Archives & Oral History Department

Singapore 9 APR 1983 01-1/83/04/04

Acc. No.

SPEECH BY PRESIDENT DEVAN NAIR AT THE INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION'S TENTH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE ON "RESEARCH

AND TEACHER EDUCATION" AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTRE AUDITORIUM ON MONDAY, 4 APRIL 1983 AT 8.45 AM

The perfect education system exists nowhere. What we can speak of are relatively more successful or less successful systems. A tree is known by its fruits. Judging by results, we can boast of a fairly successful system.

The percentage of PSLE passes (all media) increased from 74.2 per cent in 1979 to 87.3 per cent in 1982. Consequently, the percentage of pupils retained in Primary Six declined from 18.9 per cent in 1979 to 8.8 per cent in 1982.

We also had a bigger number of PSLE candidates scoring four distinctions, 9,341 in 1982 as against only 5,699 in 1981.

GCE 'O' level results for all language media also tell a similar story. The figures for candidates with one or more 'O' level passes progressively improved from 94.03 per cent in 1978 to 97.9 per cent in 1982.

Candidates obtaining three or more 'O' level passes progressively improved from 62.29 per cent in 1978 to 75.37 per cent in 1982.

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More pupils are also achieving 'perfect scores' as seen by the increasing numbers obtaining Grade 1 distinctions in seven or more and eight or more subjects.

Steadily improving performance is also revealed in the combined GCE 'A' level examination results.

64.15 per cent of candidates obtained at least two 'A' and two 'AO' level passes (including the General Paper) in 1982 as against 60.3 per cent in 1978.

At the top band, more students have obtained passes in four 'A' and two 'AO' subjects including the General Paper. Wore students have also obtained top results scoring distinctions in four 'A' level subjects and four 'A' and two 'AO' level subjects.

The most striking evidence of the merits of the new education system is the almost five-fold decline in drop-out rates in both' the primary and lower secondary levels. At the Primary One to Six level, the drop-out rate was only 0.67 per cent of total enrolment in 1982, as against three per cent in 1978. At Secondary One to Two level, the drop-out rate was only 1.9 per cent of total enrolment in 1982, as against 9.3 per cent in 1978.

The pluses are certainly gratifying. By and large, our teachers are hardworking and dedicated. We cannot explain the improvements in performance, otherwise. we also know of outstanding principals and teachers, who have achieved phenomenal results in improving the performance and standards of schools which had previously been stigmatised as low grade schools with below average students.

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Our friends and well wishers, however, will become

rightly suspicious if we gloat over our pluses and say nothing about our minuses. For the distinguishing mark of forward-looking educators is the frankness with which they acknowledge their own shortcomings and those of the system they work under, and the intelligence and vigour with which they identify and deal with these failings and shortcomings. The problems teachers face, both in Singapore and elsewhere, are essentially professional challenges, which need to be frankly faced and overcome, and not embarrassing dirt to be swept under the carpet.

Recently I requested to meet two groups of teachers. One was a group of 20-odd teachers, most of whom had three to four years teaching experience after graduating from the Institute of Education. The second was a group of principals who were in charge of schools with more than their fair share of problems.

I was heartened by the frankness and intelligence with which the teachers discussed their problems. I was even more heartened by the principals, who clearly believed that l the best way to deal with professional problems was not to run away from them. A good deal of what I have to say today I owe to their contributions to my own thinking on the subject of research and teacher education. The credits belong to them. The blemishes are mine.

I am not qualified to pre-empt the several learned papers that will be presented to this Conference, and will not attempt to do so. What I hope to do is to pose for your

consideration some of the vital priorities of educational research and teacher education in Singapore. These must

necessarily be related to the goals of education policy in our Republic.

In brief, we require a population with the skills of hand and brain necessary for a rapidly modernising technological society. But we must enter a very important caveat here. At least some manpower planners need to be reminded that a discussion about education is not a discussion about robotics. We are talking about the body-mind-spirit conglomerate which constitutes the human being. Which means that the paper chase cannot be the be-all or end-all of the educational process. A good human being and a good citizen must have more than paper qualifications, in the shape of desirable qualities of mind, heart and spirit. Programming a robot is a mathematical and technical affair. Arousing and motivating a human being is a qualitative and inspirational one.

Regrettably, the demands of life in a modern society being what they are, human ingenuity has failed to devise anything better than an examination system to determine and assess standards of professional and academic competence. Nobody in his senses will want to take chances, for example, with dentists who may pull out the wrong teeth, engineers who will build fly-overs or bridges which collapse, doctors who will kill more patients than they cure, and so on. Nonetheless, it would be a grave if not fatal error to yield to the easy temptation to make of our schools totally, or even predominantly, examination-oriented institutions.

It seems to me that one of the most pressing problems teacher-educators need to address themselves to is how to combine the examination objectives of our school system with the vitally important non-examination objectives of a total education policy.

