Committee of Supply – Head K (Ministry of Education)

Resumption of Debate on Question [3 March 2020],

"That the total sum to be allocated for Head K of the Estimates be reduced by $100." – [Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng].

Question again proposed.

The Chairman: Ms Rahayu Mahzam.

Support for the Special Needs Community

Ms Rahayu Mahzam (Jurong): In recent years, there has been greater support for students with special needs in mainstream schools. For one, schools are equipped with allied educators who can provide more specialised support. There are also professional development opportunities for teachers to acquire deeper knowledge and skills in attending to students with different needs.

There are some areas which schools could continue to work on, including helping neuro-typical students understand people with different abilities. This could help with normalising differences, reducing occurrences of discrimination or even bullying. There could also be more extensive support in transitioning students through different milestones in their educational journey by creating an ecosystem and support network with teachers, parents, therapists and people in the community.

Having well-trained staff that truly believe in the cause, is key to the quality of support for students with different needs. Can MOE provide an update as well as more information on how it intends to equip educators in mainstream schools with the capabilities and strategies to better support students with special needs?

Uplifting Pupils in Life and Inspiring Families Taskforce (UPLIFT)

Miss Cheng Li Hui (Tampines): Sir, we have good schemes such as the MOE Financial Assistance Scheme and the School Meals Programme to help ease some of the financial burden faced by some of our students.

However, I believe that more can be done to ensure that all our children are given a good start in life. In a recent house visit, I saw two boys standing on the kitchen counter-top and another running around and their great grandmother chased him with a cane. The great grandparents in their late 70s are caring for three boys, age eight, nine and 10. The father has left the family and their mother is a Grab driver. She could not afford much time for them. The seniors told me that it has been difficult as the boys get into disciplinary issues in schools and after-school care. How can the UPLIFT programme identify students and families who need help?

Can the Minister provide an update on our UPLIFT efforts, including how MOE is strengthening after-school support and counselling support to tackle the challenges faced by disadvantaged students. What are the efforts to reduce long term absenteeism and drop out numbers, and have the statistics improved over the past five years?

Update on UPLIFT

Mr Murali Pillai (Bukit Batok): Sir, recently, I met a PE teacher from a school that participates in the UPLIFT programme. He shared that there were occasions where his students did not attend regular classes but would make the time to attend his soccer training sessions instead. Ordinarily, such students would have been barred from taking part in CCA, but what was done here was different and, in my view, "uplifting".

The teacher used the contact time during the training sessions to develop deeper relations with the students and encourage them to improve their class attendance. This changed approach appears to have worked. Quite clearly, though, a lot of effort has to be put in to change the mindset of the students and, on some occasions, their parents too.

May I please ask the hon Minister what are the main problems her colleagues face in the task of ensuring these students under the purview of UPLIFT reach their true potential? What strategies have she and her colleagues identified to overcome these problems? How can we motivate these students to stay the course and how can the rest of the society help?

UPLIFT Programme

Mr Ang Wei Neng (Jurong): Chairman, there are many ground-up initiatives in the community to support children from underprivileged families. In Jurong, for example, we have stepped up our efforts over the years. Two years ago, we started the Jurong Central Student Assistance Scheme or SAS, that helps students from families that receive financial assistance from the Social Service Office. We provide $40 to $50 vouchers per month for each student when they to join SAS with parental consent.

These students are mentored by trained volunteers in the areas of life skills, social skills and leadership skills. If these students are underperforming in their academic studies, we will provide them with free tuition. To-date, 50 students from more than 30 families have benefited from the scheme for the last 20 months. We have managed to get two donors to donate more than $250,000 over five years. We hope to share and scale this scheme.

This is why I was excited to hear about the UPLIFT Community Pilots started by MOE. My experience working with the SAS recipients has shown me that it is not enough to provide financial assistance to students from disadvantaged families. We need to dive deep and understand the needs of the students and families, and provide necessary support like mentorship, so as to monitor, guide and to encourage the students to be the best persons they can be.

I believe MOE's UPLIFT efforts are also in the same spirit, with the aim of providing support holistically to children and families in need. To do so, it is important for us to strengthen and coordinate our efforts across agencies and community partners for these students.

As more than a year has passed since UPLIFT was first announced, I would like to ask MOE for the progress update. Moving forward, how does MOE plan to link up UPLIFT efforts with community initiatives like SAS, so that we can partner the Government to better help those students in need?

Partnership with Parents and Community

Mr Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade): Mr Chairman, last year, the Ministry announced major structural changes to the education system, including the implementation of Full Subject-based Banding in our Secondary schools by 2024.

MOE's efforts are to reduce the overemphasis on academic grades, and help students build confidence and develop a motivation to learn for life. This is a right move. Education is a team effort involving not just the schools, but also parents, teachers, and the community, so that students can develop to their fullest potential.

MOE has made many changes in recent years to work more closely with the community.

Last year, a set of guidelines for meaningful school-home co-operation was released, so parents and schools can work together to enhance children's development. Interestingly, many of the guidelines encourage more "hands-off" parenting. Parents are encouraged to create conducive environments and let their child develop a sense of responsibility, instead of always breaking their fall.

I would like to ask the Minister – have schools noticed a difference after the guidelines were released? If not, what else needs to be done and if yes, what positive signs have we seen? Character building, learning to learn, becoming a better person – all these are much more challenging than scoring straight As.

To take this forward, MOE should build strong partnerships with parents, industry partners, and the community to develop the values, dispositions and skills that will place our students in good stead for the future.

Would the Minister be able to also share details and examples of how we are working closely with our stakeholders to ensure that our students develop the right values, skills and dispositions so that they are future- ready?

Building Strong Partnerships

Miss Cheng Li Hui: Sir, when we talk about education, we are not merely referring to the teachers and schools, or even exams and subjects. It consists of an interrelated group of key stakeholders comprising of teachers, schools, parents and the wider community, so that together they strive to allow our students to develop holistically to their fullest potential.

I am heartened that MOE has made many good changes in recent years to work more closely with the community and to build stronger partnerships. For example, last year, they built up upgrading opportunities for our ITE graduates. There is also enhanced support for disadvantaged students through community partnerships and after-school support.

Looking ahead, how does MOE intend to build strong partnerships with parents, industry partners and the community to develop the values, dispositions and skills that will place our students in good stead for the future?

The Chairman: Minister Ong Ye Kung.

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The Minister for Education (Mr Ong Ye Kung): Mr Chairman, Sir, let me start with Ms Denise Phua's question. Ms Phua asked if MOE has a transformation map. Two years ago, we launched something like that. We launched a reform movement of the education system and we called it "Learn for Life". But Members are probably not very familiar with it because we did not launch everything we want to do with a big bang, so no big headlines. Instead, we paced out the announcement of each thrust of the movement, adopted multi-year implementation plans, so that schools, parents and students can fully understand the changes and can adapt to these.

Today, let me do three things. One, I will give a short update on what we have done so far. Two, I will talk about the new things we are doing – yes, we are doing some new things. Three, I will tie them altogether.

Let us start with a progress update. We have rolled out four thrusts to improve the system we have today.

The first is nurturing the "Joy of Learning". Mr Murali Pillai and Mr Lim Biow Chuan have asked for an update on this.

Joy of learning does not mean schools should be just all fun and games. Joy comes from purposeful learning, from a sense of progress and fulfilment by doing something challenging, hard and meaningful. Then, you feel a sense of accomplishment and you get joy from that.

A major move is the changes we are making to the PSLE scoring system. We will grade students in wider bands, what we call Achievement Levels, as opposed to differentiating them very finely through today's T-scores. We hope this will change the psychology of students and parents towards PSLE and reduce the over-emphasis on academic results.

The new scoring system, its biggest impact, actually, is that it will affect Secondary school postings and parents are naturally anxious. We will help students and parents familiarise themselves with this new system.

Sometime later this year, we will release simulated cut-off points under the new PSLE scoring system for selected Secondary schools. This will be based on last year’s Secondary One Posting Exercise and PSLE results. Next year, we will release another set of simulated cut-off points based on this year’s Secondary One Posting Exercise results. So, two sets of simulated cut-off points before the system goes live in 2021. But please remember these are simulations. It is not that these are definite cut-off points. There can be changes from year to year, as choice patterns change. And when the system goes "live", cut-off-points can change further. Notwithstanding this, we hope that by giving parents information early, we can better support them in making Secondary school choices for their children.

Another major move is the reduction of school-based exams. All Primary schools have removed exams for Primary 1 and 2. This year, 60% of Primary schools would have no Primary 3 and 5 mid-year exams. By next year, it will be 100% based on our implementation schedule.

As for Secondary schools, all have removed Secondary 1 mid-year exams. This year, more than 90% will be removing Secondary 3 mid-year exams. By next year, it will be 100% too.

Some schools, such as the School of Science and Technology (SST), have removed mid-year exams for Secondary 1 to 3 in one shot. When I visited the school, the students I spoke to were very happy with the change. They said with the time freed up, they can now do interesting hands-on stuff like coding, designing robots, making prototypes and so on.

With more freed up time, other schools such as Gan Eng Seng Secondary introduced a programme called the Learning Fortnight. Students take up electives, like Universities. They do projects, learn a new sport, attend enrichment activities, and enjoy them.

However, in general – I will be honest – I think the responses have been varied. When I speak with Primary school students, most will say, "Hooray, fewer exams", so they are very happy. But many Secondary school students told me they are not happy; they prefer to have mid-year exams. It may surprise you but it is true. They say, "Now, without the mid-year exams, we have all these continuous mini-assessments throughout the year. That is more stressful!" So, I told these students that they have gotten used to exams, which is why we have to change.

On the other hand, Primary school students, their learning habits have yet to be formed and, therefore, they welcome the change.

So, I advised the Secondary students that these exams are really part and parcel of learning, and they are really not high-stakes. The mini-assessment is not going to affect your future – not very likely.

So, focus on learning throughout the year, rather than cram your studies and "mug" just before exams; that is a less effective learning habit. Along the way, seek your teachers’ help when necessary and schools will do their best to help you progress.

As Mr Lim Biow Chuan pointed out, many students and parents have deep-seated mindsets about exams – not easy to change. But we are trying to change the paradigm. So, instead of tests and exams, the desire and joy of learning should be at the centre of school life.

Indeed, as the Member has said, the stakes of exams are high actually because of admission into the next level of education – from PSLE to Secondary school, Secondary school to Polytechnic or Junior College (JC).

That is why MOE has been very active in reviewing admission systems across levels. We reviewed the Direct School Admission (DSA) system for Secondary school students. We introduced aptitude-based admission systems for our Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs). We have done that; the Polytechnics went first. Right now, the Universities are doing it with great rigour.

The different admission systems are still being refined to reduce the over-emphasis on exam results, and more changes will come in the coming years.

Now, the second thrust of "Learn for Life" is "One Secondary Education, Many Subject Bands".

At last year’s Committee of Supply debate, I announced the phasing out of Secondary school streaming by 2024 and replaced it with Full Subject-Based Banding or Full SBB. Mr Charles Chong and Mr Murali Pillai have asked for an update.

As Members know, this year, 28 Secondary schools are piloting Full SBB. They are implementing the following two changes.

Number one, allowing lower Secondary Normal stream students to take Humanities subjects at a more demanding level. Of all the Secondary 2 students who are offered this option, more than two-thirds took it up, and that is encouraging.

The second change is more interesting – which is that schools are re-organising form classes so that they comprise students from different streams. The form classes take some subjects together, such as Art, PE, CCE and Design & Technology. For other subjects, students will split up into different classes based on their subject bands. Of course, we designed all these before COVID-19 but now we have a situation to manage.

Some schools have organised the form classes by CCAs, others by their "House" systems. Most schools just like Deyi Secondary School, placed students in classes to ensure a good balance of stream, gender, race as well as learning needs.

Deyi Secondary held an orientation camp for the Secondary 1 students to get to know one another. The teachers told me that during the camp, they made a point not to look at the background of the students. They did not know what stream the students were from during the camp, so that there would be no pre-conceived notions. They observed the students, identified those with leadership skills and initiative, and after the camp was all over, they appointed them as class leaders. After that, they opened the file and looked at the background of the students. To their great delight, the leaders comprised students from Express, Normal (Academic), and Normal (Technical) streams as well. The character of the students shone through regardless of their streams.

Another teacher at Deyi reflected how Full SBB is changing his subconscious mindset. He spotted a student with long hair. He proceeded to stop the student and asked the three standard questions that he would pose in such a situation.

First question: "Boy, what is your name?”. The boy told the teacher his name. Let us say his name is Bono.

Second question: “What level are you?” The child said, “Secondary 1, teacher.”

Then, he asked the third question: “Which class are you from?” And Bono said, "1-Determination."

Then, the teacher got stumped. Because in the past, if you know the class, you know the stream of the child. Now "1-Determination" told him nothing. He did not know what stream the child is from.

And then he realised all this while, his line of questioning in such a disciplinary situation was to find out the stream of the child. He reflected to himself: why is that relevant? This is not about whether an Express, Normal (Academic) or Normal (Technical) student has broken a school rule. Bono needs a haircut – that is all.

It is possible that some of us may well have this subconscious mindset. But this teacher was really wise, brave and honest to be aware of it, and to acknowledge it.

Important social dynamics are changing in these schools. We will learn from the experiences of the pilot schools and roll out Full SBB nationwide by 2024.

The third thrust is "Education as an Uplifting Force". Inequality is an issue every society has to grapple with and education is the best social leveller.

We are doing a lot more to tackle inequality through education, including investing significantly in pre-school education, setting up more student care centres, enhancing bursary schemes, implementing targeted programmes that bring social partners and community partners together. Second Minister Indranee will speak more about this later.

With a good foundation, almost all our students today progress to post-Secondary institutions today. Seventy percent – the large majority – goes to Polytechnics or Autonomous Universities.

Mr Ang Wei Neng was worried about affordability of course fees for the lower income group. That is why at the National Day Rally last year, the Prime Minister announced a significant increase in tertiary education bursary quanta for lower income groups. So, for a student from the lowest income group, he pays $150 in annual course fees in Polytechnic, and $2,000 in annual course fees for a general degree in the Autonomous Universities. If that is still too much, he can take up a tuition loan.

