Outcomes from Gifted Education Programme, and Rationale and Plans for Programme Revamp

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis asked the Minister for Education (a) what is the average class size for primary school students in the same cohort (i) enrolled in the existing Gifted Education Programme (GEP) (ii) enrolled in schools offering the existing GEP but are not part of the GEP; and (b) how are average class sizes expected to change with the changes made to the GEP.

Ms Foo Mee Har and Mr Leong Mun Wai asked about the lessons learnt and outcomes of the Gifted Education Programme, or GEP. The GEP has generally delivered good student outcomes in the past 40 years, with many students being stretched intellectually and developing holistically. GEP alumni have made significant contributions in diverse fields such as public service, medicine, academia, arts, entrepreneurship and technology. Many GEP alumni are also active leaders in the community and social sectors. However, there were also some students who felt weighed down by the expectations to excel, or could not cope with the rigour of the programme and lost interest in learning. There were also students who were selected for the programme but decided not to join.

Over this time, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has gained useful lessons and experiences in developing higher-ability learners. We have observed that while some students showed high abilities in multiple areas, there are also some students who showed passion and strength in specific single areas, such as in English or Mathematics. Students may also present strengths and potential at different points in their educational journey, rather than at a single point in time. These observations are in line with international research.

Concurrently, over the years, our primary schools have expanded their capacity in nurturing high-ability learners. Today, all primary schools have teachers trained to identify and develop high-ability learners in both cognitive and social-emotional domains.

Hence, it is timely to update our approach to develop higher-ability learners. Instead of a uniform GEP for selected students based on their general abilities in multiple areas, we can now also offer opportunities for those with higher abilities in specific areas. And instead of being selected at a single point, students can join these programmes at any time during their upper primary years.

We want to work with parents to have the proper mindset to allow students to blossom at their own pace, rather than be hot-housed or rushed to be admitted at a particular entry point. The new approach also gives students the option to exit the programme or modules at any time, if they find them unsuitable or wish to pursue other interests, without the stigma of having failed to meet the expectations after being labelled as gifted.

Ms Denise Phua, Mr Leong Mun Wai and Ms Mariam Jaafar asked about different aspects of our new approach. From the Primary 4 batch in 2027, higher-ability learners will remain in their schools and benefit from school-based development, without having to disrupt their learning environments and the social bonds they have formed. Students who can benefit from further stretch beyond school-based programmes can attend after-school modules at nearby schools. These after-school modules will bring like-minded peers together to interact and inquire more deeply on selected topics. We will ensure a good geographical spread of schools offering these programmes, so that they are accessible to all eligible students regardless of where they study.

Together, these programmes will provide higher-ability learners a more customised suite of development opportunities according to their interests and strengths. They aim to cultivate curiosity, creativity and a love for learning in students. They are not designed to help students perform better in mainstream examinations. Neither is the aim to introduce higher subject levels ahead of time, which would still be bounded by the core curriculum and examination requirements.

I wish to assure Mr Leong Mun Wai, Ms Mariam Jaafar, Mr Sharael Taha and Mr Mohd Fahmi that MOE will support schools and teachers to deliver this new approach effectively and consistently. MOE will guide them in using multiple sources of information to identify higher-ability learners. These holistic assessments will include the students’ academic abilities and social-emotional readiness for the programme.

MOE will continue to support our primary schools by providing more curriculum resources and professional learning for teachers to support the cognitive and social-emotional development of our higher-ability learners. For example, we will continue to train teachers to understand the cognitive and affective traits of higher-ability learners, establish a classroom climate that encourages exploration, creativity and personal reflection for these students. There will be platforms for schools to share best practices on how they design, implement and monitor their school-based programmes.

With the broadening of access to programmes for higher-ability learners in all schools from 7% to 10% of each cohort and after-school modules being accessible to eligible students from all schools, students will be able to benefit from the new approach regardless of the school they attend.

Dr Wan Rizal asked about resource allocation and Mr Louis Chua asked about class sizes. MOE will continue to resource schools according to the learning needs of their students. While the typical class size in primary schools can go up to 40, the pupil to teacher ratio of 15 is comparable to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Today, schools already have the flexibility to group students for learning based on their needs. For example, Foundation-level classes are typically smaller, with between 10 and 20 students. With this new approach, while there will be no change in the typical class size in schools, schools are able to size classes accordingly for the school-based programmes and after-school modules for higher-ability learners, as well as for learners who need more learning support, to ensure that the programmes achieve the intended outcomes.

