Character and Citizenship Education Lessons on Gaza Conflict

Mr Leong Mun Wai asked the Minister for Education (a) whether primary school students are being taught about the Israel-Hamas conflict, either in the Character and Citizenship Education curriculum or otherwise; (b) if so, at which levels are students taught about the conflict; and (c) how are the contents differentiated among the different levels to take into account the different maturity levels of the students.

Mr Sharael Taha asked the Minister for Education (a) with many teachers implementing the Character and Citizenship Education lesson package, how will the Ministry ensure a safe space for students to share diverse views and arrive at their own conclusions on complex issues; and (b) how will the Ministry ensure that students realise the importance of looking at such situations through the lens of Singapore's national interests and the need to maintain our social, racial and religious harmony.

Mr Speaker, Sir, if I may continue, Ms Hazel Poa may refer to paragraphs 40 to 41 in the handout, on making the lesson materials public; and paragraph 9 as well as paragraphs 18 to 21, on the response of teachers and how we are supporting our teachers to deliver the lessons. Mr Leong Mun Wai may also refer to paragraphs 13 to 16 on how the lesson materials are customised for different levels of students.

Mr Sharael Taha may refer to paragraph 36 on how teachers ensure a safe space for discussion of such issues, and paragraphs 28 to 31 and paragraph 51 on the lesson's intent for students to learn how to maintain our religious and racial harmony.

Sir, in our Parliamentary Question, we did request for the Ministry to release the teaching materials for the CCE lesson, but the Minister had replied that he will not release the slides in his reply during the COS, I think. We would like to, first, express deep disappointment that the slides in question, which form the primary teaching resource for the CCE class, have not been released to this House or to the public.

So, my first question is: despite what the Minister has said, how is it justifiable not to release the CCE lesson slides to the public, when the materials had already been imparted to our children? This is my first question.

My second question, as an extension of that, can we have the Government's commitment that all teaching materials for CCE in the future, should be made available to the public, so that parents would know what has been taught to their children?

I have actually made an effort to go to the bookstore and got the textbook for CCE for Primary 6 students. From the content of the textbook, you cannot imagine that a complex and controversial current issue, like the Israel-Hamas conflict, will be taught to our children. So, I urge the Government, in future, to make the material transparent and available to the public.

Mr Speaker, Sir, all the three supplementary questions are related. And let me just say this. I have made a commitment to this House during my reply, where I said the following: the slides alone do not fully communicate how we teach the subject and we welcome parents with concerns to come and see the teachers, who will explain to them how the lesson is conducted.

This is much better than just looking at the deck of slides without explanation. That is our stance. And this is how we intend to make available our teaching materials, including explanations to parents who are concerned.

Mr Speaker, I do share a differing view from Mr Leong. He said our children should not be exposed to and learn from such topics when it is a bit more complex. I would like to thank the Minister for his clarifications that the CCE lesson is aimed at allowing students to share and receive diverse views, and arrive at their own conclusion on complex issues – because they are already exposed to it from the social media. I am certain that there would be even more complex issues in future which our students would be exposed to and we would have to teach them to approach these in a way that maintains our social, religious and racial harmony in Singapore.

So, my supplementary question to the Minister is, given the threat of worsening geopolitical tensions, whether it is China-US tensions or Taiwan, or conflicts against races or religions in other countries, how will the Ministry decide when the different issues will be addressed as part of the CCE lessons? Would it be useful for students to discuss these topics before the tensions are significantly heightened?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank Mr Sharael Taha. Indeed, we share his views that this will not be the only sensitive, emotive issue that our students, and even our population, will come across in the days, weeks and years to come.

That is the reason why we feel the importance to conduct the CCE lessons – to help our people understand their emotions, the diversity of perspectives within our society, help our students to learn to verify the information that they come across that is widely available on social media, help them to understand our national priorities, positions and interests. Most importantly, help them to take constructive and positive actions for the sake of our cohesion and harmony. And these are the reasons why we conduct the CCE lesson.

So, I fully agree with Mr Sharael Taha. This may not be the one and only sensitive and emotive issue that we would have to deal with in the coming years. In fact, we can fully expect, as Mr Sharael Taha has mentioned, that there will be other equally, if not more challenging circumstances that we will have to deal with and allow our students a safe space to understand their emotions, grapple with the issues, verify the information they come across and to take positive actions.

Fundamentally, in this House, we have to consider this: do we agree that this is an emotive and sensitive issue that can fray our social fabric and cohesion? Fundamentally, if we believe that, then do we agree that we have a leadership responsibility to guide our people, especially our young, to not allow this to affect our social cohesion and harmony? If we agree to both of these points, then we welcome constructive suggestions on how we can better support our teachers, principals who have stepped forward to execute this challenging task for our nation.

