MAIN AND DEVELOPMENT - ESTIMATES OF SINGAPORE FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR - 1ST APRIL, 1982 TO 31ST MARCH, 1983
Mr Speaker, Sir, permit me to reply to the questions and points that have been raised on behalf of my Minister. I know that there are other Members of the House who want to raise more points later, but as several Members have already spoken and raised numerous points, I feel I should try to give an answer now so that I can do justice to their points and then take on more points at a later stage. The Member for Boon Teck raised the question of educational wastage and I want to thank him for raising this very pertinent point. That was the fundamental reason why the Goh Report was produced and this was debated at length in 1979 in this House. I can assure him that the subject of educational wastage is constantly before the officers in my Ministry who have to carry out this policy. To give an example of how progressively over a long period of time we can hope to reduce educational wastage, I would just like to take the example of the Primary School Leaving Examination going back to 1976. I would like to caution that changes in education have a very long time factor, namely, that a change today affecting a child in Primary I will not show any results until 10 years later when that child does the 'O' Level. So we have to make haste slowly. We have to have a long-term view and we have to persist in whatever we do. Prior to 1976 we had automatic promotion in our schools with the result that many pupils were being pushed up to PSLE with the obvious consequence that they would fail. So it is not surprising that in 1976 the failure rate in PSLE was very high and only 57% managed to pass the examination. But from 1976 onwards we stopped automatic promotion and we introduced the policy of retention, that is to say, weak students would have to repeat their year. For the next few years the PSLE results steadily improved: in 1977 it went up to 67.9%, in 1978 74.5%, in 1979 74.3%, and so on. That meant that the retained students would either pass in the following year or would reach a point when they would be too old for their class and would have to leave the system. So retention meant that a certain percentage of the students would have to leave the system and these premature school-leavers or drop-outs represented a loss. It was precisely to address that problem that the Goh Report was produced, and the principle of streaming students into courses more appropriate to their ability and therefore more suited to them, was introduced in 1979 and 1980. So I take this opportunity to reiterate the purpose of streaming - it is none other than to reduce educational wastage which the Member for Boon Teck and other Members are rightly concerned. 4.15 p.m. The benefits of this policy would take some time before they become apparent. This is the third year in which streaming has taken place in the primary schools, and the second year in which streaming has taken place in the secondary schools, and it will be some time before a reduction of premature school leavers can be seen. But I would just like to let him know that with the monolingual stream being introduced in the primary schools, the number of pupils who are leaving the school system at Primary 4 and Primary 5 has already gone down. In fact, last year the number of pupils who left at Primary 4 had gone down by a factor of three. So we begin to see some reduction in premature school leavers in the primary schools. The Member for Boon Teck's point about the courses being too academic for students and is the cause for some of them to fail is well taken. I think this is so, and this is the reason why in the monolingual stream the course is deliberately made not academic in content and emphasis is placed on literacy, learning of the language under informal conditions. With these measures, I can assure him that we hope to reduce educational wastage in the schools. On the question of helping those who are not academically inclined to become more skilled so that they can contribute to themselves as well as to the economy, we are looking into how the VITB system can be more closely linked with the school system. As Members know, by 1984-85 the first batch of monolingual pupils will be leaving our school system. The monolingual stream is not a dead-end because our intention is that monolingual students on leaving the school system should go on to some form of pre-vocational and vocational training. The same thing can be said of those who are unsuccessful in the PSLE examinations after having been through the extended course in the primary stream. Similar provision will be made for them. On the question of compulsory education the Member has cited so many countries that have introduced compulsory education. The first point to note is that in Singapore the desire for education is extremely high. Without any form of compulsory education, more than 99% of pupils of school-going age register to join Primary 1. On the question of whether we should have compulsory education at the later stages so that we can keep potential premature school leavers within the school system and prevent them from dropping out, we can certainly do this by compulsory measures but that by itself does not solve the problem. What is more important is to find solutions which provide alternatives for such students, such as streaming, which I have mentioned, into appropriate streams for them and alternative channels, such as vocational training for those who are not academically-inclined. I think these are the more important practical measures that we have to take to provide a route up for those who are not academically-inclined. If we are successful in carrying out these measures, I do not see any necessity to introduce compulsory education. There will, of course, be pupils who for various reasons do not want to stay within either the school system or the vocational training system. We know this to be true even today. We have to look into how we can get these pupils to progress smoothly from the school system into the vocational system. But the possibility of making it necessary for such pupils who are not staying in the school system to have to do some vocational training as a compulsory requirement cannot be excluded. The Member for Moulmein cautioned us against making too many changes and his advice in a way runs counter to what many Members have also suggested because, what they have suggested, if implemented, tantamounts to change. I think the important thing here again is that we make haste slowly. We do not make changes for the sake of change and where we do have to make a change we do so after careful and thorough investigation. On the subject of full-day schools, the Member knows that a number of schools are under a pilot scheme. This year we have six secondary schools and two primary schools and we are constantly monitoring these schools to find out what their experiences are with full-day school. On the basis of what we know of full-day schools, we are not ready to make a firm decision on whether we should proceed full steam ahead with all the schools. This will have to wait until the pilot scheme has been thoroughly tried out. On the shortage of teachers, this problem of manpower affects not only the school system but also many sectors, including the Civil Service. The more important thing to note about