The Straits Times reported today that the National University of Singapore (NUS) will be introducing compulsory writing modules for freshmen from August next year. The modules will focus on topics like press freedom, information and technology, or the environment. Students are expected to pick up skills ranging from taking good notes, effective presentations, analyzing texts and constructing coherent arguments.

The university’s provost, Professor Tan Eng Chye explained that the university needed to introduce such modules because NUS students have been found wanting in presentation skills, or are inarticulate or unable to write succinctly.

Professor Tan was reported to have said that he had attended presentations where students would read from their notes rather than make eye contact with the audience. He also was reported to have said that:

“I have also read minutes of meetings written by university students that are not clear at all.”

The report reminded me of a book by a Harvard education professor, Tony Wagner, who had argued that secondary students in the US are not “jury ready”. By this, he meant that students leave school without acquiring the skills to be able to analyze an argument, weigh evidence, and detect bias. In his book, “The Global Achievement Gap”, Professor Wagner defines his “Seven Survival Skills” for students to succeed at the university and at the workplace, and in life in general. The Seven Survival Skills are includes problem solving and critical thinking, collaboration across networks, adaptability, initiative, effective oral and written communication, analyzing information, and developing curiosity and imagination.

It seems that Professor Wagner’s view about this inability to produce “jury ready” students is not only true for the US, but also for Singapore, an island lauded for its rigorous education system. One wonders what our students are learning in their English Language classes in our schools?

Why are our students still unable to master these skills by the time they finish their secondary or junior college education? Is the format of the GCE O levels English Language paper to be blamed? Most teachers in Singapore will tell their students to avoid the expository essays for the examinations and concentrate on writing descriptive or narrative essays. This is their “pragmatic” strategy that they teach their students in order to get better grades in the high stakes examinations.

Should the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore seriously reconsider how English Language for the GCE O levels is designed? To be sure, students in Singapore, at the Junior College level are required to sit for General Paper, where they are required to write expository essays  and analyze text more critically, as part of their GCE A Levels high stakes examinations. Many have found this subject “tough”. They are also required to do a Project Work module. In addition, they have also been taught thinking skills in the other Humanities subjects like History and Geography even at the O levels. So why are our students still not “jury ready” that NUS now has to consider compulsory modules to instruct its students in these skills?

I suspect that despite thinking skills being officially incorporated in the secondary and junior college syllabuses, teachers in Singapore have found a way to work around these to prepare students for their high stakes examinations in a very mechanical way. What is supposed to be  the teaching and learning of critical thinking skills has been reduced to rote learning and mechanical operations only.

This is made worse by the lack of interdisciplinary connections across subjects. Students, therefore, think that the skills they have learned are only for use within the specific subject matter. Little transfer of knowledge or skills is emphasized perhaps by the teachers and MOE. A silo mentality is created where little of what has been learned in school is used for anything else. This is despite MOE’s “Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” (TSLN) and “Teach Less, Learn More” (TLLM) drive. Teachers and students still think that what matters most are the grades students obtain for the high stakes examinations that mainly encouraged rote learning and mechanical operations.

The new NUS initiative, while laudable in its aims, is in my view, too little, too late. Our students should be “jury ready” at an earlier stage of their education. All our students should be “jury ready” irregardless of whether they finally attained a university education or otherwise. After the secondary education, our students will be channeled to the university track or the polytechnic track or the technical education institutes. To think that such skills are only required of those in the universities will be folly. We cannot afford to be so wasteful in the face of the challenges of globalization in the 21st century.

There is a driving school in Singapore where they don’t give you a chance to drive a car. The only instruction that you will get from them is when they will ONLY TELL you how to drive. Will you enroll in such a driving school? I think the answer is clear. Yet there are many such schools in Singapore, where the teaching of skills is just by mere telling.

Recently, my son who is studying in one the polytechnics in Singapore, had an assessment for a communications module in his course. In the assessment, he was required to speak for about three minutes. I believe he was able to do that quite easily but he also described how some of his classmates struggled with the assessment. He described how they struggled for words, spoke in monotones, in short end up looking like very incompetent speakers. That got me and my son into a discussion about the module and the assessment.