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To begin with, we might recall an illuminating passage on the subject in the dialogues of Plato, where Socrates compares himself to a midwife who does nothing more than help the mother give birth to offspring. He recognised that the primary activity takes place in the learner, not the teacher, ‘as it does in the mother, not the midwife. In short, the teacher is always only an instrumental, and never the principal cause of learning. Even the best of teachers cannot deliver what is not present in the student. But a teacher fails if he is unable to deliver, and release" into action, what does lie within the capacity of the student. Once this is acknowledged, we can begin to deal with the problems of teachers, having to cope as they do with children of widely varying capacities, abilities, and social backgrounds.

We know the geometrical axiom: "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line". But this is neither a geographical truth nor an educational one. For there usually are troublesome obstructions in the way and a detour may be more convenient, and often indispensable. The goals of education policy are not to be attained by neat and straight Euclidian pathways.

It bears repetition that educational goals do not involve points in space. They involve human beings - students, teachers and parents. In education, we have to concern ourselves with the qualifications, needs and capacities of the arousers and the aroused, the purveyors and the recipients of perception, knowledge and skills, and of the motivators and the motivated. And if things go wrong, we may end up with non-motivators at one end and the unmotivated on the other, both equally uninspired. Worse still, we may end up with demotivators and the wrongly motivated. In the Singapore context, this can only mean a devastation of the only natural resource we can reasonably boast of - our people.

Singapore's material and spiritual well-being lies concealed, in seed form, in the minds, spirits and bodies of our children. The aim of our education policy must be to unlock these hidden treasures, and cherish and nurture them

for eventual release into creative and productive life and action - both individual and social. And our teachers are the liberators. Their hands have to be trained and steady, for in educational terms, we are speaking of rather complicated combination locks, and the combinations our teachers are equipped with must be the correct ones.

In the matter of research and teacher education, we might proceed from the general to the particular. First, the problems teachers face, and the methods they employ, cannot be divorced from the problems and needs of the great variety of students they teach. A teacher without problems is a contradiction in terms, for it can only mean a teacher without students.

Teachers are recruited, trained and employed in order to deal with problems - very human ones too! - and not with abstractions. 'It therefore follows that educational research, in the very nature of things, has to be problem-oriented research. If the real problems which teachers face in their classrooms, with students of varying capacities and aptitudes and facing different learning problems, escape resolution, then educational research loses its raison d'etre.

There are education-related problems which researchers can identify, but which teachers by themselves cannot solve. For example, behind every so-called problem child, there often lurks a problem parent. What can a teacher do, for instance, about latch-key parents who leave their children to their own devices, while they themselves are about their own devices?

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I was also told of students who require psychiatric attention, because over-zealous parents are determined that little Johnny must end up at least as a Permanent Secretary, notwithstanding the fact that poor Johnny, through no fault of his own, is not cast in the academic mould. He may well possess some brilliant non-academic talents. But only well-informed and concerned parents and teachers can spot them, and guide the child along the path of his special aptitudes and talents. Alas, this is not always the case. Hence the mental traumas inflicted by trying to force square pegs into round holes.

Research findings which link parents or the home background to the learning problems of children, should be made public knowledge and the subject of public discussion. The answers to such educational problems can only be found in a well informed and educated public opinion.

There is little doubt that the streaming process in our schools can be further refined and made more fault-free. There is even less doubt that the streaming process, even as

it is, has drastically reduced human wastage and needless personal tragedies. Children must be trained in accordance with their real aptitudes, and not in accordance with what anybody thinks their aptitudes ought to be. This must

become sacrosanct, both in principle and in practice.

In a sense, every teacher is at the same time his own researcher. This must necessarily be so. Every lesson provides an opportunity to test whether the teacher is registering with his or her pupils, or failing to register.

We are not talking about pure research here, about a speculative exploration of first causes and principles. We

are talking about the whole spectrum of problems teachers face in their classrooms. What, for example, are the impediments to the learning process in our schools? They may arise from environmental or structural causes. Or teaching materials may be inadequate and could be improved upon. How can lessons be made more interesting and how can the lively participation of students be achieved? How can audio-visual aids be used to maximum effect? What are the reasons and remedies for poor motivation in a particular class? Every teacher, every day, confronts any of these or related problems. W illy-nilly, therefore, no teacher can really avoid engaging in continuous research.

Research needs also to be a collective effort. Perhaps the best analogy here is the kind provided by quality control (QC) circles and work improvement teams (WITS). The demonstrable results of QC circles and W ITS are shown in better output, improved human relations, savings, and quality in field work, shop floor and office routines. Teachers and educators from the kindergarten level to tertiary institutions can take a leaf from the W ITS and QC circles concepts.

Research and improvement should be encouraged at all levels. The classroom teacher who pursues a problem intensively and systematically using less refined tools of observation and analysis is as much a researcher as one who carries out a carefully controlled experiment with sophisticated instruments and techniques.

