Staff, students and alumni of Bukit Panjang Government High School

Friends and Fellow Singaporeans

                 I warmly congratulate your school for its growth and many achievements since its establishment 45 years ago.  You started humbly as a village school, serving the children of labourers and farmers who lived in the surrounding areas.  I can imagine what the school was like then.  Coincidentally, nearly forty-five years ago, I taught in a village school – Kay Wah Chinese Primary School in Thong Hoe Village in Lim Chu Kang.  I taught English for a few months to earn some pocket money before I entered university.  The students were also mainly children of farmers and labourers.  I remember, in particular, a young boy who I think had polio.  He could not walk at all.  Each day, his father would bring him on a bicycle to the school gate.  The boy would then drag himself with his hands to his classroom.  So strong was his desire to learn.  For those rural children, the school gave them hope for a better future.

2                             Your school, too, has given hope to tens of thousands of students.  You have much to be proud of.  In terms of academic performance, you are among the top 20, out of more than 160 secondary schools.  You also excel in niche areas like the Sciences and the Elective Malay Language Programme (EMAS).  Your Malay students outperform the rest of the Malay community and last year, you produced the top Malay student.

3                             Over the years, your school has nurtured and prepared its students well for the future and groomed them into productive citizens.  Your principal provided me with a list of eminent alumni.  It was quite a long list.  I know several of them, including Sim Wong Hoo, Chairman of Creative Technology, Lam Chuan Leong, an ex-President scholar and currently second Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Gary Yeo, a retired Air Force General.  There are many others who have made their mark in the Civil Service, private sector and as educators.

4                             Education plays a critical role in the development and growth of Singapore.  As a country with no natural resources, training our people to their potential is absolutely essential to our survival and economic competitiveness.  As the late President John F Kennedy put it, “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.  The human mind is our fundamental resource”.  He was, of course, referring to the United States.  But it is true of Singapore too.

5                             Good schools therefore determine our future through the kind of students they turn out for the country.  Although government schools like Bukit Panjang Government High School may not be in the limelight, it does not mean that they are less good than our independent schools.  This is why I accepted your principal’s invitation to attend this evening’s function, even though I am not an old boy of your school or the constituency MP of Hong Kah GRC.  I want to recognise schools which have made significant contributions to our country.  By showcasing your progress and achievements, I hope you will become an inspiration to others.

Moulding Our Youths and Maximising their Potential

6                             Each individual’s ability, interests and talents are different.  Not everybody is endowed with a big and powerful brain.  But those who are not academically inclined and do not make it to university or polytechnic also have their strengths and talents.  There are many paths to success in life and academic excellence is only one route.  We have to continue to widen the definition of talent and success in our society beyond scholastic achievements.  Only by so doing can we motivate Singaporeans to pursue their passions, express their diverse talents and realise their potential.

7                             I believe that this is the true meaning of education.  The Latin root of the word “education” is “educare”, which means to bring out or develop the latent potential in an individual.

8                             I am therefore happy that the Ministry of Education has, since 1998, introduced a new framework called the School Excellence Model which emphasises a holistic approach to education, with equal focus on process as well as results, and which gives recognition to a school’s achievements in academic and non-academic areas.

9                             To me, a good school is one which succeeds in helping our youths realise their potential and developing them into productive and responsible citizens.  There are at least four key aspects:

(1) first, equipping our youths with life skills and creative imagination;

(2)  second, building character;

(3)   third, aesthetic development; and

(4)   fourth, nation building.

Life Skills and Creative Imagination

10                         Our education system must equip our young with the know-how and life skills to enable them to meet the demands of a highly competitive and rapidly-changing globalised world.

11                         Schools should also strengthen the creative imagination of our young.  Our youths must be able to think independently and creatively apply the knowledge and skills they acquire.  Japanese CEOs have told me that they were very impressed by our engineers, who were highly competent technically.  But although our engineers were good at solving problems, they did not know how to react when a new situation developed.  They needed to be told what to do.  We have to change this mindset.

12                         Learning must not end in the school.  Or as we would say in Chinese - 活到老, 学到老.  Much of what we learn in school will become dated.  But our core skills and knowledge learnt in school will give us the foundation for learning continuously throughout our lives.  Confucius was a student throughout his life.  In the Analects (论语, 述而) he described himself as a “man who in his eager pursuit of knowledge forgets his food, who in the joy of its attainment forgets his worries, and who does not perceive that old age is coming” (发愤忘食, 乐以忘忧, 不知老之将至).

Building Character

13                         Schools are critical to building character in our young.  Intelligence and character are not the same attribute.  I have known many intelligent people who are weak and irresolute.  I also know many less intelligent people who turn out to be leaders because they show a high degree of tenacity and courage under trying conditions.  Schools play an important role in encouraging students to give of their best and do the best in whatever they can do.  Active participation in sports and co-curricular activities like uniform groups helps to build character.

Aesthetic Development

14                         We should also teach students to appreciate things of beauty, and better still, create them.  Science and technology are practical subjects but we should not neglect aesthetic pursuits and literature.  I just had a tour of your school campus, including the sculpture garden.  I was impressed by the art works on display.  The sculpture garden exposes young minds to art and helps to make art an integral part of school life.  I was told that the sculpture outside the Ministry of Education building was designed by one of your students, from the class of 2000.  Entitled “Moulding the Future of our Nation”, it depicts a little child standing on the hand of an adult.  This is to symbolise how education is like a nurturing hand, which develops the spirit of learning in our young and gives them the impetus to soar to greater heights.

Forging National Identity

15                         Young people should learn that in addition to rights and expectations, they also have obligations and responsibilities to the country.  Our students must understand the meaning of citizenship and what it entails – active engagement, responsibility to fellow Singaporeans and making a difference in one’s community, society and country.

16                         Our schools play an important role in strengthening community bonds.  Schools are where our children come together to share a common space.  They help to shape students from different races, languages and religions into a cohesive and united people.

17                         Bukit Panjang Government High School is a pioneer in and has a long tradition of fostering integration between students of different language streams and promoting cross-cultural understanding.  In 1960, yours was Singapore’s first integrated government school, where Chinese and English streams were run by a single administration under one roof.  To promote integration, you even had activities like folk dancing, which was a bold and novel move in those days.

18                         More recently, your school has developed other interesting and meaningful ways to help promote multiculturalism.  You used Chinese opera to stage the “Ramayana”, a Hindu epic which has had a profound influence on Southeast Asia.  The multi-racial cast included Chinese, Malay, Indian and even Filipino students.  The opera performance was so successful that the cast has received many invitations to perform at cultural festivals, including in Indonesia.

Conclusion

19                         Let me conclude with an e-mail from someone who has taught in your school.  She worked as a relief teacher in this school in 1979.  One of the classes she taught had just had a reunion at her home.  In her e-mail, she shared with me her pride in being associated with that cohort of students.  She wrote,

“They have turned out so well, so appreciative of the teachers who have guided them both in big and small ways.  Most of these old students have married and are parents.  As children learn from their parents’ example, I am confident the next generation will turn out well, too”.

20                         It is my hope that your school will continue to contribute to the nation’s success and, as stated in your school’s vision, soar together with heart and soul to even greater heights.

21                         I wish you all a pleasant evening.

                 Thank you.

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