Efforts to Ensure Educators and Lecturers at Institutes of Higher Learning are Aware of COVID-19 Measures

2 Mr Mohamed Irshad asked the Minister for Education what efforts are being undertaken to educate our educators and lecturers in our Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) so that they are aware of (i) the effects of the COVID-19, (ii) efforts undertaken by the Government to manage the developing situation and (iii) the part they can play in social defence by calming any unnecessary panic that may arise among our IHL students.

The Minister for Education (Mr Ong Ye Kung): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) have been actively keeping their campus communities updated on the evolving COVID-19 situation. Government efforts to manage the outbreak in Singapore as well as the precautionary measures taken are explained to the communities in these IHLs. They are doing this through various advisories and resources.

Ground practices play a part in education too. These include reminders on the importance of good hygiene, wearing a mask when sick, twice-daily temperature-taking, requiring those returning from mainland China, and now, Korea, to stay at home for the first 14 days, and cancelling, deferring or adjusting large-scale events to mitigate risks.

Beyond technical knowledge, the COVID-19 situation is also a teachable moment to build resilience. In ITE, a Total Defence lesson package covering content on the COVID-19 situation will be used in all Life Skills classes this month. Polytechnics will roll out similar packages later in April, after their exams and term break. The Universities will incorporate similar lessons where opportune. For example, SMU's core curriculum for all Year 1 undergraduates includes a course on social resilience and total defence, using the SARS outbreak as one case study. It will incorporate insights from the on-going COVID-19 situation.

Many students and staff are also stepping forward with help and moral support. In the Universities, student groups have rallied to provide support and daily food deliveries for their peers living on-campus but are required to stay in their rooms. In our Polytechnics, staff from our Nursing schools help to train their colleagues in conducting temperature screening.

These ground initiatives and actions are contagious, demonstrate the courage of the Singapore society and has more education value than many formal courses. We should build on these positive initiatives to build a more resilient and cohesive Singapore. Together, I am confident we can overcome this COVID-19 episode.

Mr Mohamed Irshad (Nominated Member): I thank the Minister for the update. Very heartening to hear such initiatives taking place. From my understanding, there are several IHLs which has cancelled classes or switched to e-learning. However, some classes are still happening and going on as per normal. What is the guidance from MOE that has been given to all the IHLs in terms of cancellation of classes or postponement of massive events?

The second supplementary question is: when can we see us easing back to normalising the situation?

Mr Ong Ye Kung: On the first question, the guidance that IHLs are working on is to reduce the inter-mingling of students on campuses so that IHLs can keep on operating while mitigating the risks of infection and spreading. So, they are working with about 50 students for each gathering. So, you find lectures are still on-going but they have shrank in size. Tutorials, project teams are all on-going but the sizes have all been shrunk. We have three cases now in our IHLs – one staff and two students. It was fortunate many of them were not in campus when they had symptoms; they exercised responsibility, which was fortunate and we are very thankful to them.

Secondly, it is also because of all these mitigating measures. Even 48 hours before the onset of symptoms, you find that their exposure in the campus is actually quite limited and localised, because of all these mitigating measures. As a result, the number of staff and students that have to be quarantined or put on Leave of Absence has been much reduced. I think they are all stable, improving and we are glad. We hope to see them back in school soon.

As to when it will stabilise, it really depends on the situation. I think we have to ask Minister Gan Kim Yong on this.

But we will play our part and do our best to make sure that within schools, while we educate the students, we take the necessary precautions so that life can go on and education can go on as normally as we can – but with precautions.