Dr Wan Rizal also asked about strengthening access to quality education and support for all students regardless of their backgrounds. These changes to the GEP will indeed broaden the support for higher-ability learners and provide more opportunities for them to maximise their potential, regardless of their background.

Thank you, Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for the courage to look into changing the GEP. It has been a sacred cow for many years in our MOE system. It is also aligned with the Minister's vision, which I fully support, of making education pathways to be more student-centric and to bring out the best in each student.

My question to the Minister is: why not go all the way out to let students pick the subjects in which they can have most passion and ability for, at the highest level that they can pursue and attain? Why is there still a need for labelling a programme as for gifted or not gifted, especially if we have the concept that giftedness could be in academics, sports, arts, leadership and so forth? Why not go all the way and scrap all these labels and let each perform to his or her best, and study to his or her best?

I am just concerned that if we continue to now decentralise the GEP to every school for the top 10%, then, would it be possible that it would get back to the old situation where there is a so-called elite class, and families and students will chase that class, and there is this Express stream possibility and the rest?

My question to the Minister is: why not go all the way, according to his vision that many support?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I will make three points in response to Ms Denise Phua's comment. I thank her for her support for what MOE is doing.

First, why do we not allow students to pick their subjects? In fact, we actually do. In the new approach, what we are saying is that we look at the students, we look at what they are interested in, where they have strengths in. We want to combine their areas of strength with their areas of interest, in order for them to be enrolled in certain classes. This is to have our education system, where possible, tailored to the respective needs of our students. But, of course, it would not be possible for us to run some of these classes just on the basis of interest, without an assessment of the ability – which brings me to my second point.

For all of us familiar with teaching and teaching pedagogies, we know that it is actually very tough to teach to the average where you have a class of very diverse abilities, from very high-needs students to very high-ability students. What we want to do in our vision going forward is that we are able to cluster the students of generally the same abilities in the same domain for more effective teaching and learning. This will also help to alleviate the workload of our teachers instead of having them to teach to the average across a class with very diverse abilities in a finite period of class time.

Having said that, we come to the third point – which is, we all know that when our children develop, it is not just about learning academically in one area or another area. We also want them to develop holistically. We want to make sure that their social-emotional development commensurates with their academic development. This is why in Singapore, we have moved away from either of the extremes: one extreme is where we mix people of all abilities together and put them in the same class, regardless of abilities and interests; the other extreme is to segregate everyone just according to their specific interest and they never mix with other people with different interests.

We want the best of both worlds and this is how we have organised the MOE system – which is that for selected topics and subjects, we will group the students of similar abilities together so that it is easier and more manageable for the teachers to teach in a much more focused way. At the same time, beyond those subjects and areas, there will always and there must always be opportunities for them to mix with students with diverse backgrounds, with different abilities so that as they grow up, they also learn to live and work with people with different abilities.

This is the approach that we are adopting to make sure that on one hand, we want the benefits of focused teaching and learning; on the other hand, we want a diversity of backgrounds, of people so that our students can mix and grow up together. We will certainly take into consideration the students' interests and abilities in assigning them to the classes that will best bring out their potential.

Thank you, Speaker. Just one supplementary question for the Minister. In relation to the new higher-ability programme, can I check again with the Minister if there will be a change in the form class size for those who are in this programme and those who are not in this programme? One of the learning points or points highlighted by many GEP students, past and present, and even parents, is that they shared that the smaller class size of the GEP is one of the key features. I think many educators themselves have also expressed a desire for a smaller class size so that they would be able to, as the Minister said, develop each child to his or her highest potential holistically and I think having that smaller class size will enable them to better do so.

Mr Speaker, Sir, can I make the following points in response to Mr Louis Chua's comments?

First, I think many of us talk about class size. I want to lay out the context of what we mean by class size in today's Singapore education context. It is true that we organise our class sizes generally on average between 30 and 40 people, depending on primary school to secondary school levels. But actually, if we visit our schools, as I do regularly, you will find that in today's Singapore's education system, we have class sizes, from a few like five, all the way to 40. It all depends on the needs of the students. For the higher-needs students on both ends of the spectrum, we will tend to have smaller class sizes in order to cater to their diverse needs.

That is the first point. Today, we have a range of class sizes, there is no one-size-fits-all class size because it all depends in the needs of the students. In fact, for some of the very high-needs students, we have pull-out classes for one-to-one or one-to-two. Those are for the higher-needs students.

