In the recent National Day Rally by our Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong has put forth certain ideas and plans to further improve our sophisticated education system that is recognised worldwide.
In tune with his aims to ensure that every Singaporean child has the opportunity to receive top-rated education and develop their personal talents into useful aspects that are beneficial to Singapore's economy. He has worked out a the policy of 4 more 'mores':the freedom for principals and teachers to experiment with, resourcess for the schools to make use of, opporunities for needy students to get aid from the Opportunity Funds and last of all, the policy of less teaching and more learning, all with the main purpose of accomplising the aims set by the governmment. This has been proven to be success in some schools such as Mayflower Primary School and Jurong Secondary School where learning have taken on a very different route, an interactive one that engages most of the students in the class. I believe that this is realistic as it has already proven its validity and the only task left is to spread it to all schools nationwide as there may be certain ones that are unable to instill this type of teaching style in fullfledge yet. It is important to the fture of Singapore because in the present society, one must not only possess knowledge in a particular field but a large scope of other skills such as presentation skills and being IT literate are important ones that are able to unvealed through this type of learning methods.
In addition, a couple of language special programmes are proposed by the PM to promote the idea of a third language to be taken up by students. Although incentives such as additional bonus points may be given to get more support for the programmes, the motive is a good one. Learning an additonal language would mean a new door being opened to another culture of our diversed society. It will definitely aid the students in appreciating the cultures and beliefs of their friends and the racious harmony that we enjoy today. Although the process will be difficult, the results it reaps will benefit the country as a whole evntually.
Lastly, the decision by MOE to start a new university by the end of 2010 is to fulfill their last aim in terms of education policies, to get every student into post-secondary education and as many as possible into tertiary instituitions and eventually increasing the percentages of graduates from the present 23% to 30% per cohort into publicly funded universities by the year 2015 which is 8 years from now. This seems like a feasible plan to increase the number of graduates in the society which increases the competiveness of the workforce in this ever globalising world where you can only be the best if you are always n front of the rest. However, there are certain disadventages too. This may result in a large pool of graduates without the required quality and sufficient career opportunites, backfiring the fundamental aim to increase competiveness. But, as long as the quality is maintained at the required standard, there should not be any big problems. Then, the only concern will be with the graduates or other higher levels of education aboard.
In conclusion, all the plans put forward by Mr Lee are just as important as any other economic policies as it concerns the future generation of Singpore, the ones that will bring Singapore to greater heights and i believe that they were succeed under the close and precise planning of the present government.
