“The education system will take into account, not just top-down national needs, but also bottom-up aspirations”, says Education Minister Ong Ye Kung.
“Our education system from the start was focused a lot on national needs. It started with survival… As a result, that was a key motivation to develop the education system the way it was. It is top-down, functional, efficient and some say utilitarian,” said Mr Ong, speaking on Sunday (Oct 4) at a tree-planting event at Sembawang.
“But today there is a second motivation – that is to recognize that individually we all have our passion, we all want to pursue our passion, we have our inert talent and abilities“, he further added.
The increasing ability and knowledge of Singaporean kids forced Mr. Ong to take this decision of making an education system that revolves more around the students’ needs and aspirations.
Need of student based education system
The reason behind building such an integrated system is to ensure that the students and their parents do not feel burden in education. Moreover, the kids who from underprivileged backgrounds do not drop out of school.
To keep the students bonded with the schools, make them enjoy their learning is also the prime reason for such a system. As Mr. Ong said, “At the same time, the schools have to ensure that when they feed students into our higher education system, they are well prepared and they’re able to enjoy the education and benefit the most of it.”
Till now, the education system revolved around merely to offer education to the students so that they can earn their livelihood on growing. But now, Singapore government has decided to move towards providing an overall development system so that an individual can learn and grow being associated with the learning and not taking it a burden. They should actually enjoy being at school. They also want the disadvantaged kids to take benefit of learning at school so that they do not be debarred of education.
Hope, this approach will bring more talent to the top in Singapore and that the Singaporean education system would set an example for the world.