Having said that, let me take a step back and explain how we manage this issue of class size with the finite resources that we have. If we look at the OECD reports and if we look at many of the studies overseas, the main determinant of the quality of our education system, as I explained yesterday during the Adjournment Motion, is not necessarily the class size. The main and most important determinant of the quality of our education outcome is the quality of our teachers and how we support them to enable them to use the most effective pedagogical tools for the different types of classes.

Assuming that this is the average class size that we have resources for the entire system, how do we resource it? We cannot change the average very much because, in every society, there are only so many quality teachers that we can recruit. If we expand the numbers, we do not want to compromise the quality. So, if we cannot change the average, what we need to do is what I call, we "tilt the curve". How do we "tilt the curve"?

For the higher-need students, we have smaller class sizes to cater to their needs. But on the other hand, we must learn to leverage technologies to allow other class sizes that are not so high-needs, in order for the students to do learning on their own to complement what the teachers are teaching them. So, today, actually, there is no such thing as an average class size in our school system.

That is a mathematical concept. But in reality, we have a range of class sizes, from the smaller class sizes to the bigger class sizes, according to the specific needs of our students. And, of course, I would like to thank everyone for your support for MOE to have more resources to support our teachers. But we are very cognisant that the quality of our education outcome is much more dependent on the quality of our teachers and the support that they get, rather than just a class size issue alone.

Thank you for your indulgence, Mr Speaker. My question actually follows up on this. I am very sensitive to the Minister's response that the class size alone is not a determinant and it is imperative that we also allow quality teachers to address our students. That said, as he acknowledged, it is, and I quote, "difficult to teach to the average".

While we have dedicated significant resources to both ends of the distribution, the lower-ability as well as the higher-ability end, effectively, what we are saying when we have a large class size is that we do not believe that there is enough diversity of ability within the middle of the distribution for us to actually need to have smaller class sizes.

I am wondering if the Minister would agree with me that, actually, if we have smaller class sizes, there can be greater tailoring also for the needs of the middle-ability students.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I think that is the wrong way to characterise what I have said. Let me explain once again and let me share what MOE is trying to do. We can all agree that the quality of our teachers is most important. We can also all agree that there is a finite number of quality teachers within any system.

MOE will be very happy to be able to recruit many more quality teachers if we can do so and we will continue to do so and expand our recruitment, whether it is from the young graduates to the mid-career people, to expand our teaching pool. But no matter how many teachers we have, it comes back to this concept – we are not applying all the teaching resources evenly to all classes.

Which class requires what class size depends on the needs of the students. It does not matter whether it is one end of the spectrum or the other end of the spectrum or in the middle. The same concept applies. Then the question is: how do we break what I call the "trilemma" of any public education system: achieve quality at scale, achieve speed of innovation and achieve affordability?

Why is it a "trilemma"? Because you can go through it in your mind, in most public education systems, you can, at most, get two out of three. If you have quality and speed, chances are that it is not so affordable. If you have quality and it is affordable, chances are that you cannot scale. If you have scale and you are affordable, chances are that the quality is not very good.

But there is a way for us to break this conventional trilemma and, that is, how we leverage technology to use an adaptive training system. Adaptive training system will be the way that we can break the conventional trilemma, where we want to achieve quality, speed and affordability. What is an example of an adaptive training system? Look at the world of gamification today.

Young people play games up to the level that they are comfortable with and they can be repeatedly stretched until they reach the next level. These same technologies are available today on the market where students with high abilities to high needs can all be taught at a level with the aid of the computer. I will give a simple example: English language learning.

In NorthLight School, there are higher-need students. They need time, they need many more practices in order to get some basic fundamentals right. In the past, it was one teacher to one child in NorthLight School. Today, the teacher can supplement his or her abilities with technology.

The child can repeat the same exercise multiple times without overly taxing the teacher, who has to focus on other students and, yet, at the same time, the child does not have to feel pressurised that he is impinging on the teacher's time nor the stigma that he is repeating the lessons. That same technology can be used for the middle- or the high-end students, where people use the same technology to improve their language proficiency, according to the levels that they are at.

So, for us, I think we need to transcend this debate about whether class size or not class size. In fact, in one of my speeches recently, which I have shared with the National Institute of Education (NIE), we give ourselves this challenge: if in medicine, in the future and now, we can produce a batch of one, that means medicine customised to the one person; in education, can we, one day, asymptotically, arrive at the holy grail, whereby our students can have the pedagogy of one?

Actually, it is not so far-fetched because the pedagogy of one means mass customisation according to the diverse abilities of our students, complemented by technology using artificial intelligence, data science and the science of learning. This is the vision of how we want to go forward to break the conventional trilemma, whereby we have finite numbers of quality teachers that will allow us to scale, achieve quality and make sure that it is affordable.

