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.

I used to be left at home as a kid with my mum while my dad was out at work and all my siblings were in school. I remember being in a world all my own and looking for things to do to occupy myself. I remember getting an old clock to work again after dismantling it and fiddling with it for awhile.

I also remember the miniature “sail cars” that I used to built from cannibalized toys. The sail would usually just be a piece of paper held upright in place by a stick. Sometimes I would use those plastic windmills or propellers in place of these paper sail to power these sail cars of mine. The wheels would come from dismantled Matchbox Superfast cars, and the chasis of my sail cars would be made from empty boxes. They would be held together by rubber bands or glue.

I had hours of fun building different sail cars and racing one against another on the floor of my apartment house. The wind would come from the direction of the balcony. I would build different configurations to see what will make my sail cars move faster. I would try with paper sails or switch to plastic propellers. I would change the wheels and “chassis” to see which chassis is more stable to support the sail or fan.

Looking back I think those were wonderful learning moments for me. I was faced with a problem and had to solve it through some creative thinking. I don’t think I had learned about “center of gravity” but I knew it intuitively through trying to get a stable sail car. I learned something about “harnessing the energy of the wind” even though such words perhaps didn’t exist in my vocabulary. “Creativity” wasn’t a word to me either.

I learned science without a textbook. I explored things. I explored ideas. I learned to be creative through play. I was learning as learning should be done. It was fun and natural, and very importantly, meaningful. Meaningful without having to memorize definitions of concepts like “wind power” or “energy”.

Parents and teachers can do a lot to encourage such curiosity among by providing them with opportunities with do-it-yourself projects. Give them a free reign. Don’t even designate these DIY projects as a “Science project” or a “Mathematics Project”. Don’t attach labels to them. You may  insist that their project must not have electronic parts. Leave it to the kids to share something that interest them. Do you think learning in schools can be like this? For parents, it is a great way to wean your kids off the computers and video games.

Recently, I attended an awards ceremony and among others, it featured a young lady singing the song, “Have a Nice Day” by Bon Jovi. The young singer got the melody right but something was very much missing from her performance. It wasn’t done from the heart. It was like lip-synching. There was no edge to the performance. It didn’t have the spirit of the song. At the end of the performance, I wasn’t sure how to respond to the performance. Should I clap out of just sheer politeness since I didn’t enjoy it?

In Singapore, something similar to this insipid performance is happening in the junior colleges (JCs). The Ministry of Education (MOE) has introduced project work to the junior colleges (equivalent to high schools). It has become  a major part of a junior college student’s summative assessment. It has become part of the high stakes assessment performance for entry to the universities.

As a critic of the high stakes examinations system in Singapore, I am wondering whether I should applaud this move to get our JC students to do project work. While it seems to be a positive step away from the “hgh stakes examinations only” approach Singapore is (in?)famous for, I am uncertain about the spirit behind its introduction. Why was it introduced only at that level? Should the undertaking of any personal learning project work by students be done only at high school level and be a one-off affair? Is this what learning through project work supposed to be about?

If this mode of learning is so important why is it introduced seriously only at that level. At the secondary school level, the MOE has only recently introduced alternative modes of assessment (makes you wonder where all these other modes of assessment were prior to this). But it is not anything similar to the project work that JC students have to do. Is it fair to expect such students to be suddenly faced with such a mode of assessment (yes, it is seen mainly as a mode of assessment and not quite an accepted and generally practised form of learning) only after they have been in school for at least 10 years. Why are such modes of learning rare at the other levels?

The nett effect of this approach means that almost all students and teachers involved in it see it as only another form of high stakes assessment to determine the students’ educational pathway. It doesn’t reduce the importance of the traditional high stakes examinations. It only becomes another adjunct of it.

The spirit of project work which should be done in the spirit of inquiry-based learning is lost. It is not remembered as a learning approach but as an assessment approach. While learning and assessment goes hand-in-hand, it becomes very different when the assessment is seen mainly from the summative angle only and not the formative assessment point of view. The spirit of such learning is lost when the summative angle is the only thing that is remembered by both students and teachers.

The MOE’s introduction of project work is therefore not done with the right spirit. The signal they have sent by introducing project as another high stakes assessment means that few will enter into it, to seriously deepen their understanding of something that is dear to their hearts. It is not about passion for learning. It is about just putting up another performance. Like the singer that I have described at the start, this “heart-less” approach will only at best resemble a lip-synching of the real performance. Should we applaud?