When they graduate, 90% of them who want to join the labour force find work within six months; that is our track record. Starting salaries have also been going up.

By the time they step into the workforce, they would have more or less pressed a reset button that mitigated their childhood disadvantages. This is uplift in action, where all young Singaporeans can access opportunities, because we have a stable country, a growing economy and a good education system.

The fourth thrust is "Learning Languages for Life".

Ms Tin Pei Ling and Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked about MOE’s bilingualism effort. I thank Mr Lim for sharing his personal experience in two languages. I will answer the Member in one. The Member lamented that he only realised the importance of Mother Tongue Language (MTL) in adulthood, after he stepped into his professional life.

Unfortunately, some things do not change, and I think many of our students will still feel the same way as Mr Lim when they grow up.

Hence, it is critical to start as young as possible and make students interested in learning MTL.

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This requires schools and families to complement each other's efforts. Families can provide an immersive MTL environment at home. Then, schools carry on the work, starting with kindergartens putting stronger emphasis on the teaching of MTLs in pre-schools, which we have started to do.

We have also introduced targeted programmes. In Primary schools, we introduced a Mother Tongue Support Programme for Primary 3 and 4 students who have a weak command of MTL. Last year, 60 pilot schools enlisted 1,100 students. It will be fully rolled out to all schools in 2021.

For students who are strong in MTL, we introduced the Language Elective Programme (LEP) in 15 Secondary schools this year. The Programme supports students to attain a higher level of MTL proficiency and acquire a better understanding of their culture. About 250 students took it up, which is an encouraging start.

It also helps to have specialised schools, like the Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools and programmes like the Elective Programme in Malay Language for Secondary Schools (EMAS) and the National Elective Tamil Language Programme (NETP).

In other words, let us not shy away from doing what it takes to preserve the use of MTLs. The world is moving towards bilingualism, even multilingualism. We have an advantage because of our ethnic diversity and bilingual abilities. We must not only preserve this advantage, but strengthen it further.

Let me move to the next part of my speech today – the new things MOE plans to do. They have to do with curriculum – what we teach and how we teach.

We need to refresh our curriculum to evolve with the needs and realities of the times. But any changes to curriculum must be very carefully considered. It shapes the values, attitudes, mindsets and competencies of an entire generation. It gives meaning to MOE's mission of "moulding the future of the nation".

For example, we introduced Values-in-Action (VIA) in 2012 to foster social responsibility amongst young Singaporeans. Today, you can see its imprint in our young Singaporeans, in the way they look at social issues. I do think it has an imprint.

As Dr Intan and Mr Ang Wei Neng pointed out, events like the COVID-19 outbreak also offer a valuable opportunity in education. Schools today are placing strong emphasis on personal hygiene and on social responsibility. If we keep all these practices up, even after the crisis has blown over, I think we will have a generation of Singaporeans who will be much more resilient to infectious diseases.

Today we face new challenges and realities that necessitate a refreshing of our curriculum. They are in three areas: first, in Character and Citizenship Education (CCE); second, Knowing Asia; third, Digital Literacy.

I will start with CCE. I thank Dr Intan, Mr Zainal Sapari, Mr Ang Wei Neng, Dr Lim Wee Kiak and Mr Yee Chia Hsing for asking about this. There are a few components to our CCE today, such as the teaching of values, National Education, Social and Emotional Learning, and Education and Career Guidance.

In 2016, we started a comprehensive review of the CCE curriculum. The more we progressed in the review, the more we thought it in urgent need of change. Why is that so?

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 – one day, one night. 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 do not think we fully understand what our young are going through.

The impact of technology on students and on children is complex and multi-faceted. But let me just highlight one of the most significant effects, which is that technology presents children with the influences, choices and decisions previous generations never had to contend with.

In an online world, you can be anonymous and there are no policemen, no editors, no verifiers. A child can choose to be nasty and then get away with it. Whereas in the real world, it is not easy to say something nasty to your friend in the face; a punch can come back. In fact, sometimes there is nothing very social about social media.

More importantly now, with a powerful device in their hands, our children can decide: do I use it to acquire knowledge for learning, or access undesirable materials? Do I use it to keep in touch with family and friends, or get addicted to digital entertainment? Do I use it to record beautiful memories, take pictures with my friends or intrude into the privacy of others, or worse, commit a sexual offence?

How do we ensure that our young make the right choices and survive well in an online world? I think digital world problems require analogue world solutions. It goes back to our values, our morals, our humanity. Values are what distinguish us from computers and machines, and that we cannot abdicate to technology. We apply our moral and values system whether we are offline or we are online. We determine the purpose of technology, we determine the purpose of devices.

Dr Intan said that values are more often caught than taught. I think both are needed. Families play a big part in instilling them in the young, at home. But schools can then work with parents and make a big difference too. We need to update the CCE curriculum to reflect this imperative and reinforce the teaching of values in our children from as young an age as possible. So, we will build on the existing CCE curriculum and strengthen it with the following five changes.

Number one, we will restructure formal CCE lessons to reinforce the teaching of moral values. Today, CCE lessons cover both character and values, and also citizenship. For Primary 1 to 3, we will henceforth devote the bulk of CCE lessons to character and values. As the Chinese saying goes, "品德在先，学术在后" – values before academics. We will emphasise respect and care for others, honesty, humility and kindness. They must also learn resilience and courage. Our children need to learn to stand up against discrimination, against bullying – of all kinds and regardless of who the victim is.

Many of these lessons will be taught in MTL from Primary 1 to 6. We will therefore better align the CCE and MTL lessons – ensure that the standard of the language is appropriate and engage students in much more interesting ways. From Primary 4 to 6, we will broaden the existing Form Teacher Guidance Period to include National Education and citizenship topics – values relevant to us as a nation. For these topics, it is more meaningful to have a diverse group of students from all communities and therefore, these classes will continue to be taught in English.

The second change, we will place more emphasis on cyber wellness. We will devote more time and develop more materials to teach this subject, so that students will learn to critically evaluate what they read online, be able to tell genuine news from falsehoods and not rely on social media "likes" for validation. They need to be able to say no to bad influences, and protect themselves from cyber bullies and predators.

Several Secondary schools – in fact, 11 – have piloted the new CCE curriculum on cyber wellness. I visited one of them – New Town Secondary – and observed a class on the topic of cyber bullying. This was conducted via a video case study and students were asked at every juncture of the story to vote and decide how the story would unfold. So, they could tell how their decisions affected the outcome of the story. I could tell the situation resonated with them and the students were very engaged.

To me, the lesson that day was quite clear. The lesson is: if you encounter cyber bullying, seek help and support, do not retaliate. That day, the students voted for retaliation, even though I was sitting there! And the ending did not turn out well. This is one way we are using more authentic scenarios, immersive modalities and giving students more voice and agency to bring CCE to life – not just for cyber wellness, but for all aspects of CCE.

The third change, the CCE curriculum will have greater focus on mental wellness, which is closely related to cyber wellness. We already teach students socio-emotional competencies today. The new CCE curriculum will seek to strengthen one important aspect, which is peer support. Second Minister Indranee will speak more on this topic.

Fourth, we will expand our efforts to engage secondary school students more actively on contemporary issues through CCE lessons.

This is already done today. We will explore more topics, find ways to engage students more deeply and increase the frequency of these lessons to at least once a fortnight.

Climate change, as Miss Cheng Li Hui and Mr Yee Chia Hsing suggested, could be one of these issues. Other examples could be Government policies, social inequality, race and religion, online falsehoods and so on and so forth.

Mr Leon Perera suggested including a subject like Theory of Knowledge (TOK) into our school curriculum. MOE is quite reluctant to over-crowd our curriculum. It is already quite a heavy curriculum, especially given that TOK is a pre-university subject for the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

Some of these contemporary issues and the discussion of them will help hone the critical thinking skills of our students. They may be sensitive to discuss, but they are important to help our students better understand the complexities of our country and our life. MOE will develop the resources and methodologies. Teachers will guide students to listen attentively, converse respectfully and be open to differing perspectives.

Finally, given the expansion of the CCE curriculum, we will need to have more time to teach it. We will have to, as Miss Cheng Li Hui suggested, further integrate CCE into school lessons and activities, such as CCAs, camps, learning journeys and Values-in-Action.

With these changes, every school experience can be a CCE lesson. Every teacher can be a CCE teacher. And every school a good school, of course. It should become a whole-school approach. This is happening in some schools, but we will implement it system-wide, be more deliberate about CCE and make learning intentional rather than incidental.

The new CCE curriculum will be progressively implemented from 2021 in all Primary and Secondary schools.

The second area of curriculum review is Knowing Asia. Several Members, such as Ms Foo Mee Har, Mr Murali Pillai and Mr Teo Ser Luck, have explained why this is important. Suffice to say that Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. Together with China, India, Japan and Korea, they all form part of our natural hinterland.

Singapore-based enterprises need to be able to venture out to the region. And Singaporeans must be able to play a part in it. To do so, we need to be equipped with the relevant knowledge, language and cultural skills. But, like all skills, it takes many years, even decades of experience, to become a country or a regional expert. What the education system can do, is to get our students started young and expose them to the region. As a start, we will do this in three ways.

First, through our Humanities curriculum. It must provide students with a deeper appreciation of the geographies, histories, cultures, languages and economies of our regional countries. We will give the study of Asia its due emphasis in Humanities subjects.

For example, in history, students will learn more about the Vietnam War and how developments in Southeast Asia is intertwined with the complexity of the Cold War. In Social Studies, students can learn about the importance of ASEAN centrality.

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Second, we will leverage overseas trips. Overseas trips have taken a backseat due to COVID-19 but I am sure, in time, the crisis will blow over.

The younger ones in schools attend student exchanges, cultural enrichment or embark on service learning projects. The older ones in IHLs typically go for overseas internships and immersion programmes in a foreign education institution. These have been effective in building their cross-cultural skills, resourcefulness and resilience. Students generally enjoy overseas trips, but I think their favourite destinations are still New York and London.

We will organise more trips to Asian countries and encourage students to participate in them. Students from the West are flocking here to experience Asia because of the cultural diversity and the exciting economic opportunities. Our students should do so, too. This is our own backyard and, here, we will always have a natural competitive advantage. We will need that mindset shift that Mr Teo Ser Luck talked about.

As announced by Deputy Prime Minister Heng in the Budget Statement, our aspiration is "70-70". I would like to assure Mr Saktiandi Supaat that the target includes our ITE students. This means to have 70% of IHL students undergo an overseas stint and with 70% of that going to ASEAN, China or India. Today, the numbers are about "50-50". So, it is not an exclusive experience, as Mr Faisal Manap puts it. But there is room to do more.

Third, we can know our region better through the learning of languages. A good start is to learn our Mother Tongue Languages (MTLs) better. Where possible – I keep coming back to learning MTL better – and if the students have the aptitude and interest, we will also encourage the learning of third languages. For most students, this will be at a conversational level and it is not examinable.

So, to Mr Chen Show Mao’s suggestion – I know the Member has been raising this every year – that MOE make the learning of conversational Malay compulsory in Primary school, I think it is better that we continue to emphasise the learning of a student’s own MTL. As it is, many students are already finding that quite challenging. But we have been encouraging students to learn the language of another community at a conversational level. Today, about 60% of Primary schools and 40% of Secondary schools offer Conversational Malay and Chinese. We are encouraging more schools to do so and more schools will do so.

There is also value for our young to learn to converse in regional languages, as Members have suggested. We will pair the learning of conversational ASEAN languages with overseas school trips. MOE will start with Vietnamese and Thai. That way, learning is more meaningful and can be immediately applied and more students can access it.

The third area of curriculum review is digital literacy. Ms Denise Phua, Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar, Miss Cheng Li Hui and Mr Ang Wei Neng spoke about this. We all know how digital literacy is important for our young. I do not have to explain this.

But what are the responses? One popular response around the world is "Let us make coding compulsory in schools!" But that is too simplistic. Not everyone will grow up to be a coder. Many of us just need to learn how to use technology and software and be comfortable with using them. Further, programming languages will become outdated by the time the students graduate.

Another popular response is, "Let us give every student a digital device". It is not a bad idea, but it can do more harm than good if the device becomes another gadget that is a big distraction for the student. So, if we want to do this, we must do it in the right sequence – make sure that the curriculum is rightly designed, teachers are equipped with the suitable pedagogical skills, then use the device to enhance teaching and learning.

We need to think about digital literacy more deeply and holistically, rather than simply implementing immediate things that come to mind. One way is to think of digital literacy like language literacy. There are important similarities between the two.

First, both are generative or seminal skills, allowing a learner, after you have learnt it, to access knowledge in other domains.

Second, both require an immersive learning environment. We do not teach children language just through the formal lessons, but within a holistic and immersive environment. Likewise, we should embed digital literacy within our overall school curriculum and not as a standalone subject.

Third, we can break digital literacy into productive and receptive components – listen and speak, read and write. In Chinese – 听，说，读，写。 We are conscious of how we teach each of these components, how they relate to each other and how they reinforce each other.

We, too, can break digital literacy down into different components. The framework MOE has adopted is: find, think, apply and create. They represent the different and mutually-reinforcing aspects of digital literacy.

Recognising the importance of digital literacy, MOE will launch a National Digital Literacy Programme (NDLP). This is MOE’s contribution to the national effort, with a focus on schools and IHLs. Let me explain what the NDLP entails using the four components I have just mentioned.

The first component is “Find”. It means being able to gather and use information and data from digital resources. Our young have no problem doing that; they are digital natives. Their challenge is how to do it in a constructive, safe, responsible and ethical way. This will be taught through the cyber wellness component of the new CCE curriculum that I spoke about earlier.

The second component is “Think”. This is the ability to manage, analyse, interpret and understand data and then solve problems systematically. These are skills largely found in what we call computational thinking. But we do not need a new subject called computational thinking. The elements are present in existing subjects, especially Mathematics, where there is a strong focus on problem solving already. What schools can do is to explicitly draw out the learning points from Mathematics.