So, whether it is one end of the curve or the other end of the curve or somewhere in the middle, we will try our best to complement our best teaching resources with the best technology in order for us to mass customise accordingly to bring out the best in each of our students.

Yes. An ideal education system is one that allows a child to learn over time at his own pace, based on his ability and interest. A high-ability child should be given more stimulation, while a slow-learning one should be given more time to develop. I acknowledge that MOE has slowly moved towards that in recent years. But like what Member Ms Denise Phua had said just now, I think we can do more.

The problem with our current education approach is that it is still very much focused on sorting out the students and labelling them. That has a lot of implication on the subsequent academic advancement of the child. As a result, parents play to the rules and pressure their kids, often at a very young age. So, my question to the Minister is: does the Ministry have plans to reduce the sorting and examination pressure currently experienced by our students?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I think if Mr Leong Mun Wai has listened to what I said in the last half an hour, he will understand why there is a need for us to group our students of diverse abilities into groups of roughly similar abilities, in order for us to ease the load and to provide better focus in our teaching.

Our aim to allow different students to be in different groups of roughly the same ability is not to stigmatise them. It is to enable them to be in a learning environment that best suits them. Every examination – and we have been repeating this – is not a competition to compete with other people. I said in my Adjournment Motion yesterday, we want our students to keep having the mental model to surpass themselves, rather than surpass other people in an exam. To surpass themselves in life, rather than to surpass other people in an exam. How we respond, as a society, will complement what MOE is teaching. Whether a student feels stigmatised or not, we all each have a responsibility.

If we do not change our mindset, if we label our students because of the classes that they go to, then we have failed our students and no amount of policy or structural change will help us. The reason why we have Full Subject-based Banding (FSBB) is because we have moved away from grouping students of average abilities together. We do not look at people and say: you are gifted, means you are gifted in everything; you are average, means you are average in everything.

We know that different people have different strengths and this is the spirit behind FSBB. This is the spirit behind what we do in the education system: allow every student to understand each and every of their strengths and weaknesses; know and have in them the mindset that, "while I may be strong in something, I need not be strong in everything and I must respect other people who are strong in other things that are different from me". Together, with our diversity of strengths, we can build a better Singapore.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to just ask a supplementary question on a very important point that the Minister made in his opening answer. The Minister mentioned that the students who are going to be selected for the enhanced abilities stream, we should not see this enhanced abilities stream in a way as a kind of streaming that will allow them added advantage for their mainstream subjects. I think this is key.

So, could the Minister share how MOE would design the curriculum of the programme, such that the students who are selected for this programme, that it will not be a programme that will allow them to have added advantage, say, in their English and Mathematics at the Primary School Leaving Examination, should they be selected for the English and Mathematics enhanced stream, or the enhanced programme for these two subjects?

Mr Speaker, Sir, indeed, the selection of all these higher-ability programmes is not to help the students to better prepare for the conventional exams. So, let me say that again. The purpose of selection for these higher-ability, or differently-abled students, is not to better prepare them for the conventional exams. They, on their own, would have done very well for their conventional exams. Our role is to provide them with more opportunities to stretch their abilities in different dimensions.

Let me give an example. If someone is selected for the English programme, that person may be highly, more able in languages and we would like to expose them to different genres of literature, expose them to different kinds of linguistic issues that might challenge them, might stretch their abilities. Likewise, for Mathematics, we may expose the student to different kinds of concepts, different kinds of challenges to see how they respond to these.

We want to make sure that the student understands that when they join a module, there is no stigma to leave the module if they find it unsuitable for themselves or if they want to go and take time to pursue other things during that phase of their life. We want everyone to understand that when you are chosen, you have certain abilities in certain areas. But that does not mean that they have abilities in all areas. So, neither should the student feel, "I must excel in all areas just because I have been chosen".

Finally, I might say this. I have thought very hard and I have not come to an answer yet, because I think whenever we use the phrases "higher-ability programme", "gifted programme", there seems to be a suggestion that, somehow, if there is a high, there must be a low. If you are gifted, there must be a non-gifted. Maybe we should just reframe our mind and say there are different types of abilities, different dimensions of abilities; not whether it is high, whether it is low, left, right, front, centre.

Those are not very helpful. Let us help our children understand and appreciate their diverse abilities, find confidence in developing those abilities so that, in time to come, they can make the best use of those abilities to make a contribution to Singapore.