I asked if they were taught how to speak during the course of the module. He initially told me that they were taught to speak but when I probed further it was clear that they weren’t. What actually happened was that the lecturer only outlined what are the aspects of good communication. The lecturer only gave an outline of the art of speaking but in theory only. When I probed my son, there was no opportunity to practise what they had learned during the module. Yet the students were assessed through an actual public speaking exercise.

In my view, this is just like learning driving through verbal instructions and perhaps some written notes. It would be unheard of and no one will take such a driving school seriously. Yet similar practices are being done in Singapore’s “educational” institutions. Worse no one seems to take notice of it, much less mind it. The situation is just incredible. You don’t need to be an expert on education to know that in order for someone to master a skill, you need lots of practice in that skill. Such skills are known as “procedural knowledge”. Robert Marzano et. al. in Dimensions of Learning says:

“Learning procedural knowledge requires the learner to perform a process or to demonstrate a skill, that is , to take some action.”

These skills can be mental or physical skills but the teaching of such skills are characterised by a breaking down of the skills into logical smaller steps and the learning and teaching of these steps are accompanied by repeated practice until mastery is achieved.

What had happened in my son’s class was a pretense at teaching a skill. If my son did well, it is IN SPITE of the teaching. If the other students struggled with the assessment, it is because of the poor teaching. No excuses ought to be given for this.

This may not happen in some aspects of the Singapore school experience. We know Singapore teachers are good at drilling the students to the test. But this applies I believe only to the acdemic subjects where they will face written examinations at the end of the year. However, where the soft skills are concerned, usually, it is a case of the “non-driving” driving school. Yet, it is these soft skills that at the most basic level, employers are seeking from the graduates of Singapore’s educational institutions.

Even local Singapore employers have been complaining of graduates who are academically bright but unable to fit into the work environment which demands skills far beyond the rote-learning and memorizing often demanded in Singapore’s educational institutions.

In case, you are still wondering if such a driving school exist in Singapore, the answer is they don’t. But you can find similar ones in our highly rated educational institutions.

Does your child’s school teach your child to take notes? This may sound like a very trivial question but a school that goes out of the way to teach its student population the art and science of note-taking shows the degree of commitment that the school has towards teaching your child to be independent learner. The term “independent learner” or “independent learning” is often been used by schools to catch the attention of parents who want their children to have the virtues of an independent learner instilled while their children are in school. Parents know that this is one of the qualities that the future workforce is expected to possess.

Yet referring to my original question again, how many schools actually teach students to do effective note-taking? Note-taking is a basic skill that everyone needs if he is to be able to learn effectively. Through effective note-taking, the student learns to make decisions about what is important about the learning that he is undergoing.  Effective note-taking implies that a lot of thinking is done by the student to help him sort out the relevant from the irrelevant and to get the information into some organized and effective structure. A student will also be a very much more active learner if he makes his own notes. Independent learners need to be active learners, in fact they have to be pro-active about their learning.

But do schools actually encourage this pro-activity with regards to student learning? To put it another way, do schools actually encourage students to be lazy? The truth is many schools do, and this is true even of the  higher educational institutions. Teachers and lecturers have been guilty of spoon-feeding students with stacks of notes. Today, some educational institutions, like some the polytechnics in Singapore, take pride that their students can get access to lecture notes online. Pride in their new ICT ability to store notes online takes precedence over real learning in such cases.  It seems that today, even at the tertiary levels of education, notes are expected to be given out even though one would expect that at least at that level, students should be encouraged to be more independent and take greater responsibility for their learning. This spoon-feeding is often seen as “good” for the students because it helps the students pass the examinations because the lectures are usually geared to the questions in the examinations.

It seems that if the goal is to produce students who are examinations smart, schools will continue to dish out notes to their students. However, it ought to be noted that such practices do not contribute in any way to the making of an independent and life-long learner. Educational institutions must make a serious effort to get students to be independent learners. It reflects poorly on such educational institutions if the basic skills of independent learning is not emphasised.

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