Let us take an example – the teaching of prime numbers. I hope Members remember what prime numbers are. A prime number is one that is not divisible by any other number. Today, teachers typically explain the process to identify prime numbers as follows: for a set of numbers, say one to 100, cross out one, then the teacher will say, "Then, all the higher multiples of 2, cancel off; then all the higher multiples of 3, cancel off; we skip 4 because it is divisible by 2; and then we go to 5, you skip 6 and go 7 and, finally, what you are left with are prime numbers." All of us went through that, right?

In future, to be more explicit about developing computational thinking, teachers can challenge students to write a simple program to follow that same logical sequence. Through such an exercise, students learn various programming structures, such as loops and conditions. One common programming logic is: "if, then, else". So, applied to this example, if a number is a multiple of 2, then you take it out, it is not a prime number, or else you retain it as a possible prime number and you loop back and you try with 3 and then 5, 7 and so on. With this, the already renowned Singapore Mathematics curriculum has received another upgrade!

The third and biggest component is "Apply". We need to teach students to use software and devices productively to learn to work for daily living across different contexts. A major initiative in this area is the Singapore Student Learning Space (SLS). This is a dynamic online learning portal. Almost the whole of our curriculum is on SLS, complete with animation, interactives, videos, assessments and other resources.

To Mr Chen Show Mao's question, we started building it a few years ago, way before there was COVID-19. The idea is not to make students learn completely online and not have to go to school. The quality and outcomes of e-learning will never be the same as a physical learning environment with teachers, friends, CCAs and a social setting. Neither are we using SLS to make the classroom high-tech and futuristic.

What we want to do is to use SLS to enhance the classroom experience. Let the technology fade into the background, and let the interaction, thinking and discussion come to the fore. Flip the classroom, give students more voice, make learning become collaborative. Then students are more likely to internalise the lessons and achieve better education outcomes.

So, we got eight schools to start a pilot project where teachers conducted lessons using SLS and gave every student a personal learning device to access the SLS portal and we learned many things from this pilot project.

First, teachers cannot teach the traditional way. They need new pedagogies – e-pedagogy. I witnessed some of these lessons. They are nothing like the lessons that I went through as a kid.

At Orchid Park Secondary, I saw how a Mathematics teacher, Mr Marwin Low, used SLS to teach students about angles within a diagram. So, after the students logged on to SLS, they were shown a quadrilateral on screen. The students could drag each of the corners and change the shape and size of the quadrilateral. But no matter how they manipulated the diagram, a display at the side will show that the addition of all the interior angles was always 360 degrees. The concept is presented visually and it is very clear.

They were then presented with various tasks, which they had to solve and use SLS to key in their answers. Students can remain anonymous and give themselves nicknames. They could also see each other's answers, comment on them or pose questions. In this online space, anonymity is put to good use as the students experience a much higher level of psychological safety in learning, as Prof Lim Sun Sun puts it.

The teacher could monitor the answer given by every student in real-time, through a heat map. If the heat map is filled with green dots, it means everyone got the answer right and the lesson carries on. If it is all red dots, it means everyone has got it wrong, and the teacher had better re-teach the concept. If it is mostly green with some red dots, it means that some students need coaching and the teacher will know who they are and can intervene accordingly.

At last year’s Malay Language Anugerah Arif Budiman Teachers’ Award, one of the winners was Cikgu Siti Mariam from Crest Secondary. I asked her how she managed to make her MTL lesson interesting and engaging. She said she used digital technology. In her case, she incorporated her students' interest in photography into the lesson. The students would take photos using their mobile devices, prepare a photo story in Malay and then upload it on an online platform and share it with the rest of their classmates.

There are many ground-up digital lesson plans that teachers have created and uploaded onto the SLS platform to share with their colleagues. So, we are now crowd-sourcing digital lesson plans. And I think we are still just scratching the surface of this very powerful SLS tool.

A second important insight from this pilot is that to conduct e-learning, it is very useful for every student to have a personal learning device. Device sharing makes learning sub-optimal. A device is as essential for e-learning in a digital learning classroom, just as paper and pen are for a traditional classroom.

A third lesson is that having issued a device to every student, there has to be controlled access so that the device is used for education and learning and not other distractions. The pilot schools have effectively addressed this through device usage control. It can access educationally meaningful sites on the Internet, but online games and Korean dramas are out. It will also monitor students’ use of the device and where they have gone to. Some students are naturally disappointed with the limited functionality of their devices, but it is a necessary thing to do. It is consistent with a common school practice where mobile phone usage is disallowed during school hours.

11.15 am

We are now ready to expand the pilot programme. Over the next few years, MOE will progressively roll out this new way of teaching nation-wide, to all Secondary schools.

By 2024, we will equip every school with e-pedagogy capabilities and every single Secondary 1 student with a personal learning device. This could be a tablet, a laptop or a chromebook. By 2028, all Secondary school students will be equipped with a digital device and this will address the concerns of Ms Denise Phua and Dr Intan.

We will make sure that the device is affordable. Given that it is primarily used for learning and education, we do not intend for it to be a high-end device. We will use a bulk tender to lower the price further, probably, I think, to a few hundred dollars.

Students can pay for the device through their Edusave accounts. The Government contributes to it annually. Last year, we raised the Government's annual contribution to the Edusave accounts. We also provided a $150 Bicentennial Bonus top-up for all Primary and Secondary Singaporean students.

This year, and in anticipation of the full roll-out of this initiative, we will provide another $200 top-up to the Edusave accounts of all Singaporean students in Primary and Secondary schools. This will cost $75 million.

We expect most students to have enough balance in their Edusave accounts to pay for the device. Some who have used more of their Edusave funds might have to fork out a bit of cash. But MOE will provide further subsidies for students from lower income household groups and ensure that their out-of-pocket cost is $0.

The last component of the digital literacy framework is "Create". It is the productive mode, that is, the ability to code a programme, develop an app, create a website, design a game and collaborate with others in the process.

Many Secondary schools are leveraging Applied Learning Programmes to get students to develop software or programme robots.

We will also expand the number of schools offering "O" Level computing, from 22 to 30 schools; and "A" Level computing from eight Junior Colleges (JCs) to 10 JCs.

To Ms Denise Phua's question, MOE has also partnered the Special Education (SPED) schools to customise digital literacy to the learning needs of their students. For example, Pathlight School offers "O" Level computing. For home-schoolers, they can refer to materials that MOE has made available to the public.

Mr Ang Wei Neng asked about the efforts at IHLs in pushing digital literacy. IHLs are setting baseline digital competency requirements for all their students. For example, at SMU, students take a module on Introductory Statistics. At Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), computational thinking is a compulsory Year 1 foundational module.

The IHLs are also upgrading their curriculum for sectors that require more advanced digital skills, such as cybersecurity, finance, manufacturing and logistics.

In the last three years, the Autonomous Universities (AUs) have trained about 1,000 ICT graduates annually. But the AUs know that the industry is hungry for more talent and have been working very hard to expand the capacity of ICT courses. Today, they are taking in a total of 2,800 ICT students a year, almost three times more than before. And we will find ways to ramp up the capacity further if need be.

I have spoken about many changes in the education system. Let me now tie them all together.

The most important common success factor for all the changes we are making is our teachers. I think we have the best teaching force in the world to make our education reforms a success.

Over the years, we have been able to recruit very good teachers. Many are attracted to the noble mission of education, in helping to mould the future of our nation.

Having recruited teachers, we then need to continue to invest in their professional competencies, a point alluded to by Mr Murali Pillai and Miss Cheng Li Hui.

So, MOE surveyed our teachers and asked them, given the changing education landscape, what kind of skills do you need most? So, they provided their inputs and the following are the six competencies that teachers told us they needed.

One, assessment literacy. As we reduce exam load, teachers want to be able to use other assessment tools, such as project work, quizzes and class presentations.

Two, 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.

Three, differentiated instruction, so that in more diverse classrooms, teachers can teach in a way that caters to the different strengths and learning needs of the students.

Four, support for students with special educational needs. About 80% of our students with special educational needs (SEN) are in our mainstream schools today. Teachers want to have a better understanding of their needs and support them better.

Five, e-pedagogy, so that they can use digital technology effectively to enhance learning and especially with the NDLP.

Finally, CCE, number six, so that every school experience can be a CCE lesson and every teacher a CCE teacher.

Some may ask: how will older teachers keep up with all these new demands in education? I think it is a misperception that older teachers, and for that matter, older workers, cannot keep up with changes.

Senior Minister of State Chee Hong Tat was a guest-of-honour at the Distinguished Chinese Language Teacher Awards Ceremony last year. The most experienced award recipient was Mdm Lee Pick Siew. She has taught Chinese for 24 years at St Joseph's Institution (SJI).

Senior Minister of State Chee spoke to her about education technology. It turns out Mdm Lee is a firm believer in using technology to teach languages. She told Senior Minister of State Chee that technology will not replace teachers, but teachers who know how to use technology will replace those who do not know how to use technology. And that is coming from the most senior teacher that evening.

Others are concerned that with professional development, teachers will have one more thing to worry about, on top of their teaching and administrative duties.

But professional development is not new. Teachers have been doing it for many years.

Our teachers were very forthcoming with their input because they want to learn, be good at what they are doing and grow in their careers. They do not see professional development and teaching duties as a zero-sum game.

But to make sure that the training is useful, it is important that teachers decide for themselves what kind of training they need. This is the essence of professional autonomy – teachers taking ownership of the tools of their craft. It is essential in determining the standards of practice, developing mastery, deepening capabilities and instilling professional pride. If you cannot do that, you are like a chef who just reheats the food that somebody else cooked.

The concept of professional ownership applies to all industries, trades and crafts and, in fact, this is a core philosophy of SkillsFuture.

So, in MOE, when we were thinking how do we name this significant initiative to upgrade the skills of our teaches, we came up with the name "SkillsFuture for Educators".

Mr Chairman, Sir, let me conclude and summarise the key thrusts of our reform efforts. With your permission, Sir, may I request that the Clerks distribute a handout to Members, please?

The Chairman: Yes, please. [A handout was distributed to hon Members.]

Mr Ong Ye Kung: As you can tell, it is a MOE designed handout. It is what Second Minister Indranee calls, the "Tree for Life".

At the very base, the ground, it represents our mission which is UPLIFT, making sure that every child has opportunities. No child is left behind because of their family backgrounds. Second, the roots represent the cornerstone of our education system which is bilingualism and learning languages for life. Then, the stem and the branches represent significant structural changes that we are making – the first structural change is to nurture the joy of learning, by making changes to the PSLE scoring system, reducing examination load. The second structural change is to phase out streaming and replace it with Full SBB. And then, the leaves and the fruits represent what we are populating the classroom with, which is refreshing our curriculum to prepare our students to be future-ready – in CCE, Knowing Asia and Digital Literacy. The sun represents what is critical for the system to work well – our teachers. And through SkillsFuture for Educators, we are upgrading their skills and professionalism.

Together, these six thrusts form the "Learn for Life" movement for schools. It will guide our efforts to raise the school education system to a new level, in the next five to 10 years.

I hope this is the transformation map Ms Denise Phua is asking for. I hope it lives up to her expectation. I hope it is as thoughtful as it is bold.

The constant improvement of our public systems, like education, is a core aspect of our governance approach and our social compact. Technology and globalisation – yes, they bring about great opportunities, but they can also aggravate inequality and stifle social mobility. To tackle these challenges, we should not penalise the schools or the individuals who have done well, for which parent does not want their child to do well and to be the best they can be?

That is why our approach is "not to cap the top, but lift the bottom", extend more help to students who need assistance most, devote resources and implement programmes that lift the quality, standards and experience across the board.

When I visited Orchid Park Secondary, one of our pilot schools to implement the use of personal learning devices, I met a Chemistry teacher. His name is Mr Ramesh. He said something that left a very deep impression. He said that the most profound implication of the initiative is not the technology or the new pedagogy. It is that now, every student is similarly equipped in terms of computer resources and learning resources.

And then, with the SLS, he readily hears the voice of every child in class. The teacher can now more easily detect and zoom in to the students who have somehow fallen behind. In other words, this initiative has further levelled the playing field for all students. And that is the most significant outcome of this programme.

And that is also the objective of MOE's other initiatives rolled out over the years, whether it is Applied Learning Programme, Values-In-Action, Outdoor Adventure Learning, Language Elective Programme or the Junior Sports Academy. We are always improving the common experiences of our students.

In many countries, social stratification worsened partly because the national system deteriorated. So, the affluent opt out of the national system and they pay for market-based solutions. Over time, this further entrenched the gap between the rich and the poor, who live in worlds far apart – stratification worsens.

In Singapore, we counter this trend by ensuring that whether it is in healthcare, transport, public housing or education, we deliver a national system of high quality, even world-class quality.

And that is why the education system must always be a work in progress, always be honest in identifying our strengths as well as our gaps and areas for improvement, keep engaging and working with stakeholders to improve it, and doing all these while keeping school fees to a few dollars a month for the great majority of our schools. We will make sure no one is denied a good education because of their family background.

Within these commons, we enable social mobility, we help children from poor families break out of poverty, we build a platform for all Singaporeans to mingle and build bonds. We can fulfil the aspirations and dreams of successive generations.

From Learn for Life to SkillsFuture, we will inculcate the spirit of lifelong learning in our young and ensure that they will be ready for the future. [Applause.]

The Second Minister for Education (Ms Indranee Rajah): Mr Chairman, the Government is committed to nurturing every Singaporean to their fullest potential. Minister Ong has just shown you our roadmap through the "Tree for Life". But even as we transform the education system to help Singaporeans seize opportunities of the future, we will ensure that education remains an uplifting force that provides opportunities for all, regardless of their background or the challenges they face.

11.30 am

One key challenge our youths face today is mental well-being. Many colleagues have asked how we can better support our students’ well-being. Prof Lim Sun Sun spoke about the importance of building positive learning environments; Ms Rahayu Mahzam and Assoc Prof Daniel Goh suggested strengthening mental health education in schools, to equip our students to handle life’s challenges; while Ms Anthea Ong asked if we can increase the number of counsellors and introduce mental health screenings.

Thank you all for your thoughtful speeches and questions. Student well-being is of utmost importance to MOE. Our efforts in this area are guided by three broad questions. First, at the most basic level, how can we create a positive learning environment in our schools? Second, how can we equip our students with the knowledge and skills they need to overcome challenges and setbacks? And finally, how can we support the small group of students with more serious mental health challenges?

