disposal, is just to refer to some of the more salient points and I will discuss them not necessarily in order of importance. First is pressure on pupils due to an overload of the curriculum, and to allegedly misguided parents who put pressure on their children to perform well in mental tests, and so on and so forth. Many hon. Members have compared the present plight of school children with the happy days they themselves enjoyed while they were in school. The Senior Minister of State (Prime Minister's Office) said that he spent a lot of time during his school days catching fish and flying kites, and so did other Members. I will not let this occasion pass without telling Members how I spent my school days. I regret to say, almost to confess, that my school days were a period of idleness. I showed a total lack of ambition. My parents made no attempt to pressurise me to study. Perhaps I exhibited no dragon-like qualities. Whatever it was, I never did my homework. I did my Mathematics homework during Geography or History periods. For this purpose I found it prudent to get a desk right behind in the classroom so that the distance between the teacher and myself was the maximum.”
“If the Member knows the reasons, then I think the systems engineers are quite right in not giving him the reasons. However, let us not quibble. What is the Member's next point?”
“The Member wants enlightenment on these?”
“Sir, I have no pretensions to holiness of the hon. Member. It is the blue book, Sir.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, on a point of clarification. The Member mentioned some error of logic, error of inference on the part of the systems engineers. I just happened to return at that point. Can the Member give me the chapter and verse?”
“It is important that the problems and difficulties be identified and dealt with before they reach crisis proportions. This requires a more efficient and sensitive management system in the Ministry of Education than now exists. It is particularly important that we get the opinion of school principals and teachers on the way the new system functions. They are the ones who are doing the job; they are in daily contact with school children, and they know what is happening. There has been widespread public interest in the Report and the Prime Minister's comments on it. While this is gratifying, I would like to sound a note of caution against expecting too much too soon. There are no magic cures for our troubles, no quick-fixes and no short-cuts. Ours is probably a unique situation; I have been unable to find any parallel in other countries, advanced or in the third world. But Singaporeans are a resourceful people and have got out of many a desperate predicament, any of which would have overwhelmed a less enterprising people. I believe that we shall find answers to the many questions which are now vexing us. In the fullness of time, we shall build a very good education system. Sir, I beg to move. Question proposed. 3.05 p.m.”