Distinguished guests, principals, ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to join you this afternoon at the 5^th Appointment Ceremony for Principals. My warmest congratulations to the 61 principals who are appointed today. For the newly appointed principals, this occasion marks a new milestone in your career as educators, as we formally entrust you with the stewardship of a school. For the incumbent principals, this ceremony is just as significant. It is a re-affirmation of our confidence and trust in your ability to lead a school, and a reminder of the responsibilities of your mandate. Whether you are an experienced or a newly appointed principal, you have every reason to be proud of your appointment, for all of you have gone through a rigorous selection process and proven your mettle in many ways.

In a few days’ time, the new school year will begin. The children who enter Primary 1 will remain in our education system for at least the next 10 to 12 years. What world will these children be facing when they leave their secondary and post-secondary institutes? If we go back in time and look at the world 12 years ago – when the Soviet Union existed and the World Wide Web did not – we will realise how much the world can change when one cohort of students passes through our hands.

How should we prepare our pupils for life and work in this complex and rapidly changing environment? We know that we will not be able to prepare pupils for specific jobs, for we can no longer predict with confidence what jobs will be there in the future. We also know that if we focus only on a narrow domain of pupils’ development, we will limit their chances of success in capitalising on the opportunities available. In a future driven by innovation and characterised by continuous change, there is no single formula for preparing our young for success. The best preparation we can give our children is to provide them with a balanced and well-rounded education, one that offers adequate diversity and choice to cater to their different interests and talents, and that will equip them with essential skills and sound values.

This is the philosophy that has guided the JC and Upper Secondary Education Review Committee. The decision to broaden the curriculum will provide all JC students with a more balanced and well-rounded education. The introduction of Integrated Programmes adds diversity and choice to our system. Students can opt for schools that offer an Integrated Programme, or for schools that offer a more structured programme, depending on whether they can benefit from a less structured Upper Secondary / JC programme or are likely to do better in a programme that is more structured.

The Raffles and Hwa Chong families of schools, NJC and ACS(I) have submitted proposals to offer Integrated Programmes. MOE has studied their proposals and I am pleased to announce that the Ministry has approved the introduction of Integrated Programmes in these schools. To ensure that the Integrated Programmes retain the key strengths of our education system and maximise the opportunities offered by an integrated upper secondary and JC education, Integrated Programmes are required to meet certain guidelines.

First, the schools must leverage on the programme to provide students with a broad-based education that develops their capacities for creative and critical thinking, and hones their skills in teamwork and communication. The hallmark of the Integrated Programmes should be innovation and a holistic education. Schools that offer Integrated Programmes must therefore use the time that is freed up to provide students with an educational experience that goes beyond preparing their students to meet the requirements for the ‘A’ level examination and graduation from JC.

In addition, the implementation of Integrated Programmes should not reduce access to our top institutions for deserving students. There will continue to be opportunities for students including those from non-affiliated schools to join these Integrated Programme schools at the different entry points. Schools that offer Integrated Programmes can set their own criteria for admission of students as long as the criteria are merit-based and transparent.

MOE will work with the schools on the implementation issues. We expect these schools to start enrolling students for Integrated Programmes from 2004.

As we introduce changes into our education system, and encourage excellence at all levels through innovation, creativity and customisation, this also means new types of challenges for our school leadership and teachers. In the last few years, we have progressively put in place the necessary management and assessment tools to guide the actions of our schools and teachers, and help them develop.

The Schools Excellence Model (or SEM), which was implemented fully in 2000, has provided schools with a more systematic framework and holistic approach to self-assessment. By measuring both outcomes and processes, and requiring schools to examine their practices not independently, but as parts contributing to a whole, SEM is structured to emphasise holistic education. The SEM requires every school to continuously question its current practices and established norms, and think of more creative and effective ways of delivering the desired outcomes of education. From time to time, the school will be externally validated so that its self-assessment can be enriched with external perspectives. These external validation teams will include members from outside the education fraternity so that the practices in our schools can be compared against good practices in business and industry. SEM is not a "one-size-fits-all" system. It recognises that there are many different approaches to achieving sustainable excellence. The introduction of SEM has enhanced our schools’ capacity for reflection, self-assessment and self-improvement, and prepared them well for the rapid changes ahead.

Starting from next year, cluster superintendents and education officers holding senior appointments in the headquarters, and our school leaders – Principals and their leadership teams - will be appraised using the Enhanced Performance Management System (or EPMS). This will give these supervisors direct experience of assessing and being assessed using the new EPMS before teachers come on board the EPMS two years later, from 2005.

Our current performance management system is a rigorous one but with the introduction of the 3 career tracks, namely the teaching, specialist and leadership tracks, we need a system that could better distinguish the different competencies that are essential for success in each of the 3 tracks.