So, let me address each of these in turn.

First, creating a positive school learning environment for all students. Our teachers and school leaders play a crucial role in this. In our Singapore Teaching Practice (STP) model, creating a "positive classroom culture" is a fundamental teaching process. The STP is covered in pre-service training at NIE, as well as in-service courses by the Academy of Singapore Teachers.

In CCE, positive teacher-student relationships are strongly emphasised. We will also be developing our teachers’ competencies in establishing strong teacher-student relationships, and providing a caring and enabling environment, through the CCE practice area of SkillsFuture for Educators.

As Prof Lim Sun Sun acknowledged, the vast majority of our teachers undertake their roles with professionalism and care. There are times where teachers have to be more strict with students. This is a part of their duty. However, in cases of unprofessional conduct, where the teachers step over the bounds, such as deliberate attacks on students’ self-esteem, schools will take a serious view, and intervene as necessary to safeguard our students’ well-being, and maintain a positive learning environment.

Having laid the foundation of a positive school learning environment, the next step is to build resilience, by equipping our students with the skills and knowledge to overcome setbacks.

To help students face challenges confidently, we will help students develop the resilience mindset of "I am, I have, I can". "I am" is about helping students to appreciate their strengths and harness positive beliefs about themselves. "I have" is about enabling students to tap into their social and emotional resources, like peer and family support. And, "I can" emphasises skills that will enable students to cope and thrive, including emotion regulation, problem-solving and managing relationships and conflicts.

"I have", which is about tapping on support, including peer support, can be really powerful in schools. Research has shown that having a sense of affiliation among peers, positive vibes and feeling supported by one another, all contribute to positive well-being. Some of our schools have already introduced peer support structures, to good effect. To illustrate, let me share an example from Bukit Merah Secondary School. We have changed the students’ names to protect their privacy.

Last year, Steve from Bukit Merah Secondary started training to be a Peer Support Leader. He buddied up with his classmate Mark, who was frequently absent due to his gaming addiction. Steve encouraged Mark to come to school, and started eating with him during recess and breaks. Steve's friends also joined in, and got to know Mark as well. Whenever he could, Steve met with Mark after school to help him with work that he had missed. Gradually, Mark started coming to school more regularly and more punctually. When we asked Mark what helped him to make the change, he said he felt really encouraged when he asked Steve if anyone missed him when he was absent, and Steve replied simply, "Have lah, have lah".

The smallest, simplest gestures can make a difference. Anyone can do it. That is what makes peer support so powerful. Therefore, we will establish peer support structures in every school by 2022 and continue to strengthen the peer support culture in our schools. Our vision is for every student to be a peer supporter, forming a strong network of support in their class, CCA or peer group, where they can look out for each other and seek guidance from teachers or counsellors where necessary. The Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) have also put in place peer support programmes similar to those in schools.

In addition to this, we will include mental health education in the CCE curriculum for Secondary schools, to help students to understand common mental health issues and their symptoms, know when and how to seek help for themselves and others, and develop empathy and care towards persons with mental health issues. Similarly, the Polytechnics and ITEs have worked with the Health Promotion Board to develop mental health resources for their students.

The new mental health education in schools will complement our earlier efforts to help our students develop a resilience mindset and to foster peer support cultures. Together, we will equip our students with the knowledge, skills and support networks to better overcome challenges.

But even so, there will be a small number of students who struggle with mental health issues. For these students, additional support by professionals is needed.

We need to identify these students in order to support them. Teachers in schools and class advisors in IHLs are trained to pick up signs of distress, reach out to students facing difficulties, and refer them to a counsellor if necessary. With stronger mental health education and peer support cultures, students will also be able to look out for one another and seek guidance from teachers and counsellors if they notice that a friend is struggling.

Students who require additional support will be referred to the counselling professionals in schools, including counsellors and para-counsellors. Students assessed by counsellors to have more serious mental health issues will then be referred to external professionals for further clinical assessment and intervention. External professionals include the hospitals’ REACH teams – that is Response, Early Intervention and Assessment in Community mental Health – and IMH's Community Health Assessment Team (CHAT).

To Ms Anthea Ong’s suggestion to increase the number of counsellors, MOE will continue to work with our institutions to review this regularly. For example, those with higher needs will be able to hire additional counsellors and are given the funding and the manpower provisions to do so.

But counsellors are just one part of the wider eco-system of support for mental well-being in our schools and IHLs. This eco-system, comprising peer support networks, teachers, counsellors, external professionals, provides a robust and responsive approach to ensuring timely identification and targeted intervention for students with mental health needs.

While there are merits of universal mental health screening, mass screening can also raise complex issues, such as over-medicalising of behaviours in young persons or negative labeling effects. We also need to evaluate the age appropriateness and effectiveness in the school context.

To illustrate how our system of support works, let me share another student’s story with you – we will call him Sam. A few years ago, Sam was suffering from panic attacks. He could not submit his work on time. His teacher referred him to the school counsellor. The counsellor learnt that Sam’s parents were going through a divorce and that was what was causing Sam to struggle with severe anxiety. The school counsellor taught him coping strategies and worked with mental health professionals to address his anxiety condition. However, Sam still found the situation overwhelming and stopped coming to school.

But the school did not give up. They continued working with a Social Service Agency (SSA) to reach out and support Sam and his family. Sam’s classmates and CCA-mates also encouraged him to return to school, offering a listening ear and help in homework. Over time, Sam started to attend school again and re-joined his CCA. Today, Sam is doing much better. In fact, he has become a peer supporter himself and is using his experience to help others who are going through similar difficulties. So, you can see from there it is a whole eco-system.

Support for youth mental well-being is a whole-of-society effort. Outside of MOE, a lot of work is being done by other Government agencies, SSAs, community groups, private organisations and individuals. I agree with Assoc Prof Daniel Goh, our youths themselves should be at the centre of these efforts. Earlier this year, MSF, MOH and MOE, in collaboration with MCCY and the National Youth Council (NYC), issued an open call to anyone interested in improving youth mental well-being. Last week, Minster Desmond announced that we will set up a new Youth Mental Well-Being Network, bringing together more than 700 people who responded to the open call, many of whom are passionate youths. Minister Desmond will share more about the network during MSF’s COS.

To ensure our education system provides opportunities for all, MOE is also committed to supporting students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) to reach their fullest potential.

Over the years, we have increased the variety of high quality educational settings. Today, around 80% of students with SEN learn in mainstream schools, supported by teachers and allied educators with specialised skills. Our Special Education (SPED) schools, which provide customised learning environments, dedicated resources and specialised manpower, support the remaining 20% of students with higher needs. MOE’s funding for SPED schools has increased by about 40% in the last five years.

Ms Denise Phua and Ms Rahayu Mahzam asked about MOE’s plans to support students with SEN. We can, and will do more. For students in SPED schools, we are continually improving affordability and accessibility of education. Since January this year, six SPED schools have lowered their fees by at least 25% for Singapore citizens. We are also working with SSAs to open three new SPED schools. One will support students with moderate-to-severe SEN who have both Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Intellectual Disability, while the other two will support students with moderate SEN who have ASD and can access the National Curriculum.

Finally, we note Ms Denise Phua's suggestion to extend the exit age for SPED schools. While the exit age remains at 18, students offering an academic or vocational national certification may remain in SPED schools until age 21. This will allow them additional time to become work-ready. Of the 422 SPED students aged 18 years old in 2019, 150 remain in their schools this year, when they turn 19. Most will progress to open employment before the age of 21.

For students with SEN in mainstream schools, I am happy to announce two new initiatives. First, MOE has developed a professional development roadmap to enhance SEN training for all educators in mainstream schools. Second, we will provide more financial assistance to students with SEN in IHLs. I believe Ms Phua talked about that.

SEN training for educators. Minister announced earlier that MOE will embark on SkillsFuture for Educators or SFEd. Support for students with SEN is one of the focus areas of SFEd. We have thus developed a new SEN Professional Development Roadmap (PD Roadmap), to better equip our educators in mainstream schools to support students with SEN.

We want every teacher in mainstream schools to become more skilled in supporting students with SEN. MOE will work with NIE to strengthen the inclusion of SEN support strategies in pre-service teacher training. For in-service teachers, MOE will launch bite-sized online learning resources in phases from this year. The SEN PD roadmap will also provide more professional development (PD) opportunities for educators who play a more specialised role in SEN support – namely, our Allied Educators in Learning and Behavioural Support, teachers trained in Special Needs or (TSNs) as well as the school management team. MOE will share more details in the coming months.

11.45 am

Second, MOE will extend the SEN Fund to cater to a wider spectrum of learning needs beyond those with sensory or physical impairments.

The SEN Fund was established in 2014 to help Polytechnic and ITE students with physical or sensory impairment to purchase education-related assistive technology (AT) devices and support services. Feedback on the SEN Fund has been positive. It has helped students to keep up with academic learning and improve day-to-day interaction with peers. Thus far, about $675,000 has been disbursed under the SEN Fund, benefiting more than 120 students.

In my engagements with students with SEN at the Polytechnics and ITE, they told me it would be helpful to extend the SEN Fund beyond physical disabilities, and they are right, as is Ms Denise Phua. Advancement in assistive technology devices have made it easier for students with other types of challenges to access education and prepare for independent work and life.

MOE will thus extend the SEN Fund to Polytechnic and ITE students with language and learning difficulties, as well as social and behavioural difficulties, including conditions like dyslexia, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). These students will be able to tap on the SEN Fund to purchase assistive technology devices, up to a cap of $5,000, from 1 April 2020. Eligible students can approach their SEN Support Office to apply.

I am also happy to say that the Autonomous Universities will be extending the same support to their students with SEN for the purchase of assistive technology devices.

Besides funding, the SEN Support Offices in our IHLs also provide support to students with SEN from pre-enrolment to graduation.

Before enrolling in an IHL, prospective students can approach the SEN Support Offices in IHLs to find out more about courses that better suit their interests and learning needs. After enrolment, the SEN Support Offices work with the lecturers and tutors to make arrangements to ensure that students with SEN can access the curriculum and assessment tasks.

For students with SEN who require additional support to transition to the workplace as an intern, the IHLs also work with SG Enable and SSAs to identify suitable internship opportunities, prepare the students and ensure that they get the support that they need during internship.

MOE will continue to work with schools and IHLs to strengthen support for students with SEN to ensure that they, like all other students, receive the support they need to maximise their potential.

MOE is also committed to ensuring that financial circumstances are never a barrier to education for Singaporean students.

Students with financial difficulties can tap on a variety of MOE support schemes. In 2019, 52,000 students from lower income families at the Primary to pre-University levels benefited from the MOE Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), SPED Financial Assistance and the Independent School Bursary. Another 72,000 students from low- to middle income families in our IHLs benefited from the government bursaries in academic year 2018.

Last year, we announced changes to make preschool and higher education more affordable. To ensure that education remains affordable at every stage, MOE will enhance financial support for two more groups – students on the MOE Financial Assistance Scheme at Primary, Secondary and pre-University levels as well as full-time NITEC and Higher NITEC students in ITE. The Deputy Prime Minister announced this in the Budget Statement and I will provide more details today. With your permission, Mr Chairman, may I ask the Clerk to distribute a handout to Members please?

The Chairman: Yes, please. [A handout was distributed to hon Members.]

Ms Indranee Rajah: First, we will enhance the MOE FAS, which supports Singaporean students at the Primary, Secondary and pre-University levels. Recognising increased transport costs, from April 2020, we will raise the public transport subsidy from $10 to $15 per month, for Primary up to pre-University levels. For Primary school students who take the school bus, we will also enhance the school bus transport subsidy to 60% of monthly payable fees, up from 50% today. This means that for parents paying a school bus fare of $110, out-of-pocket fees will drop to $45, which is down from $55 today.

Next, we will enhance the school meal subsidies for Secondary school students from April 2020 to $2.90 per school meal, up from $2.50 today. The meal subsidy for Primary school students will remain at $2 per meal.

Finally, to strengthen support for pre-University students, the pre-University bursary will be increased from $900 to $1,000 per year.

These FAS enhancements will be similarly applied to students in the lowest income tier of the MOE Independent School Bursary. MOE will also extend applicable aspects of the FAS enhancements to SPED schools.

Similar to last year, we expect around 52,000 students from the Primary to pre-University levels to benefit from the enhancements. This will cost around $52 million each year, a 20% increase from today.

Second, MOE will increase support for full-time NITEC and Higher NITEC students in ITE, which Mr Ang Wei Neng, Mr Saktiandi Supaat and Mr Zainal Sapari asked about.

Today, MOE subsidises over 90% of the total cost of NITEC and Higher NITEC courses. Lower and middle income students can receive further assistance through a cash bursary. MOE will enhance the cash bursary by between $50 and $200.

Beyond this, from April 2020, students from low-income families will also benefit from a full fee subsidy, in addition to an enhanced cash bursary of $1,500. This is for NITEC and Higher NITEC students from families with gross household income of $2,750 and below, or per capita income of $690 and below. We expect around 19,000 students to benefit from the enhanced ITE bursaries.

Students within the top 10% of GCE "N" or "O" Level entrants in each Higher NITEC and NITEC course receive the Community Development Council/Citizens' Consultative Committee-ITE Scholarship. These scholars currently receive a cash award of $1,600 a year. From April 2020, the scholarship will be enhanced to also cover their fees fully. Around 1,400 NITEC students and 1,200 Higher NITEC students will benefit from this. We will also rename the scholarship to ITE Community Scholarship to better reflect its purpose. It is also easier to remember.

With these enhancements, we will spend around $28 million a year on bursaries and scholarship for full-time NITEC and Higher NITEC students, an increase of around 20% from today.

To ensure that students can easily access financial support schemes, we agree with Mr Lim Biow Chuan that the application process should be simple, without causing any embarrassment. In MOE schools, teachers and staff keep a lookout for students who may require financial assistance. When approaching students, they take care to do so sensitively and discreetly. MOE also partners with Self-Help Groups to support students and families who need additional assistance beyond MOE. In our IHLs, information on financial aid and application processes is readily available online or can be obtained at the institution's financial aid office.