And I would like to end this off by sharing a vignette from my own sharing with my principals and CCE teachers when I personally, together with Second Minister Maliki, conducted the discussions with them in preparation for this module.

One of my senior educators rose and spoke and reflected on this after we had an hour or more of sharing. She asked, "Minister, why is it that whenever something like that happens, you have to come and tell us and share with us? How long will it take us to develop those instincts to react together as one united Singapore, that we will not be pulled apart by different forces, from different directions?"

It is poignant moment. I assured her that I did not expect – and I do not expect – all my educators to be experts in foreign policies; and it will take us time, and perhaps generations, for us to reach this stage, whereby we can respond as one united Singapore.

But to do that, we have to first understand and appreciate that we are different. We have different backgrounds. We have different perspectives. And while we may be different in our outlook and perspectives, we can all share the same goal to unite and not let others divide us. That while we may not have a common past, we can all share a common future, with a shared sense of ethos of what it means to be Singaporean and not to be torn apart by other competing forces, which as Mr Sharael Taha said, there will be many more to come, perhaps closer to home.

For Members who are interested, you may want to read a recent article by Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. It talks about identity geopolitics, how different identities threaten to pull different communities and societies apart, in support of their respective causes.

The Minister has said that instead of releasing the slides, MOE would prefer to explain directly to the parents. Can the Minister let us know, how many schools have organised such dialogue sessions?

And secondly, I understand that the CCE materials were curated with the help of the other agencies, like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), can I ask the Minister whether there were any prior consultations, given the context of this issue, with community and religious leaders, as well as prior consultation with the teachers who are to deliver these lessons?

Mr Speaker, Sir, on the first supplementary question, the offer stands. All our schools are prepared to engage parents who are concerned with the material. And so far, some schools have received such requests. Most of them have not received these requests. For those schools that have received these requests, they have engaged the parents.

On the second question about consultation, yes, indeed, MOE consult various stakeholders, but I think we have to be clear when we use the word "consult", what do we mean? Do we mean to consult to do or not to do, or do we mean to consult on the content of what to do? And I can be sure, we all in this House can be sure, that in any consultation there will be a diversity of views of to do or not to do. Ultimately, consultation does not take away the leadership responsibility for us to decide what is right and necessary to do for our own society and our children. So, yes, we consult but, ultimately, we need to make that leadership decision. And that is our responsibility.

Second, on whether we consult on the content, as I have said, in my parliamentary explanation on 4 March, this is not a history lesson and we welcome suggestions from all Members on how we can make the material more targeted, more suitable. But I will be the first one to admit that I think none of us, none of us, not even historians, will be able to come up with what would be considered a fair representation from everyone's perspective – and that is not our goal.

As I have mentioned before, in my media interview, we are not here to adjudicate between the right and wrong of a conflict that has happened for many years, decades, if not centuries. Each and every one of us will judge the material from our own perspective and come to our conclusion to what is fair or not.

If there are constructive suggestions on how we can simplify the material to make it simpler, better, we welcome that. But I would caution against thinking that any one of us can come up with a set of materials that will satisfy everybody. And that is not our goal.

Our goal is to understand that such differences exist and they have an emotive pull on different segments of our population in different directions. And our goal is to ask ourselves how to help our children navigate through these challenges, come to their conclusions, but, most importantly, not lose the peace and harmony that we have in this land. And it is a work that is in progress, a work that is very much in progress.

Sir, every time we raise questions that may not be in line with what the Government wants, we are always accused of being divisive. In this case, the Minister for Education just said that we are not being united.

But I think what we are trying to do here, can I ask the Minister, from the response the Minister had given to us on this issue, does it reflect enough transparency and also clarity on the process of how the materials are being decided? We are not particularly against any topics to be raised actually, as long as there is a defined process. What is the expert panel that decide on the topic, for example, and after deciding on the topic, why can the material not be made just transparent? Why must we ask the parents to come to the school to ask for it? All these materials are taught to our children and they ought to be 100% transparent?

Mr Speaker, Sir, my first response to Mr Leong's first comment is, "Please do not twist our words". I have never accused anyone in this House of being divisive. I said we have different views in our population and our job, as part of the CCE lessons, is to help people understand the differences, manage those differences, respect those differences, do it sensitively and work towards a more united future. That is what I said.

On the second issue to Mr Leong's question, MOE is being more than transparent. We are not only prepared to show the parents the material, we are prepared to explain to the parents how the materials are used, rather than to just give a deck of slides which can be taken out of context. So, if anything, we are going out of our way to assure parents how we conduct the lessons, rather than just giving a set of slides, as has been proven in the previous episode where people took the slides out of context or took the slides selectively and made comments on it. So, I think the correct perspective is that MOE has been more than transparent in allowing our students and children not only to see the materials but also to explain to their parents how the lessons are conducted.