Preparing Trainee Teachers for Changing Demands of Education

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Minister for Education how has the National Institute of Education been preparing trainee teachers to meet the changing demands of education.

Mr Speaker, Sir, for teachers to lead and inspire students to thrive in a complex and uncertain environment, they must all be lifelong learners who understand the diverse learning needs of our students, appreciate the intent behind education policies and practices, and facilitate meaningful learning experiences for the students through effective use of pedagogies.

The National Institute of Education (NIE) works closely with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to deliver both pre-service preparation and in-service professional development to support teachers throughout their careers to become competent and caring teachers who are respected by their students and the public, and who can work well in teams with their peers and the community.

NIE's pre-service curriculum focuses on training teachers to build character in students. The curriculum balances theory with practice, is backed by research and is supported by a robust partnership with MOE and schools.

It prepares pre-service teachers to meet the changing demands of education by first, deepening professionalism through a focus on a deep understanding of their student learners, developing values and professional ethos, and ownership of learning.

Second, strengthening practice through practicum in schools that hone their craft and develop their inquiry and reflective skills.

Third, broadening the repertoire of pedagogies that can promote innovation, inquiry- and technology-based learning. Teachers learn to create lessons that harness technology, like augmented reality and virtual reality to enrich learning and help students explore beyond the confines of the physical classroom. Teachers also learn how to make use of online tutorials, websites, artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots to make learning more accessible to the diverse students anytime, anywhere, including those with special educational needs. Additionally, teachers would also learn how technology, such as learning analytics, can be used to support students to learn in teams, and to provide choices and customised feedback for students to become self-directed in learning.

Last, but not least, to develop perspectives related to the community, society and the world, and to partner stakeholders like parents and the community, and industry leaders through courses, service learning, talks and seminars. For the four-year degree programme, the pre-service teachers also have the opportunities to go for industry internship and international practicum.

NIE reviews the effectiveness of its programmes regularly. It gathers feedback from the pre-service teachers' portfolios, internal and external assessments and metric surveys. Annual survey feedback from beginning teachers and school leaders also enables NIE to refine its pre-service programme to ensure their relevance.

Beyond pre-service training, teachers continue deepening their competencies throughout their careers. This is done through a range of in-service learning opportunities organised by MOE, NIE and the schools, including our Teacher Work Attachment Plus (TWA+) programme.

I thank the Minister for the comprehensive reply. I have no doubt that MOE and NIE are doing their very best. I ask this question because we all know that the future of education, the future of work, now require very different competencies of the educators – now and in the future. On top of what the Minister has just mentioned – and he gave a hint of all the things that they have to do – educators now take on the role of content curators and even developers, and they have to design learning experiences, they have to deliver on different platforms. And on top of that, are expected to even be life coaches for their students.

So, I just wonder what kind of manpower and resources – how does NIE do it? And are they given sufficient resources like money, manpower and even in terms of mindset, to do so, to meet these demands of the future?

Mr Speaker, Sir, we thank Ms Denise Phua for her questions and also her comments. Indeed, the skillsets for both the learners and the teachers will have to evolve to meet the demands of the future. As I always share with my colleagues in MOE, teaching today is not just about the transmission of knowledge and learning is not just about the absorption of knowledge. A few things have changed and will continue to change.

In today's world, knowledge is commoditised. Having knowledge alone is not sufficient; what is more important is the ability to make use of the knowledge to discern and to make clear decisions, good decisions, based on sound values. And, to this end, that is why the skillsets of our teachers must continue to evolve. Beyond just being a transmitter of knowledge, it is increasingly important for our teachers to be able to be a facilitator in the learning environment that our students are in, for our teachers to help our students make sense of the amount of information that they come across.

Having said that, I would say this. Two things will never change in our preparation of the teachers: one, that of values inculcation; two, the basic pedagogical approach of how to teach and teach well.

While these two things do not change, three things will need to change and evolve.

First, as Ms Denise Phua said, we will need more of our teachers to pick up the basic skills to help the high needs students and the special needs students.

Second, we will need our teachers to be able to work with partners beyond the school environment. These include families, the community and also the industry.

Third, we will need our teachers to learn throughout their life to make use of the latest technologies available – how to use technology to scale up the size of the classroom so that we can spend more time to attend to the high needs students. Such technologies include the adaptive learning technologies that allow us to stretch the abilities of the high performing students while allowing us to dedicate more time to the high-needs students. So, these are the new skillsets that we will require our teachers to constantly evolve.

But having said that, we do not believe that we will be able to frontload all these new skillsets even or only when they are at NIE. What we need is a continuous professional development programme that allows our teachers to keep learning throughout life so that they can also inspire their students to do so.

Having said that, I will pick up on the last point that Ms Denise Phua talked about.

Indeed, today, we are focused not just on the quantity – the number of teachers that we have. More importantly is the quality of teachers that we must have, enabled and supported by technology.

So, we will continue to put in efforts on this front to make sure that, given the finite number of teachers that we can have in our education system, how do we make sure that they are of the highest quality, supported by the best technology in order to stretch the abilities of our high performing students to their fullest while devoting more time to the high needs students and their families.