The process is even simpler for families on ComCare assistance. Students in our schools, Polytechnics and ITE, whose families are on ComCare assistance will be automatically granted MOE financial assistance without the need for any more documentation.

Despite our best efforts, we recognise that there are still some students who struggle in our education system. Each of these students has a unique set of challenging circumstances. We believe that these can be overcome with the right support and that is why we set up UPLIFT – the Uplifting Pupils in Life and Inspiring Families Taskforce. Mr Murali Pillai, Ms Cheng Li Hui, Mr Charles Chong and Dr Lim Wee Kiak have asked about UPLIFT's work. Let me provide an update.

A key focus area of UPLIFT is strengthening after-school care and support for students. This is done through school-based student care centres (SCCs) in Primary schools and after-school programmes in Secondary schools.

After-school support is especially important for students who do not have conducive home environments to return to after school. Providing these students with a structured and supervised after-school environment gives them the opportunity to develop good habits, routines and skills that will help them to succeed later in life.

Last year, I said MOE would expand our current provisions for after-school support, so I am very happy to announce that we have achieved our target of opening an SCC in all 185 Primary schools this year, up from 170 last year. Since we started expanding school-based SCCs in 2012, we have increased the enrolment from 3,000 to about 27,000 this year. We monitor demand for our SCCs closely and will work with the service providers to expand their capacity, but without compromising programme and service quality.

With more places in SCCs, we are now stepping up efforts to identify, enroll and provide support to students who would most benefit from SCCs. Over the past year, MOE worked closely with the community and MSF to study ground feedback, and walked the journey with these students and their families. We identified the main challenges that these families faced in enrolling their child in a SCC, and together, we developed solutions to address them.

One major challenge is affordability. Today, children from low-income families attending MSF-registered SCCs receive fee subsidies under the ComCare Student Care Fee Assistance (SCFA) scheme. However, some students on MOE's FAS still pay more than $120 per month after SCFA subsidies. Making SCCs more affordable for low-income families is an important step towards getting these students into the SCCs and into the right environment for them to do well. Senior Parliamentary Secretary Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim will share more about this in his speech for MSF later this week.

Beyond affordability, families face other challenges. For example, some may require their children to head home after school to look after their younger siblings or grandparents. Others may need help with the documentation needed to apply for financial assistance. Such complex challenges can only be surfaced and addressed through deeper, more personal, engagement with these families.

Recognising this, we have developed a more comprehensive, proactive approach to reach out to families and tackle challenges together with them.

First, schools will proactively identify students who would benefit most from the SCC environment and then go the extra mile to engage and build trust with their families, encouraging them to enroll their child in the SCC.

Second, we will engage the community to help address each family's challenges in a holistic and targeted way. Some families are referred to the Social Service Offices or Family Service Centres to help with childcare for their younger children, so that older ones can attend school and SCC, instead of having to look after their younger siblings.

Finally, we will make the enrolment process and application process for SCFA more user-friendly. For example, teachers will walk families through the various documents that they have to submit and guide them through the process, if needed. For families with complex circumstances, schools will exercise judgement and be more facilitative in the enrolment of children into the SCC.

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We piloted this outreach approach in a few Primary schools in July last year, because we wanted to see whether it would make a difference. I was struck by the passion I saw in our teachers, who went out of their way to engage families, understand their challenges and work with the community to address them. They visited the students’ homes – multiple times in some cases. They conducted tours of the SCC for the students and induction sessions for parents, because we want to get the parents on-board to make sure the parents send their children to the SCCs. And I am most heartened to announce that we successfully enrolled 87 of the 100 students that we identified for the pilot.

After these students were enrolled, schools brought in community partners to engage them through targeted programmes to strengthen motivational support, resilience and holistic development. And, within the short span of six months, we have already begun to see progress in our students.

In Boon Lay Garden Primary School, our pilot outreach efforts helped four siblings – let us call them Nadia, Adam, Sofia and Danial – to enrol in their school’s SCC. The four siblings received limited support at home, as their mother was busy taking care of three other younger siblings. I think we are all familiar with cases like this. Adam and Danial, in particular, had longstanding difficulties with completing homework on time.

Since joining the school’s structured SCC environment, Adam and Danial have improved their time management skills and now manage their homework more confidently. As the SCC at Boon Lay Garden is run by Big Heart Student Care, a joint venture by the four Self-Help Groups (SHGs), the brothers also enjoyed plug-in programmes run by the SHGs, like the "Backyard Science Workshops" run by MENDAKI. The oldest sister, Nadia, also benefited from the SCC staff’s reinforcement of positive values and habits taught by the school. In recognition of her improvement, Nadia was awarded the school’s "Good Progress Award" last year.

With Nadia, Adam, Sofia and Danial progressing well in the SCC, their mother no longer needs to worry about them completing their homework when they return home.

Given the positive outcomes such as these, MOE will be implementing this enhanced outreach approach in all Primary schools. This will enable us to support more students from different backgrounds and further strengthen social mobility.

Mr Ang Wei Neng asked about UPLIFT’s progress in partnering with community initiatives and how such initiatives could link up with UPLIFT. Since the Taskforce was set up, UPLIFT has been supporting collaboration between schools and the community. I am very encouraged by the number of people who have come up to me to say, "I want to be part of UPLIFT, how can I help?" It is not just individuals; community organisations and companies have come forward too, approaching the schools directly, or working through the UPLIFT Programme Office.

One such company is Singapore Press Holdings’ Chinese Media Group or CMG. Last year, CMG worked with New Town Primary school and Qihua Primary School to start a Chinese reading programme called "Reading with You".

Leveraging their student publication, "Thumbs Up Junior", CMG staff including journalists and radio deejays engaged the students in enrichment activities and conversations, with the support of volunteers from the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Apart from immersing students in a Chinese Language-rich environment and improving their fluency and confidence in the language, the journalists also shared about current affairs and their experiences, serving as positive role models for the students.

The students enjoy these interactions with their big brothers and sisters. Over time, we hope such programmes can help students hone their strengths in their Mother Tongue Languages. As relationships deepen, the volunteers can also play a role in shaping the students’ aspirations. Such mentorship opportunities can be valuable for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, as the mentors inspire them and broaden their worldview in a natural, informal setting.

Another key focus area of UPLIFT is tackling long-term absenteeism. Early upstream intervention is critical to prevent occasional non-attendance from becoming long-term absenteeism.

Earlier, I spoke about upcoming enhancements to SCC provisions for Primary school students. At the Secondary school level, we have set up after-school programmes in over 70 schools under GEAR-UP, benefiting more than 3,000 students. These programmes focus on befriending and mentoring by trusted adults, peer support and interest-based activities to engage the students. We are on track to scale up GEAR-UP to 120 Secondary schools this year.

School-based support in SCCs and GEAR-UP can be complemented by community-based programmes like academic coaching, drop-in services and parenting support. However, schools may not always know about these programmes. Likewise, community organisations may not always know which students and families need help.

To close this coordination gap, UPLIFT has worked closely with MSF to pilot a solution. I am happy to update Members that since January, we have embarked on the UPLIFT Community Pilot, appointing an UPLIFT Town-Level Coordinator in the Social Service Office of three towns – Woodlands, Kreta Ayer and Boon Lay.

The Town-Level Coordinator will help integrate school-based and community-based support. Where students have emerging attendance issues and needs that can be met by community-based programmes, schools will refer them to the coordinator. The coordinator will identify the needs of the students and their families, source for suitable resources and programmes offered by the local community partners, and then connect them to the students and families. By improving coordination, we can set up protective factors around the students and their families faster, and address underlying causes of absenteeism earlier.

The UPLIFT Community Pilot will pool together the collective wisdom and resources of schools and the community, to better support vulnerable families. We estimate that more than 300 students could benefit from this pilot.

Sir, in conclusion, to ensure that education remains an uplifting force for all, regardless of starting point, we will need the collective contribution and conviction of every Singaporean. I hope that what I have shared today will inspire more individuals and organisations to step forward and partner with us. Together, we can ensure that every Singaporean is cared for and supported to become the best that they can be. This is how we will build a society of opportunities for all. [Applause.]

The Chairman: Senior Minister of State Chee Hong Tat.

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Mr Chee Hong Tat): Mr Chairman, we started the SkillsFuture movement five years ago. The vision was to provide opportunities for all Singaporeans to develop skills mastery in different areas and fulfil our fullest potential regardless of our starting points in life.

This is what SkillsFuture is about – an inclusive and empowering national movement to enable all Singaporeans to chart our learning journeys. It starts from our schools, where we lay the foundation and passion for learning, followed by continuing education when students graduate and join the workforce. Constantly learning, re-learning and even un-learning. This continues after we retire, as part of active ageing.

Like the inspiring story that Mr Murali Pillai shared, learning is a never-ending endeavour. And as Ms Denise Phua has rightly pointed out, lifelong learning is a key focus for MOE.

SkillsFuture provides the foundations to grow our economy, transform our enterprises, upskill our workers and create good jobs for Singaporeans. It also enriches our lives as we learn new skills and discover new experiences. It is an essential pillar for building a society which is both pro-enterprise and pro-worker, and where multiple pathways lead to multiple peaks of excellence.

We had three goals for the initial phase of SkillsFuture: to engender a shift in societal culture towards lifelong learning; to provide greater support for individuals to initiate and take ownership of their learning; to strengthen Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) as the third pillar of our CET ecosystem, complementing employers and private training providers.

We have made good progress so far. About 500,000 individuals and 14,000 enterprises have benefited from SkillsFuture initiatives. Many were able to perform their work better after training, and earned higher salaries.

I agree with Mr Gan Thiam Poh on the need for quality control and risk management. We will continue to ensure the quality of our education and training ecosystem, to support courses with clear employability outcomes, and raise the quality bar for training providers.

Since last year, SSG has enhanced its capabilities to deal with fraud and abuse. It set up a dedicated Division to focus on this area, and introduced data analytics and machine learning to detect suspicious claims, as well as more traditional methods, such as surprise checks and mystery shoppers.

SSG will come down hard against errant training providers and individuals. Make no mistake – there will be zero tolerance for fraud and abuse. We will also review the legislation to further strengthen our regulatory and enforcement powers.

Sir, while we tackle the immediate challenges posed by COVID-19, we must remain focused on preparing Singapore for the future, and continue our push for lifelong learning and skills mastery.

Two years ago, Minister Ong assessed that we were about a quarter of the way there. Recently, he said we have achieved close to 50%. An improvement, but this is still only the halfway mark. Advancing on the second half of our journey is what we want to achieve under the Next Bound of SkillsFuture.

We will continue to focus on training that equip our workers with job relevant skills that enhance their employability. In particular, we want employers and enterprises, especially SMEs, to play a bigger role in supporting lifelong learning and to upgrade the skills of their workers.

At the same time, we will enhance support for individuals to initiate our own learning. This is important for Singaporeans who are self-employed and those who want to pursue a different career or learn a new skill beyond their current industry.

We also want to provide more help for mid-career Singaporeans in their 40s and 50s, to give them greater support to reskill and stay employable, whether is it in their current jobs, or if they switch to another company or industry.

The enhancements will be implemented under five areas.

First, we will strengthen our collaborations with intermediaries to help enterprises with transformation and skills training. These go hand-in-hand. The better our skills training, the more assurance we can give to our workers and the faster we can transform our enterprises and economy.

Many enterprises, especially SMEs, do not have the resources to conduct their own in-house training. We understand. This is where partnerships with intermediaries, such as trade associations, anchor enterprises and professional firms, can come in handy.

We will work with a group of large anchor enterprises – also known as SkillsFuture Queen Bee companies – to drive enterprise-led training. Ms Foo Mee Har and Dr Intan asked about this. These anchor enterprises are industry leaders with deep sectoral knowledge, resources and extensive business networks.

One example is Singapore Power, which is working with SSG and eight SMEs in its supply chain to build workplace learning capabilities. Singapore Power aims to bring in another 40 SMEs by the end of this year, and eventually to include the rest of the sector. By having companies like Singapore Power train beyond their own needs, they can uplift the capabilities of other enterprises and also other workers in the entire sector. Over the next five years, we aim to partner up to 40 anchor enterprises to reach out to 4,000 companies, especially SMEs.

To further support their transformation efforts, SMEs can tap on the $10,000 SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit. I spoke about this yesterday at the MTI COS. SMEs can also benefit from many existing grants and subsidies to improve productivity, redesign jobs and train their workers.

Mr Douglas Foo asked about training of emerging and future skills. SSG has worked with the IHLs to curate the SkillsFuture Series courses focusing on such skills. There are 34 Skills Frameworks which employers can use to plan their talent pipeline for emerging and future jobs.

We will tap on intermediaries such as TACs, anchor enterprises, IHLs and professional firms to provide guidance to employers on emerging skills. For example, SSG has worked with PwC Singapore and Universities like INSEAD and SMU to launch a number of Masterclasses for SME business leaders. These will benefit around 100 individuals this year.

Next, we will intensify efforts to help employers develop stronger workplace training capabilities. The National Centre of Excellence for Workplace Learning (NACE) was launched at Nanyang Polytechnic in 2018. NACE has engaged over 250 companies for which 100 have started to implement workplace learning programmes.

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We will expand NACE to two more IHLs over the next few years. The next one will be at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) later this year. By 2025, we aim to help over 1,200 enterprises build best practices in workplace learning and work-study capabilities.

Sir, these efforts will complement our plans to expand the Work-Study pathway.

We launched the first slate of SkillsFuture Work-Study Programmes in 2015, with close links to the industry. Students can apply what they learnt in school to their workplaces and bring practical experiences and problem statements from their jobs back to the classrooms. Employers welcome the programme as it helps them to attract more young Singaporeans. It is a win-win arrangement. About 5,500 students have benefited from Work-Study Programmes since their launch in 2015 and about 1,400 companies have participated so far.

We will expand the SkillsFuture Work-Study Programmes into a mainstream pathway in the Next Bound of SkillsFuture. We aim to offer this pathway to 12% of each age cohort by 2025, and this translates to about 5,000 intake places, which is an increase from the current 3.5% or 1,600 places.

Work-Study Programmes are useful to prepare our students for the workforce. But applied learning is not confined to Work-Study Programmes. Internships are another important avenue.

