11 September 2020

From August 2021, undergraduates entering Nanyang Technological University will take a common core curriculum which will occupy as much as one-fifth of their academic workload.

The compulsory courses in the common core include globally relevant topics such as climate change and global health.

Currently, NTU has General Educational Requirement courses, where students select from a basket of elective courses, including those focused on science, technology and society. The new core curriculum will replace these general education courses.

Students from different disciplines will learn together in the same classroom. They will be expected to apply the knowledge from their respective disciplines to collaborate on group projects. Faculty from different disciplines will come together to design and teach the courses to offer a more in-depth and interdisciplinary exploration of knowledge.

NTU has said that the new core curriculum is in line with its “smart campus vision”, which seeks to prepare students for a new world that is being shaped by advanced digital technologies.

13 July 2020

The Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) has said that students who missed parts of the O-and A-level mother tongue language examinations last month will be fairly assessed,.

A spokesman for SEAB said that special consideration can be applied to the affected candidates, provided that they sit the remaining oral and listening comprehension examinations scheduled this month.

SEAB said it will award affected candidates a grade by projecting their marks for the missed papers “based on multiple sources of evidence”, including the candidate’s performance in the other papers for the affected subject in the national examination, such as oral and listening comprehension; the school cohort’s performance in the same examination; as well as the candidate’s school-based assessment.

Every year, there is a second round of written examinations at the end of the year. Based on their mid-year results, affected candidates can decide if they wish to sit the year-end paper.

The number of special consideration applications differs from year to year but, on average, about 2 per cent to 3 per cent of GCE O-level candidates are granted it each year, SEAB said.

11 July 2020

Home-based learning (HBL) could become part and parcel of the lives of Singapore students.

There have been ideas floated around that schools could set aside several days every month for online learning.

Indeed in recent months, teachers, students and parents have come to terms quickly with the possibility that digital technology could replicate much of the school experience at home.

Teachers delivered online lessons, parents created learning spaces at home, and students adjusted to the new learning environment.

But to make HBL work, all students must possess the means of access to digital technology. While this access exists for most of them, some from less fortunate backgrounds do not enjoy it.

The authorities also recognise that online learning cannot totally replace the school environment. Schools are socialising institutions which bring together students from every conceivable background and put them through commonly structured regimes of study, play and social interaction.

Still, there is a place for online learning, and the broader concept of home schooling.

Most families of home schooled students adopt a structured regime of study, and there are different homeschool programmes that cater to different needs.

The Ministry of Education’s Compulsory Education Board screens all families who register a desire to homeschool their children, and closely monitors primary school-age children to ensure adherence to guidelines, educational progress and that national education is taught to a homeschooled child.

There is also no lack of social interaction in homeschooling as well. Some programmes such as Classical Education gather small groups on a weekly basis, while parents of other programmes gather on an ad hoc basis.

01 July 2020

E-learning in Singapore has picked up speed in recent months. Each secondary school student will get a personal learning device by the end of next year. The Ministry of Education has also instituted plans to bringing the National Digital Literacy Programme forward.

But Mr Ong Ye Kung, Education Minister, has also highlighted the challenge of the digital divide. He said that many students did not have devices to participate in home-based learning, which led to schools loaning out over 20,000 digital devices to students, and more than 1,600 dongles.

Mr Ong is now of the opinon that online learning will become fundamental in our education landscape. He said that MOE has plans to make home-based learning part and parcel of the curriculum. We could, for instance, start with once a fortnight secondary schools.

One beneficial outcome of HBL is the cultivation of independent learning.

But Mr Ong cautioned that while online learning is useful, we can’t do away or substitute classroom learning altogether. The sensible thing to do is to complement classroom teaching with HBL, and make HBL a permanent and regular feature of education.

07 June 2020

The implementation of home-based learning has illustrated how inequality can affect students outside school.

At home, some students may face issues such as poverty, jobless parents and lack of motivation. Singaporeans tend to think of our education system as a uniform system, where all schools are well-staffed and have ample resources. But educational outcomes still vary considerably from student to student and family to family.

It is therefore time to look at not just providing a world-class education, which Singapore has already achieved, but also fine-tuning an educational system that takes into consideration the fact that the well-being and success of students depend on a lot more than just what happens inside school.

The Ministry of Education can begin by ensuring that family service centres and voluntary welfare organisations are well-resourced to coordinate and work hand in hand with schools.

Nominated MP Anthea Ong has called for Internet access to be provided as a public utility. For example, she has proposed that the Government’s free Wi-Fi service be extended to cover all rental flats.

In the meantime, many schools have rallied together to remain open so that children who depend on the subsidised school meal programme can continue to go to school and not go hungry at home, while others who lacked a conducive environment for learning at home can also go back to their schools to study. These measures can go a long way for some groups of students.