the teaching service is that the turnover is low as compared with many other services. For example, for the non-graduate teachers, the turnover is less than 2% per annum and for graduate teachers, the turnover is about 4% per annum. I think we should be thankful for this. At the same time, recognizing that there is a shortage of teachers, the Institute of Education is looking into how the intake can be increased. The problem here is that the trainees in the Institute of Education have to meet strict criteria imposed by the Public Service Commission because when a person is taken into the Institute of Education he is as good as having been employed to become a teacher. The Public Service Commission quite rightly believes that the standards that ought to be maintained for non-graduates as well as graduates who want to become teachers must be kept as high as possible. We know from the experiences of the 1960s that when the education system underwent explosive growth many people with marginal academic qualifications had to be taken into the education service. The Public Service Commission is not prepared to accept this for our education system for the years ahead. With that important restriction, I must say that the number of applications to the Institute of Education for both graduate and non-graduate courses remains quite high, something like 3.3 applicants for every place for graduate teachers, and 10 applicants for every place for non-graduate teachers. So there is interest among our school leavers and university leavers to join the education service. As I said, the selection imposed by the Public Service Commission is of a high standard and I think Members will in the long run agree with me that this is the way for the education service to maintain and even improve standards and to have an excellent teaching force. The Member for Moulmein asked a question about the salary revision. I think his question has already been answered to some extent by the Minister for Trade and Industry yesterday when he said that the salaries of all the other services, including the Divisions I and 11 which affect graduate and non-graduate teachers, are undergoing revision. I can assure the Member that my Ministry has already begun discussions with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service Commission on the revision of these salaries and the introduction of the Senior Education Service. He asked a question about promotion of teachers. I would like to take this opportunity to say something about this. In 1972, 1974, and 1977 there were three mass promotion exercises. These exercises involved something like 10,000 teachers, In each exercise, there was a shortlisting of teachers to a figure of about 1,700 and then there were many interview boards which were set up to further interview the shortlisted teachers to see who should be promoted. The result of all these exercises was that the number of teachers promoted in each case was between 200 and 470. In 1977, it was 470. In percentage terms, promotions were given to 2% to 4.7% of eligible teachers. These exercises took several weeks. Many people had hopes of a promotion. Many hopes were dashed when only a few percent were promoted. Even those who were promoted received, after all that exercise, one increment. It can be said that these mass promotion exercises produced more frustration, more disappointment, even for the successful teachers than if they were not carried out at all. If we look back into the education service before 1972, we find that there was no system of mass promotion. Instead, promotions were carried out to fill posts such as principals of schools, inspectors in the inspectorate in the headquarters, specialist officers, and so on, and in each of these exercises the candidate who was promoted assumed higher responsibility. He took on, in fact, a different job and gen- erally the education service accepted these promotion exercises. With the proposed Senior Education Service a similar principle for promotion will be observed, namely, that promotions of teachers should be to responsible positions, such as vice-principals and principals of schools and specialist and inspectorate positions in the Ministry headquarters. 4.30 p.m. What about teachers in the rank and file who do not get promoted in these exercises? I think the important thing is not that promotion per se is the main motivator, but how we can help the teachers, the bulk of whom will be teaching in schools, to improve themselves, increase their knowledge of the subjects they are teaching, improve on methods, all of which will make teaching a more satisfying function. For this, the Ministry has already instituted in-training courses, school-based courses or workshops to help teachers to get a broader, deeper perspective of their professions and subjects. For example, last year the Institute of Education conducted 10 in-service courses and ran 71 school-based workshops. This is an example of how the Ministry can help teachers to develop themselves in their profession and to get more satisfaction in the work that they have to do in the schools. There are other matters which we have mentioned once or twice in the Schools Council, such as encouraging teachers, in some positive ways, to be more innovative. These are the matters which are being looked into by the Ministry of Education. The Member for Kampong Kembangan asked if a status report on the new education system could be provided. My answer is that the status reports on various aspects of the new education system are, in fact, being made known to the public and to the teachers through the Schools Council and through press releases. This has been going on all the time. I am not sure if it would be beneficial to have an omnibus status report on every item covered in the new education system. The present approach of dealing with every aspect as it arises and reporting it in the Schools Council would, I think, suffice to inform Members of this House and members of the public of what is going on in the implementation of the new education system. He mentioned the whole question of how to help children to become better achievers in school. He mentioned home factors and factors outside the school. I am in complete agreement with him that these factors have a profound influence on children. At the same time, these are the very factors which are the most difficult and intractable for anyone to change. Any parent who has to deal, for example, with an indisciplined child knows how difficult it is to try to change the behaviour of that child. Anybody who has had to deal with parents who are dogmatic and who refuse to accept certain changes in the treatment of their children knows how difficult it is to bring about such changes. I think the Member is touching on something fundamental and universal and which has been in man for a very long time. I do not think there are any quick solutions or answers to these questions. Certainly I do not see how the Ministry of Education will be able to extend itself beyond its very large task of the school system to the home. On the question of religious knowledge which was brought up by the Member for Leng Kee, may I leave this till later because I know other Members also want to bring up points concerning religious knowledge. However I would like to ask my Parliamentary Secretary to reply to the Member for Leng Kee on the progress of the SAP schools.