Mr Faisal Manap suggested having a national level framework to establish common standards in internships and facilitate matching of students to internships.

Sir, such a framework had been put in place since 2015. This was one of the recommendations by the Applied Study in Polytechnics and ITE Review (ASPIRE) Committee chaired by Second Minister Indranee Rajah. IHLs would ensure that their students on internships are provided with structured mentorship from the participating companies, with clear learning outcomes. More than 90% of Polytechnic students undergo structured credit-bearing internships in their final year of diploma studies. And these cover a wide range of industries, including culinary, retail, hospitality, healthcare and early childhood education. So, it was not factually accurate for Mr Faisal Manap to say that internships are mostly for technology and finance sectors. It is broader than that.

On the matching of students to internships, a centralised model, as suggested by Mr Faisal Manap, may not produce better outcomes than the current approach. The way companies currently offer internships is through partnerships with our IHLs. The IHLs know their students well and what industry opportunities are needed to deepen their learning. So, it is not quite the same as companies filling job vacancies through open recruitment. The two process may appear same-same, but they are different.

Let me now touch on how we are empowering individuals to learn for life.

The SkillsFuture Credit was introduced in 2015 to bring about an important mindset change, that each of us must take charge of our personal learning journey towards skills mastery. We are empowering individuals.

The $500 SkillsFuture Credit has been well-utilised. More than half a million Singaporeans have used their Credit and amongst them, close to 40% have either fully used up their Credit, or are close to doing so. More than 90% of SkillsFuture Credit claims were for work- related and industry-oriented courses. We will provide a top-up of $500 to the SkillsFuture Credit for every Singaporean aged 25 and above this year.

Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked if some workers could start using the top-up before 1 October. The SkillsFuture Credit top-up is designed to support individuals with their lifelong learning needs beyond the COVID-19 crisis. That is why the top-up is valid for five years, till 31 December 2025. The original start date was 1 January 2021, but SSG has done what it could to bring it forward to 1 October 2020, while ensuring that the top-ups are administered accurately and used appropriately. SSG will look at the possibility of allowing appeals on a case- by-case basis, for example, for those who are in-between jobs and need to use their Credit for training to get a new job.

For individuals who are currently employed, we encourage their employers to provide them with the training during this period, tapping on the Absentee Payroll and training subsidies provided by SSG. The employees can then keep their SkillsFuture Credit for use later, within that five-year window.

Mr Png Eng Huat spoke about training support for mature freelancers and he made reference to the Surrogate Employer Programme which Mr Patrick Tay mentioned during Budget debate.

Sir, all Singaporeans and PRs, regardless of employment status, are eligible to receive course fee subsidies for MOE and SSG-funded training courses. Those who are aged 40 and above can receive further subsidies of up to 90% under the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy. It does not matter if they are employees, self-employed or in between jobs. For employees who are sent for training by their companies, their employers will typically cover the post-subsidy course fees. For others, like freelancers, they would pay the 10% co-payment on their own, and they can use their SkillsFuture Credit for the out-of-pocket costs.

So, contrary to what Mr Png said yesterday, self-employed persons and freelancers aged 40 and above will receive up to 90% in course fee subsidy, no different from an employee. And this includes courses for freelance trainers, which Mr Png mentioned in his cut.

Mr Png also made reference to the Surrogate Employer Programme. Mr Patrick Tay had raised this idea in the context of providing a training allowance to self-employed persons while they go for training, to help them during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Yesterday, MOM announced the new SEP Training Support Scheme, where all self-employed persons will be provided with a training allowance over the next three months when they attend courses under the SkillsFuture series and selected sector-specific training programmes. This is different from the SkillsFuture course fee subsidy that I explained earlier, which is not linked to the Surrogate Employer Scheme. The 90% course fee subsidy is one thing, the training allowance is another. Let us not mix up the two.

Sir, SkillsFuture is for all Singaporeans at every stage of our lives. I agree with Ms Foo Mee Har on the need to support individuals in navigating the courses available. We will provide customised recommendations on training options through MySkillsFuture portal, including quality and outcomes ratings of courses. And we hope this will help individuals to decide which courses will be more relevant or have better quality.

For individuals who prefer face-to-face support, we have been working with the libraries, CDCs, e2i and PA, to provide SkillsFuture Advice workshops to help individuals find out about different SkillsFuture initiatives and plan for their training. More than 100,000 individuals have participated in these workshops, and even more will benefit in the years ahead.

We are planning to expand the reach and enhance the training guidance under SkillsFuture Advice via the Career Centres, in collaboration with partners like the unions and career advisors, including private sector entities that provide such services on a commercial basis. And this will supplement the assistance for individuals provided through the portal and our existing SkillsFuture Advice workshops.

Finally, the Next Bound of SkillsFuture will focus on our mid-career workers in their 40s and 50s. We will help them to refresh and rejuvenate their skill-sets, so that they can remain employable and benefit from new opportunities.

Deputy Prime Minister announced a comprehensive set of measures under the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Support Package. The other Ministries – MTI, MCI, MOM – have touched on some of these initiatives yesterday.

MOE will work with MOM and MTI to increase capacity and placements for re-skilling programmes. We will ramp up the capacity for career transition programmes at CET centres, to complement other re-skilling programmes such as Professional Conversion, Place-and-Train and Tech Skills Accelerator Mid-Career Advance for ICT jobs.

Mr Zainal Sapari asked if these career transition programmes could be more targeted at mid-career workers.

Currently, many of the re-skilling programmes are, what we call Place-and-Train, where individuals are first matched with an employer before they start their training. We will add to these by expanding the career transition programmes, as suggested by Dr Lim Wee Kiak. Individuals will be trained before they receive career support services, such as advisory and placement from CET centres. There is less certainty of placement compared to Place-and-Train, but this provides greater flexibility in the eventual choice of job. It also allows us to train more individuals in industry-relevant skills to enhance their employment prospects and offer employers a job-ready candidate at the point of placement. Both types of programmes have their usefulness and their relevance as they serve different groups of Singaporeans. They complement each other.

From 2020, these different re-skilling programmes will collectively increase the placements of Singaporeans in their 40s and 50s. Our aim is to double the numbers in five years.

We will also provide an additional $500 SkillsFuture Credit (Mid-Career Support). In other words, a worker aged 40 to 60 this year will receive a total SkillsFuture Credit top-up of $1,000. If he has not used his first $500 from 2015, he will have a total amount of $1,500.

In the Next Bound of SkillsFuture, we target to benefit a total of 28,000 companies and one million individuals over the next five years. We will need more resources to support these enhancements.

Over the next five years, Government will spend about $1.4 billion on the Next Bound of SkillsFuture. We are investing even more in SkillsFuture compared to the first five years.

At the same time, we have to review our existing initiatives, and reallocate our resources across different areas.

We will review course subsidy rates, together with the Enhanced Subsidy Schemes. We will continue to subsidise up to 90%, with more support for courses that lead to clearer employment outcomes. This is in line with the calls from several Members.

Schemes that have become less relevant over time, such as the SkillsFuture Qualification Awards, will be gradually phased out.

We will also be making some adjustments to Absentee Payroll. The larger enterprises are currently benefiting more from this provision. We will review the rates and set a maximum amount each company can receive so that the funding support can be distributed to more companies.

We were planning to make these changes together with the enhancements under the Next Bound of SkillsFuture. However, with the COVID-19 situation, we will defer these changes to a later date and focus our efforts for now to help businesses and workers to tide through the current challenges.

One recent change that we made was to increase the course fee subsidy to a flat rate of 90% and raise the Absentee Payroll rates to $10 per hour for sectors like tourism and air transport, which are worst-hit by the drop in tourist arrivals. The intent is to help our companies and workers during this difficult period. And as Deputy Prime Minister said, if the situation calls for it, the Government is prepared to do more.

Ms Sylvia Lim asked about the appeal process for PSEA. We had discussed the usage of PSEA in this House in November last year.

Sir, I thank Ms Lim for acknowledging that course quality and relevance are valid factors in deciding which programmes can qualify for PSEA usage. And Ms Lim is right that PSEA monies are not subsidies per se, but they comprise mainly Government top-ups which come from public funds. We have a responsibility to safeguard the interests of all account holders by upholding the quality and relevance of approved courses, to guide Singaporeans on which courses would produce better outcomes for them.

But I understand Ms Lim's point in the case of her resident, due to his unfortunate family situation. I will share her feedback with MOE colleagues to see how we can improve the appeals process for handling exceptional cases. Sir, please allow me to continue in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] SkillsFuture will continue to be a critical enabler for Singapore's next phase of development. It supports skills training and lifelong learning, and it can help enterprises transform and be more competitive.

We have made good progress with SkillsFuture in the past five years, and will be taking it into the next bound.

One of the key initiatives in the Next Bound of SkillsFuture is to enhance support for individuals to pursue lifelong learning through a SkillsFuture Credit top-up of $500 for every Singaporean aged 25 and above this year. The top-up will be valid for five years.

In addition, Singaporean mid-career workers aged 40 to 60 in 2020 will receive an additional SkillsFuture Credit (Mid-Career Support) of $500 for them to access Career Transition Programmes, as part of the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Support Package. This group of workers will receive a total of $1,000 in SkillsFuture Credit top-ups.

We will also be growing the SkillsFuture Work-Study Programmes into a mainstream pathway which will be made available to 12% of each cohort. This will benefit employers and provide more pathways and options for our students.

(In English ): Mr Chairman, MOE is committed to building a strong foundation for students in schools and also offering a quality education at the IHLs and lifelong learning thereafter. Minister and Second Minister covered the initiatives in schools earlier. Our IHLs have similarly embraced the spirit of recognising aptitudes, skills and experience over qualifications and translated this philosophy into their admission policies, enhancing porosity across the different pathways.

Minister and Second Minister covered the initiatives in schools earlier. Our IHLs have, similarly, embraced the spirit of recognising aptitudes, skills and experience over qualifications, and translated this philosophy into their admissions policies, enhancing porosity across the different pathways.

First, for "A" Level students who do not progress to the AUs, we will help them obtain a Polytechnic Diploma within a shorter time. For a third of the Polytechnic diploma courses, they will be able to graduate with a diploma in two years instead of three years.

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Second, we will expand aptitude-based admissions at NUS, NTU and SMU. This enables more students to be considered based on non-academic aptitudes and strengths, and broadens holistic recognition of individuals beyond grades.

Third, we will expand pathways for working adults to enrol in full-time diploma courses, including those who have part-time Nitec, Higher Nitec or WSQ diploma qualifications and we will do so by recognising their relevant work experiences and the skills that they have acquired.

These changes in higher education reflect the spirit of SkillsFuture to provide multiple pathways, support continuous learning and deepen our focus on skills.

They are part of MOE’s effort to build a continuum of education and learning opportunities for every Singaporean, starting from young, through our adult and working life, and after we retire, as part of active ageing.

Let us work together to build a nation of lifelong learners with a deep passion for new knowledge and skills; to grow a society that values skills mastery and recognises different peaks of excellence; and to nurture a people who are resilient and resourceful, and who are ready to seize the opportunities that come our way. [Applause.]

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim): Mr Chairman, as I hear about how we are supporting our people to seize the opportunities of the future, I am reminded of the importance of nurturing well-rounded individuals guided by a strong set of values.

Indeed, MOE remains committed to this cause. That said, I am also reminded how important it is for all of us – parents, teachers, and the community – to work together to bring out the best in our children. Mr Chairman, allow me to first speak in Malay.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Over the last few years, many parents have shared with me that being a parent has brought them tremendous joy – but equally, many sleepless nights. As a father of two children, I can relate to this sentiment.

As parents, we want what is best for our children and seek to bring out the best in them. At the same time, we are also responsible for moulding them into responsible individuals with a strong moral compass, a sense of heritage, and as Minister Ong had shared earlier – a strong foundation of values, tools and skills to navigate the world ahead of them.

This is also something that MOE is committed to – even as we embark on the shifts in our education system that my colleagues have spoken about. Ms Cheng Li Hui and Mr Seah Kian Peng asked about our partnerships with parents, community, and industry, and how these would help to nurture the right values, dispositions, and skills in our students.

First, our schools actively reach out to parents, and work closely with them to support our children in pursuing their strengths and interests, and to impart good values and attitudes. Our Guidelines for School-Home Partnerships, which were released last year, were well received by parents and schools, and we have observed some encouraging signs. For example, the focus of conversations between teachers and parents has shifted from an overemphasis on academic achievement, to students’ learning dispositions, physical and mental well-being, and classroom behaviour.

I was very encouraged when Madam Titek Rohani, whose youngest child is now in secondary school, shared how she makes it a point to learn from teachers about her child’s strengths and interests, her child’s relationships with fellow students, and whether her child contributes to his peers’ learning. She also works closely with the school to guide her child as he explores different education pathways.

(In English): Mr Chairman, second, schools and parents work closely to role model good values and attitudes for our students. Values are both caught and taught, and likewise both practised and preached. I am very heartened to hear how parents and teachers are collectively encouraging and galvanising students amidst the COVID-19 virus situation. They are indeed role models for our students.

Our teachers have seized the opportunity to educate our students about the virus and their part to play. They do this through teaching scientific knowledge; inculcating good hygiene practices; as well as facilitating discussions on empathy, resilience, and a sense of community.

Parents too, have volunteered their time and effort to support the school community. For example, Rulang Primary School had sent out a circular to parents to inform them of the extra cleaning measures undertaken to ensure that the premises remained clean. In response, members of the Parent Support Group volunteered to help with cleaning efforts, which reduced the load of frontline support staff. In addition, the parents put together care packages to encourage the staff, cleaners and security officers for their hard work in ensuring that the school premises remained clean and safe.

From both our teachers and parents, our students are learning how they too can be part of the solution: by demonstrating kindness and being socially responsible. Together, they demonstrate the resilient, caring spirit of partnership that binds the nation together in trying times.

Lastly, community and industry partners have a big role to play in developing our students holistically. Our schools have been actively engaging them to provide a richer learning experience for our students and broaden their horizons. Mr Terence Ho asked what our plans were for developing local arts institutions and suggested introducing local composers and compositions as part of our music curriculum.

