Education ministry to help students know Asia better: Ong Ye Kung
SINGAPORE — As part of its curriculum review, the Ministry of Education (MOE) stressed that there was a need for students to know Asia, said Education Minister Ong Ye Kung on Wednesday (4 March).
Speaking at the ministry’s Committee of Supply debate, Ong said that the education system would do its part to contribute to Singaporeans’ knowledge in the region through three areas: its humanities curriculum, leveraging on overseas trips and through better learning of regional languages.
“Singapore-based enterprises need to be able to venture out into the region. And Singaporeans must be able to play a part in it. To do so we need to be equipped with the relevant knowledge, language and cultural skills,” he said.
Schools’ humanities curriculum would provide students with a deeper appreciation of the geographies, histories, cultures, languages and economies of countries in our region, said Ong, who added that the government would give the study of Asia its due emphasis in humanities subjects.
In History, students will learn more about the Vietnam War and how developments in Southeast Asia intertwined with the Cold War. In Social Studies, students will learn about the importance of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations centrality.
“Our own backyard”
There will also be more learning trips organised to Asian countries and the ministry will encourage students to participate in them, said Ong. For those in the lower levels, schools will organise student exchanges, cultural enrichment or service learning projects while those in Institutes of Higher Learning will attend overseas internships and immersion programmes.
“These have been effective in building their cross-cultural skills, resourcefulness, and resilience,” he said.
Ong noted that while overseas trips have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, this would blow over in time.
“We will organise more trips to Asian countries, and encourage students to go on them. Students from the West are flocking here to experience Asia, because of the cultural diversity and exciting economic opportunities. So our students should do so too. This is our own backyard and here we always have a natural competitive advantage,” he said.
Ong also stressed on the need to grasp Mother Tongue languages (MTL) well, and for students to be encouraged to take up a third language. However, he rejected Member of Parliament Chen Show Mao’s suggestion to make learning of Malay compulsory.
“I think it is better that we continue to emphasise the learning of a student's own MTL. As it is, many students are already finding that quite challenging, but we have been encouraging students to learn the language of another community at a conversational level.”
“Today about 60 per cent of primary schools, 40 per cent of secondary schools... offer conversational Malay and Chinese, and we are encouraging more schools to do so, and more schools will do so.”
The MOE will also be pairing the learning of conversational ASEAN languages, starting with Vietnamese and Thai, with overseas school trips.
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