I hope that you will not confine yourselves to generalities. It is important to discuss and define the priority areas for research and teacher education in Singapore. We can certainly benefit from the experience of other countries in these and other areas. We might

thereby be saved the bother and expense of having to re-invent the wheel, so to speak. I might suggest a few areas which you might care to consider.

Redressing the educational wastage of yesteryears is one crucial area. You have heard of the BEST programme, or the Basic Education for Skills Training Scheme. Thousands of our workers, who are likely to be dislodged by technological advances, require to be provided with an essential minimum of literacy and numeracy, so that they may be enabled to upgrade their personal and technical skills for productive and more fulfilling employment in the computer age.

Yesterday's drop-outs must be transformed into today's drop-ins. The teachers who are helping these workers must themselves be helped to help their charges. We need to improve the processes and products of the BEST scheme, to evaluate techniques and results, and to document our findings for the benefit of those who will follow both as teachers and taught. We know that there are similar programmes in other countries. We can surely learn from them.

We have remedial programmes for disadvantaged children of various kinds - such as remedial reading, writing and Arithmetic. I know of one previously stigmatised school, which pulled itself up by its own bootstraps, as it were, mainly through a highly successful programme of remedial reading.

Remedies can be progressively improved in order to cure &aster and more efficiently. Social reasons, quite apart from instructional shortcomings, will ensure that remedial instruction can never be altogether avoided. But the need can be reduced if educational wastage is redressed. Doctors will continue to be necessary, if not to cure you, at least

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to ensure that you do not become a patient. so doctors never need fear unemployment. We will continue to need them and to pay them. we would certainly much rather pay doctors for keeping us well than for treating us when we are ill.

There are other subject areas for research attention. How do parents, teachers and pupils perceive the subjects of moral education, physical education and aesthetic education in the school curriculum? what weightage can or ought to be given to these subjects, and how best are they dealt with?

Moral education, for instance, cannot be treated like an examination subject. I do not believe that any of us owe the moral values and standards we live by to school textbooks. The attributes of unselfishness, goodness, the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, courtesy, kindness, fellow feeling and team spirit are inculcated more by force of example than by precept. No textbook, however well written, can substitute for the quality of the teachers themselves, and for the personal examples they set.

We know the ends we seek through moral education and aesthetic education. But how much thought have we given, and with what result, to the means we should employ to secure these ends? I fear that if we fail to engage ourselves in this matter with high seriousness, moral education and the like will degenerate into sets of meaningless platitudes, if not into a laughing stock.

There is general agreement that considerable research attention to the problems of poor learners and slow starters is absolutely essential, if we are to avoid educational wastage which, in a resource-scarce nation like ours, would be tantamount to criminal negligence. At the same time,

We need to take care that our specially gifted children are not prevented from realising their higher potentials because

of naive and simplistic egalitarian notions.

It is highly commendable to encourage below-average performers to become average performers. Equally commendable are efforts to encourage average performers to achieve above-average levels. To draw an analogy, every sound, banker will advise you on how to appreciate your assets, not on how to depreciate them. Our gifted children are also assets that deserve to be appreciated, rather than depreciated.

The principals and teachers whom I met expresed concern on a number of other matters, which I might mention in passing. This does not mean that they are no more than merely peripheral concerns.

The motivation of students will never get off the launching pads unless we also secure the motivation of teachers. Pre-service training, for instance, is not the end of the training road for teachers. Change is of the essence in the world of education, as it is in the fast-moving world of science and technology. Constant professional renewal is a categorical imperative for teachers, as it is for doctors and engineers. What we learned only a few years ago is already outdated today by fresh discoveries and applications. And what we learn today will inevitably be outdated a few years hence. In-service training and research programmes for teachers will therefore be neglected only at grave peril to the educational process.

Whether teachers in a school work as a devoted and committed team depends very much on the character and drive of the principal, on whether he or she is, like a battery, either positively charged or negatively charged.

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But even a positively charged principal will be unable to operate successfully if his professional responsibilities are too much eroded by administrative chores. There is a strong case to ensure that this is not allowed to happen.

It stands to reason that the performance of our education system will commensurate with the social standing and recognition accorded to members of the teaching profession. Standards of recruitment into the profession require constant upgrading. Career prospects in the profession also require to be enhanced.

It will be a sad day for Singapore if we allow the teaching profession to become the final refuge for failures elsewhere. Should we do so, we ought not to be surprised if the profession were to create failures everywhere else. It is a praiseworthy commentary on the profession, however, that it has not done so. On the contrary, in recent years it has registered substantial improvements in pupil performance.

Nonetheless, it will be useful to remind ourselves that society cannot expect from any profession more than what it puts into it. To use the jargon of the computer age, outputs are normally commensurate with inputs.

I look forward with great interest to the outcome of your deliberations at this Conference on "Research and Teacher Education". But I must not forget to declare it open. I do so now with pleasure.