This is something that we have done. One of MOE's key learning objectives of the Music syllabi is for students to appreciate music across local and global cultures. During music lessons, our students are introduced to traditional and contemporary music and instruments in Singapore through a selection of songs that reflects Singapore's diverse and rich culture.

Some schools have gone further and engaged local artistes to contribute to their programmes. For instance, Boon Lay Secondary School works closely with industry practitioners – such as Ms Melissa Quek, who is the Head of the School of Dance and Theatre at the LaSalle College of the Arts – to plan and deliver dance lessons/workshops under the school’s Learning for Life Programme. This partnership has inspired students to appreciate the arts more deeply, and exposed them to different career possibilities.

MOE and MCCY will continue to closely study plans to develop our local arts institutions, including Mr Ho's suggestion of an arts university, taking into account the evolving arts education landscape and developments in the industry.

Mr Chairman, I would also like to take this chance to reaffirm the Government's commitment to supporting our students. Ms Anthea Ong asked if we would extend subsidies for Primary school students with foreign passports.

All students in our Primary schools benefit from education subsidies, with some differentiation in the amount of subsidy to reflect the benefits of citizenship. Likewise, Singaporean students in MOE-funded schools who need financial support are eligible for financial assistance schemes. Nonetheless, non- citizen students with at least one Singaporean or Permanent Resident parent can approach our schools for assistance. We will assess their situations and exercise flexibility on a case-by-case basis.

Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap asked if we would extend the Financial Assistance Scheme and Edusave Award to full- time madrasah students. He drew a parallel with the provision of Edusave Contributions (EC) to madrasah students.

This comparison is mistaken. All Singapore Citizens aged seven to 16, regardless of school, receive an annual EC based on their age. This ensures every Singapore Citizen child receives support for secular enrichment activities.

The Edusave Awards, by contrast, is part of the programme in our national schools. They recognise the character, leadership, conduct, learning dispositions, and academic achievements of students enrolled in national schools. Similarly, the MOE Financial Assistance Scheme caters to students in MOE-funded schools. Students in private schools are hence not eligible for the Financial Assistance Scheme or Edusave Awards.

That said, the Government recognises the role that the madrasahs play for the community. Hence, students in madrasahs receive support through the Edusave Contributions. They are also eligible for the Madrasah Student Awards administered by MUIS, which recognise madrasah students' educational excellence.

In addition, MUIS provides assistance for madrasah students from low-income families through the Progress Fund Madrasah Assistance Scheme (PROMAS). Furthermore, PROMAS recipients who perform well in both their religious and secular subjects and exhibit exemplary character are also eligible for the PROMAS Performance Award.

Mr Chairman, in closing, I would like to reiterate that it is only through our collective efforts – with parents, teachers, and the community – that we bring out the best in our children and nurture well-rounded individuals guided by a strong set of values.

While we may play different roles, we can all work together, as MOE’s mission statement proclaims, "to mould the future of our nation".

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministers for Education (Ms Low Yen Ling): Mr Chairman, Sir, a teacher once told me and, I quote, "Our job is not to prepare students for something. Our job is to help students prepare themselves for anything." And I thought this is really true and this captures the essence of what MOE seeks to do as we enable Singaporeans to "Learn for Life", as what Minister Ong Ye Kung has shared in his speech earlier.

Let me give some quick updates on our continual efforts to empower Singaporeans, young and old, with the skills and dispositions to take on the future with confidence.

To put Singaporeans in a good stead for the future, like what Minister Ong said earlier, proficiency in Mother Tongue Languages (MTL) is key, as the age of Asia opens door to greater opportunities. Mr Chairman, Sir, please allow me to say a few words in Mandarin.

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(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mr Chairman, the learning of our Mother Tongue Languages (MTL) is only natural given our cultural context, and will also help our students grasp the opportunities of a rising Asia. MOE has collaborated with the three Mother Tongue Language Learning Promotion Committees since their formation some 15 years ago. Since then, we have worked closely with the community to encourage the learning of MTL within and beyond schools – be it Chinese, Tamil, or Malay.

Over the last few years, there has been a stronger nexus between the work of the Committees and the formal MTL curriculum, and this has led to a mutually reinforcing relationship between schools and the community. Teachers and students are encouraged to apply lessons from the classroom to their daily lives and creations, to support joyful and authentic MTL learning.

For instance, Members may be familiar with the annual National School "Xinyao" Festival. Recently, we introduced a new “Creative” songwriting category where students submit original compositions based on the MTL curriculum taught in secondary school. This was not easy. Instead of just singing a song that is composed by others, students would have to draw inspiration from the textbook and compose a new song. Last year, I attended the finals which lasted for about three hours. It was fascinating and we were deeply impressed by the students’ creativity.

Two sisters composed, performed, and produced a music video for a song titled "华佗" (Huatuo), inspired by the tale of a renowned physician in their Chinese textbook. Those of us who read Chinese martial arts novels would be familiar with “Huatuo". The catchy tune and accessible lyrics of the song allow the story to shine through to the youth and enable a better understanding of not only Huatuo, but also traditional Chinese medicine and the essence of Chinese culture. We will release this video in the near future and I encourage all of you to watch it, and share it with your family and friends.

There are many wonderful examples that can be drawn from this competition. Like the sisters, many of our students’ work have been reproduced as useful lesson materials for our teachers.

We believe that the collective energy and support of schools, families, the media, the entertainment circle, and the larger community, will sustain a vibrant ecosystem to ignite students' interest and love for their MTL, be it Chinese, Tamil, or Malay.

(In English): Mr Chairman, Sir, please allow me to also share examples of the work of our Malay and Tamil Language Learning Promotion Committees in making MTL learning relatable, in making MTL learning enjoyable. Since 2018, the "Perkasa Warisan" camp has brought together community partners, as Miss Cheng Li Hui mentioned earlier, to provide immersive experiences, specifically tied to the language and also the cultural components of the Malay language curriculum, such as activities on the art of Malay gastronomy.

Tech-savvy youths from NUS and also the youths from NTU have made learning Tamil fun for Upper Primary students, through a programme called "Artificial Intelligence and Tamil Language". This programme allows our students to learn the language in the context of coding application and software and then apply it in novel and also technological settings.

I am confident that the committees will continue to bring together the passion, the creativity and energy of our schools, parents, media and the community to sustain a vibrant eco-system for students to like, to learn and to use their MTL as living languages. Mr Chairman, Sir, apart from reinforcing our bilingual foundations, MOE is also committed to developing the whole child through a broad-based and holistic curriculum. This includes, as Miss Cheng Li Hui suggested, engaging our youths in current issues, like climate change to foster in them traits of active citizenship and a shared concern for Singapore and the world.

We currently integrate the topic of climate change across various subjects at different levels of the national curriculum. Secondary school students, for example, will learn in Geography lessons the effects of climate change on our food supply chain and also the forests. In Science, they will investigate how human activities disrupt the carbon cycle, contribute to climate change and threaten our environment.

As part of the curriculum development process, we also consult MEWR and other relevant authorities to provide our students with the most up-to-date and accurate information on climate change. More importantly, we hone our students' ability in discerning the news and also engage them in inquiry-based learning and discussion so that our students are guided to examine different sources of information critically.

Beyond the classroom, many schools have programmes that partner the community to promote environmental causes and give our students the chance to translate their knowledge into action. For instance, students are trained to become "Junior Environmental Ambassadors" in the Green Schools programme by the South West Community Development Council (South West CDC) and NEA. As part of their training, they go through modules on the environment like energy efficiency and climate change, as well as the 4Rs that we are all very familiar with. The 4Rs are to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and most recently, to Refuse. This further instils in our students, green practices and mind-sets like waste minimisation.

Many Members are very active on the ground, in the community; you will agree with me that students are our best ambassadors, because when they go back and tell their mummy, daddy or grandparents, "You forgot to switch off the aircon, you forgot to switch off the lights", I think the whole family will remember the green practices. So, we are counting on our students to really spread the word for us.

Last year, close to 300 student ambassadors across 49 schools completed their training and went on to champion green initiatives in their schools in the South West district. The other CDCs are also implementing similar green initiatives with the schools in their districts.

Also central to holistic education, is the students' participation in co-curricular activities (CCAs), which allow them to discover their interest and talents, forge friendships with peers of diverse backgrounds, as well as develop character and resilience. We are glad that Miss Cheng Li Hui supports our initiative to pilot the removal of CCA selection trials to help our students develop their passions, regardless of their prior experiences and backgrounds.

As part of our on-going efforts to redefine CCA experiences, MOE is also exploring how to better promote social mixing and inclusivity through CCAs, as advocated by Ms Cheng. Currently, we are piloting combined teams where two schools run a CCA programme together, and where appropriate, send a combined team to participate in the National School Games (NSG) or Singapore Youth Festival Arts Presentation.

As students work together towards a common purpose, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to learn, to appreciate differences, to pick up skills like relationship management. We are starting this with five pairs of schools. In time to come, we believe our CCA experiences will better support our students' holistic growth.

Mr Chairman, to conclude, I recap the educator's quote that I started with, "Our job is not to prepare students for something. Our job is to help students prepare themselves for anything". Yes, we should help our students prepare themselves for anything that may come their way. In so doing, we will raise a generation of Singaporeans with a sense of confidence over their lives and their future, no matter what uncertainties a changing world may hold. To this end, MOE will continue to work with stakeholders to nurture our youths to become active citizens with a love to Learn for Life, and willing to act for a better Singapore that we collectively own.

The Chairman: Clarifications. Ms Denise Phua.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: I thank the Minister and Second Minister as well. Just a few questions on Tree for Life. First, on my suggestion to rename or consider the idea of Ministry of Education being the Ministry of Lifelong Learning. Senior Minister of State Chee Hong Tat just mentioned that MOE is now providing a continuum of learning opportunities for Singaporeans for the entire life. I thought that a new name might reflect better MOE's new vision and mission.

Also, education somehow, smacks of a one-way flow: of I educate you, I teach you; versus the idea of self-driven learning whereby the ownership is put on the people who are learning. That is one question.

My second question is on the transformation map. I do appreciate the Tree for Life. I would like to seek indulgence to help to prune the Tree a little bit and to suggest some modifications. One is the fruit. It will be great, if in this so-called transformation map in the form of a tree, the types of fruit could be articulated better in terms of what kind of students you want to see; what kind of learners; and what kind of desired outcomes, including how we will benchmark – my point which Minister maybe forgot to respond to – benchmark what would be the success of our education system versus the usual ones that we are quite used to – PISA rankings and so forth.

The next is the ground in the graphic of Tree for Life. For the ground, we could specify the foundational principles by which our uniquely Singapore education system should aspire towards. Principles like equal access, and a lot of the things that are already being done in our country, like being inclusive, like being collaborative, like always looking at future-proofing and looking ahead. Those could be the foundational principles that occupy the ground from which this tree grows.

The third is in terms of the branches in the Tree for Life. I thought that many of the things that Ministers, Senior Minister of State and Senior Parliamentary Secretaries have mentioned are to do with enablers. The branches are really the enablers. How we look at the future roles of staff, be they education leaders or educators, the curriculum, the content to teach, the pedagogy by which we teach. These are great enablers that can be considered as the branches.

And then, there is also the weather condition. Beyond the Tree per se – but the conditions on how we are all conditioned to think of as, like a certain way, when we look at education in our country; and some of the driving forces to support what MOE is trying to do —

The Chairman: Ms Denise Phua, can you keep it to clarification, instead of another speech?

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: Would Minister consider all of that, and also maybe add an element of innovation in the graphic so that we could consider for example, schools that may not have to go through the PSLE or a Parent Academy.

Chairman, on Special Education Needs. A couple of questions. I think it is great news that the SEN Fund for IHLs has been extended to those who not just have physical disabilities, but also to those with Dyslexia, ADHD and ASD. But the amount given is $5,000, if I heard correctly. In the actual original fund, there is $25,000 for those with hearing and visual impairment. I was wondering why the extension is for $5,000, and not $25,000, why not in between?

There are physical devices but we need therapists, coach services too.

The Chairman: How many supplementary questions are there, Ms Denise Phua? If you can just keep it succinct, please.

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Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: Yes. My last question is an appeal to extend the special school years for all of the SPED students – not just those who are currently allowed to study until 21, but for all of them to be able to stay until the age 21. Because they just need that longer runway to enable them to be more independent in daily living and to allow them to perhaps have a better chance to do some supported employment work.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: I think the analogy of a tree cannot be pushed too far, but that is always the danger when you use an analogy. Foundational principles – I totally agree with Ms Denise Phua. When we came up with this "Tree for Life" and the Learn for Life movement, we were focusing on the deltas. What are the main changes we want to make. One example is UPLIFT, which is something that we are putting a lot more resources to.

But surely, all the principles that the Member mentioned earlier – they continue to be relevant. But this tree is focusing on the delta. As I mentioned in my speech, it will guide us in our actions for the next five to 10 years – the key changes that we want to see in the system.

The Member's points on the branches, on the different kinds of fruits – actually, if we want students of different abilities to have different pathways, one fruit is not enough. You need a whole orchard of different kinds of fruits. So, again, the analogy cannot be taken too far.

But I take all of the Member's points. These are all valid. That is why I say the education system must always be a work in progress. While we say we have a plan for the next five to 10 years, I am sure along the way, there will be new initiatives, new imperatives and we have to change again.

I will leave the Second Minister to answer the question on SEN, but on the renaming to the Ministry for Lifelong Learning – we agree with the essence of what the Member said. I think the essence of what the Member wishes MOE will do, we will do. If we do it well, we achieve what we want to do, and promote lifelong learning the way we want to, at that point in time, maybe we can think about a change of our name.

The Chairman: Ms Indranee Rajah.

Ms Indranee Rajah: I need to respond to Ms Denise Phua's many supplementary questions.

The first clarification Ms Denise Phua had was – how come it is $5,000 for the SEN Fund for those with social and behavioural conditions instead of $25,000? Currently, under the SEN Fund, eligible students with physical impairment can tap up to $5,000 on the SEN Fund. So, it is pegged to that. Eligible students with visual or hearing loss can tap up to $25,000 and that is because for those with visual or hearing loss, the expenses are higher for them in terms of the assistive devices, that is one; as well as the services.