With EPMS, our appraisal of officers will be more customised to the role that they play. For school leaders, greater emphasis is given to their ability to provide visionary leadership. For teachers, a more critical competency is their ability to nurture the whole child. EPMS is designed so that supervisors can help teachers develop into better teachers. By providing our officers with greater clarity in the competencies and behaviours expected of them, EPMS will help them to actively reflect on their capabilities and achievements, and chart their own professional development.

We expect our schools and officers to look long-term and develop pupils holistically. To achieve this goal, our assessment tools must be designed to encourage and reinforce behaviours and outcomes that we value. SEM and EPMS are two important instruments for aligning practices and behaviours with our ability-driven paradigm.

However, aligning our assessment instruments alone is not enough. We also need to have some references against which we can evaluate our own performance. Imagine that you are preparing a team in a particular sport, and you have no idea what standard the other teams are at; where you might be strong or deficient - whether it be general physical conditioning, ball skills or some other aspect of the sport. How would you know how to prepare, or whether you have reached a sufficient standard? Ranking of schools is therefore essential, even though it may not be very popular, because it offers our schools an important tool for benchmarking. We know that many of our schools enrol pupils of similar profile and have a similar amount of resources at their disposal. Yet, the outcomes at these schools can be very different. Knowing the value-added results through ranking makes some of these differences transparent, thereby allowing us to identify good practices that we can use to improve the entire system. If we do not try to measure and compare educational outcomes, we will deny our schools an important source of information for active reflection and improvement.

International comparative studies offer us another avenue for benchmarking our performance. Our pupils’ excellent performance in TIMSS, for example, is a strong testimony of the strength and robustness of our education system. The findings from TIMSS are particularly illustrative because the tests are culturally neutral, and there is a broad consensus internationally on what the content for Mathematics and Science should be. Knowing that most of our students (93% in Mathematics and 80% in Science) had outperformed the international average in TIMSS reassures us that our schools have succeeded in providing quality education to all our young. This is a truly remarkable achievement. We scored well not because a few students in a few top schools did exceptionally well, but because the vast majority of students in all our streams in all our schools did well.

Singapore is currently participating in another international study, known as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (or PIRLS). This study, which is conducted by the International Study Centre at Boston College, measures the reading literacy achievement of grade 4 pupils in 35 countries around the world. This reading literacy test was administered last year to about 7,000 of our P4 pupils from all the primary schools. We are expecting the findings from this study to be released before the middle of next year. Interestingly, Singapore is one of the few countries among the 35 countries where the language of test is not the mother tongue of the pupils. In most other countries, the tests were conducted in the mother tongues of the students in those countries. It would therefore not be realistic for us to expect our students to do as well in this Reading and Literacy Study as they did in the Maths and Science Study. Nonetheless, it is important for us to participate in this Study, as the findings from PIRLS will give us some indication of our pupils’ ability to read with understanding compared to those in other countries where the mother tongue is used as the medium of instruction.

As the demands on education evolve, we do not know what other international comparative studies will emerge in the future. While we should continue to examine the findings from such studies to identify our strengths and weaknesses, just as with the ranking of schools, we should not become too preoccupied with these ranking positions nor be conscribed by them in doing what we think is right for Singapore and our children.

Benchmarking and ranking are vital tools for evaluation and informed action, but they are only the means, and not an end to what we do. We should not confuse them with our goal in education i.e. a holistic education for our students which prepares them for the challenges of the future. Benchmarking provides only a part of the information that schools need for seeking excellence in education. If we become obsessed with these studies and structure our responses narrowly around the raising of ranking positions, unintended consequences such as excessive teaching to the test may result. On the other hand, if we concentrate on doing what we believe is right, these study results will eventually validate our efforts.

With the dawning of the knowledge economy, a global consensus on the expectations for schools is emerging. Almost every school system that I have visited has the same destination in mind. All of them aspire to provide their students with a holistic education and prepare them to be literate, numerate and innovative, and acquire a capacity for lifelong learning so that they will achieve success in the knowledge economy. Our competitive advantage will therefore not come from our ability to formulate the right vision or goals, but from our tenacity to carry through our plans and realise our intentions.

As school leaders, you directly determine the extent and pace at which our policy intentions are translated into actual school practices. Whether we can effectively influence the culture and focus in our schools to provide a more holistic education, and thereby achieve the desired outcomes of education, will depend on your leadership. On its part, the Ministry will continually re-examine how we can better design our management tools and assessment measures so that the overall environment is conducive for schools to achieve the desired outcomes of education.

In closing, I would like to congratulate again all the Principals who are appointed today. The challenges you face are interesting and exciting; and you will find them intrinsically worthwhile and satisfying. Do your best for our children.

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