So, for example, for the assistive devices, they may need an assistive learning system, talking calculators, reader pens. Those are generally more expensive than other types of devices. And also, supporting services. For example, hearing loss. You may need somebody to do sign language and then you obviously have to cover that. And for the blind students, sometimes you need note-taking services. So, it is scoped depending on the need and basically, for hearing loss and visual impairment, the cost of the devices and support is higher.

Do not forget, we have just extended the SEN Fund to students with learning and behavioural needs, and this is just a start. So, the high-needs category may not be so applicable to them. But this much I can assure Ms Denise Phua, which is that MOE will continue to work with our IHLs and we will review the SEN Fund periodically. Our ultimate aim is to ensure that the students with SEN are adequately supported with the necessary devices that they need.

Ms Denise Phua also made a passionate plea for us to keep some of the students in the SPED schools for longer, up to age 21. Well, there are two things that we are doing, which will partially address that. But I agree that there is much more that we can look at, to see how we can support those who leave school. So, let me just take them in turn.

The first thing is, MOE has already started in the SPED schools a school-wide process of transition planning for all the SPED students at the Secondary age. The school has developed an individual transition plan for each student, working with the students, the care-givers and the family, and the idea is really to help them to be able to cope when they leave school. So, that is the first thing, and this will apply to all the SPED students, irrespective of whether or not they may be able to go into open employment, or not. So, that is number one – prepare them all for when they leave school.

Number two, we have the School-to-Work Transition Programme in all the SPED schools and that is to offer customised training pathways cum work options for the students, who have diverse disability profiles, who may not benefit from the vocational certification but they are still capable of work. The School-to-Work Transition Programme begins in the student's final year of schooling, when he or she is referred to SG Enable and matched to a suitable employment or training pathway, and the programme continues for one year after he or she graduates, during which he or she is supported by SG Enable. While on the programme, the students receive customised job training, job support from job coaches to prepare them for eventual employment.

That said, I think Ms Denise Phua's concern really is that there may be some who are not able to do open employment and her appeal is, can we keep them in the school system? But even if we did that, even up to age 21, there are still some, who, after age 21, still cannot cope with open employment. I think what Ms Denise Phua wants to do is to sort of lengthen the runway.

So, one step at a time. I think we have spent the last decade or so really ensuring that SPED is strengthened, that we have got good quality in terms of the content as well as the teachers and those who can provide the programmes. And you can see we are now taking the next step, which is helping them to transition beyond school and those who can go to open employment.

So, I think I can say this – we agree that that is certainly an area that has to be looked into, for those who cannot go into open employment. Work in progress, and we will be very happy to partner all the stakeholders in this space to come up and see what is the best thing for them. It may or may not be retaining them in school. It may be something else. But what we really want is that no matter what it is, when you leave SPED school, you also want those with special needs to be able to live lives which are as productive as possible, and which also gives their care-givers a sense of assurance, that their loved ones with special needs are engaged and have something to do, and are in an environment which is conducive for them.

The Chairman: Ms Foo Mee Har.

Ms Foo Mee Har: Thank you, Sir. I have two questions for the Senior Minister of State on SkillsFuture. First, thank you for very much for the range of exciting initiatives on SkillsFuture. The first clarification I have is that I ask the Senior Minister of State how the next phase of SkillsFuture movement will bring about a closer link between the CET courses and employability. I spoke about the challenge amongst the thousands of courses and people needed help to navigate. What do I need to do? What skills do I have to achieve based on the CET courses offered that would link me to a very good employment outcome, especially those 40 to 60 years old, the same group we are trying to help.

The second clarification I have for the Senior Minister of State is on the SkillsFuture Queen Bee initiative. It is a very exciting initiative and there were so very impressive numbers being mentioned, that SMEs are being brought on board. I asked in my speech if the Senior Minister of State can give more details about how this new model works, maybe specifically give some details on the governance, the funding, whether there is any certification involved, so that some of the skills can be portable. So, just really going a bit deeper about if these Queen Bees are going to be schools of the industries, how are they going to be governed, how are they going to be funded, and the quality control about the programmes.

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Mr Chairman, I thank Ms Foo Mee Har for her two supplementary questions. For the first, she is right that because we offer so many different kinds of courses, it is useful for people to get some advisory, some guidance. If I take this course, what are some of the pathways that may be open to me? What are some of the outcomes that I can benefit from? This is going to be done through two channels, mainly. The first one, of course, we are going to do it through the portal. So, the portal will be enhanced to be able to provide some of this information based on the individual's profile, needs, and make some recommendations.

But we understand that some Singaporeans will want a more face-to-face interaction, because they are then able to interact with the advisor, they are able to get some guidance to point them in the right direction. So that is why we are going to work through the SkillsFuture Advice. But this time round, we will go beyond the community, which is what we have been doing for the past few years, to work with the career centres. This will be in collaboration with MOM, Workforce Singapore and also with our unions. And as I mentioned earlier, also with private sector entities that can come in and provide some of these advisory services on a commercial basis.

Through this process, we hope to be able to supplement the support that we give to individuals and help them to make those decisions.

The other point that I will just mention briefly is that part of having a closer linkage between training and employability, where we also have to curate the quality of the training courses. And that is also what we will do in the next bound – to further raise the quality of the training providers. That is going to be one of the key priorities too.

Ms Foo Mee Har's second question on Queen Bees. This is work in progress. We have lined up some companies but every sector is different. Some Queen Bees, like in the case of SP Group, are there because they have many links with suppliers and contractors in the sector. So, they are able to then influence what these SMEs do. Because these SMEs, many of them are their suppliers, their contractors. But in some cases, it is not quite like that. The people who are participating and the SMEs may not be direct contractors or suppliers, but they are part of the industry.

So, the model needs to be customised depending on which Queen Bee company we are working with, which sector we are working on. But I think the fundamental principle remains that what we want is to be able to have these Queen Bee companies to take the lead and work with us as partners, to be able to raise the training opportunities and resources available to other companies and workers within the sector.

The Chairman: Prof Lim Sun Sun.

Prof Lim Sun Sun: I thank the Minister's for the various announcements and I also appreciate the attention to level the playing field for students from different family backgrounds.

I first have a clarification. I would like to find out if there will be greater effort to introduce social emotional training for teachers so that there is greater self-awareness on the part of teachers, and that they better understand how they relate not just to their colleagues but also to their students, so as to build a healthier classroom environment.

The second is a comment on the device ownership scheme. I appreciate that there are many virtues to personal device usage in schools, but there are also certain pitfalls that we need to think about. Previous research has shown that device ownership actually involves many components, including device purchase, device maintenance, software maintenance as well as software usage. And families are clearly differently advantaged in being able to provide the guidance. So, I have found in my own research that parents from less well-heeled backgrounds face severe inadequacy and severe anxiety in terms of their inability to support their children in this way.

In other words, unless we have very concerted, very comprehensive support and augmentation within schools for IT support for students from different backgrounds, you may find that some of these introductions of device usage may introduce different kinds of inequalities. So, I hope due attention can be paid to this issue.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: Prof Lim Sun Sun talked about microaggression yesterday. I do not think it is widespread. I do not deny that sometimes it can happen, but I do not think it is so widespread that we have to roll out a national training programme for our teachers. Where teachers cannot control their anger or in the rare occasions that it happens, I think they ought to be counselled. Over time, as they gain experience, they will have more patience and have the skills to handle difficult situations as opposed to losing their cool. I think actually all of us need those kind of skills. But it does not mean we get angry all the time.

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As for the second question on the device, these are practical issues we really have to look at on the ground, which is why before we roll out any national programme, we always pilot it first. We have piloted in these eight schools and all these issues the Member raised happened, all happened – Wifi kept dropping, all these things happened. But with the experience that we have gained so far, these practical problems can be resolved and we make sure they are resolved before we roll out nationally.

The Chairman: Dr Intan.

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar: Thank you, Chairman. I seek your kind indulgence for four clarifications.

First, I support the National Digital Literacy programme but, as I mentioned in my speech, Minister, I hope that MOE will consider including information literacy as well because it is not sufficient for students to just learn to develop skills and knowledge to make use of digital tools and platforms but also understand how to navigate the massive amounts of information available that traverses all these various digital tools and platforms. That is one.

Second, for the SkillsFuture for educators, I understand that MOE will be working with NIE as well as private training providers, external training providers, for both in-service and pre-service courses, and which may also include online learning modules. Will this be fully funded by MOE or will teachers have to tap on the SkillsFuture Credit, for example?

Third, I have not spoken it in this Committee of Supply but I have spoken about this before. It is good that we are strengthening the support for students with SEN in our schools. Are there plans to recruit more AED(LBS) because at the moment, there are only one or two AED(LBS) to cater to 80% of our students with special educational needs. My son is one of them. I hope that there will be a lot more AED(LBS) because it will certainly help our students with special education needs in the mainstream schools.

And, last, the expansion of the intake places for Work Study programmes. I must declare that I am from SIT as a faculty member. SIT was the first to start the Work-Study programmes. With the expansion, is it that there will be ramping up of programmes within SIT or will it be ruled out to all the AUs?

Mr Ong Ye Kung: Yes, as I mentioned, the four components of digital literacy simplified – Find, Think, Apply, Create. What the Member has mentioned is under "Find". Certainly, we will look at it; I fully agree with the Member.

Second, our SkillsFuture for Educators is fully funded, just as at NIE, our training at the, Academy of Singapore Teachers (AST), they are fully funded for our teachers. It is not just online and courses. One important modality for teachers when they learn is to do so in a professional community, learning from each other. You can make use of online platforms but teachers appreciate that the most, when professionals can come together and learn from each other. We have to fully leverage on that.

On AED(LBS), answer is yes, some schools are doing very interesting initiatives on the ground, beefing up AED(LBS) and also doing things differently. Not ready to talk about it in great detail this time, but certainly we are looking at it.

On Work-Study Programme, certainly, if we want to increase to 12% and become a mainstream pathway of every cohort, we certainly need all hands on deck. SIT being an applied University, surely it is one of our big partners that we hope will roll out more. I hope Dr Intan will push for it back in her institution.

Ms Anthea Ong (Nominated Member): Mr Chairman, I am very heartened and I also thank both Ministers for their resounding assurances that we are finally introducing mental health education in schools, and also that MOE will be providing more and better trained counsellors to schools. I cannot agree more with Minister Indranee that we need a whole child and whole school and an ecosystem to address students' mental well-being. So, I have two clarifications.

The first one is that a clear big piece within this eco-system in addressing students' well-being, mental well-being, particularly, would be the parents. I am wondering how and when are parents engaged by the schools for a student in distress, and also if we are including parents in the mental health education that we are introducing in some way. I also wonder if one way could be reaching these parents through their employers and that there might be an inter-Ministry initiative with MOM, given the announcement in terms of the Workplace Mental Health Advisory.

The second clarification is, does the Ministry have, or if not, does it intend to have a clear and robust Suicide Prevention strategy in schools, especially given the record number of teenage suicides that we had in 2018 that was announced last year?

Ms Indranee Rajah: I thank the Member for her clarification. The Member is correct that the parents are actually a very important part of this, and our teachers do engage the parents, especially when the teachers find that their child has a mental health issue. So, the plan to engage parents is very much a part of it.

When the Member refers to a suicide prevention strategy, actually, that strategy is the peer support network or the programme that I talked about. Because in my speech, I had outlined how it is actually a whole eco-system.

If a child is depressed, worried, the first people to pick it up will be the friends, the friends are the first ones. And if it is not too big an issue, the friends can provide support, then that is great. But if it needs a little bit more than that, then you would want to bring it to the attention of the teacher. And the teacher can resolve it, that is fine, but if not, you may have to go to the professional counsellor. And then, from the counsellor, you may have to go to specialised external service providers. So, you can see that it is one layer after another layer, but all to have a protective environment around a student who has got mental health issues.

Mr Ang Wei Neng (Jurong): MOE has done a lot of transformation for the past few years. I would like to thank the Minister and his team for their passion, hard work and determination as well. I have two clarifications for the Ministers.

First, we are glad that MOE is providing generous bursaries for students at the Polytechnic and also Universities. We also note that at the University, especially, the tuition fee has been increasing year after year for the past. I do not know whether MOE is continuing with this policy of increasing the tuition fee every year. If it is so, then will the bursary also increase year after year?

The second clarification is that we are glad that that AUs are taking 2,800 ICT students this academic year. It is about two, three times more compared to the past. Does the Minister have a breakdown of these ICT students by the six Universities? And also, whether the Universities are working with the industrial players to co-create a curriculum, so that the skill-sets acquired by all these students will be matched by the demand of the industry?

Mr Ong Ye Kung: On fees, the Prime Minister actually spoke about this at great length during the National Day Rally. For the cost of ITE education, we fund over 90%. For Polytechnics, the Government fund about 85%. And then, for University, the Government funds about 75%. Today, we are pretty much there for most courses. Some courses are still out of whack, so over time, we may need to adjust. But for most courses, we are pretty much there.

From henceforth, we need to adjust fees from time to time in order to reflect cost inflation. And bursaries, from time to time, also probably have to adjust, so that education remains affordable. Our principle is very clear: no one who gains a place in an IHL should be denied of studying, of education, because of financial circumstances.

As for breakdown of ICT students, I do not have the numbers but a lot are coming from NUS, which has been really beefing up and ramping up their courses. Because the courses, the places, are ramped up so fast, you cannot really get sufficient professors. So, you actually have no choice and, just as well, we rely a lot on practitioners. Indeed, this is very valuable. With their experience, the students gain skills that are very relevant to the market. If you look at their employment results, the ICT students are doing pretty well.

The Chairman: Ms Denise Phua, would you like to withdraw your amendment?

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: I thank the Ministers, Senior Minister of State, Senior Parliament Secretaries and the team behind you, somewhere in the room in Parliament, for providing such a comprehensive and well considered response to the speeches and requests from my fellow parliamentarians and I. As I said, I really want to deeply thank those who have chosen to serve in this sector, whether in mainstream, special education or in the IHLs. And as I said too, your influence is deeply felt even after the students are long gone. So, thank you so much for doing this. With that, Mr Chairman, I now beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $12,861,226,400 for Head K ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $644,000,000 for Head K ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.