On 27 January 2007, two student representatives attended the NE Symposium. Here's their reflections....
Alan Lim, 3E3 reflects...
Reflection of the National Education Symposium
National Education (NE) is developing nation cohesion. It mainly emphasize on the identity, pride and self respect of individuals in Singapore. It also tells Singaporeans about the Singapore story. For example: how Singapore succeeded to become a nation. It also tells Singaporeans about the challenges that the Singapore society has decided and what makes Singapore different from other countries. It also teaches Singaporeans the way of life and would ensure success and the well- being of Singapore.
NE in our school
In our school, we got a lot of National Education taken place. It includes: learning journeys, Community Involvement Programme (CIP) and the National Day Ceremony. In studies, NE is usually discussed in class during social studies.
Students’ idea of NE
During the discussion, we and ambassadors from other schools have concluded that NE among students in Singapore is boring, and usually the word that would come to their mind is ‘propaganda’. They would spread their opinions of what they think NE is to their peers and would most likely influence them to think that it is boring and ‘irrelevant’.
I think that there are a lot of things we can do about NE in our school especially during social studies as NE is part of the subject. For example:
● We can have more “out-of-textbook” case studies.
● Updated examples
● Could have more learning journeys that would engage the students: visiting historical sites in Singapore.
● teachers could let students take over the class and help them when they have a little trouble with the explanation or their explanation is not exact or not so well explained.
I would also say that it is good that the school has engage theatre groups like Act 3 International to perform skits during assembly sessions to deliver key messages about Singapore. The Singaporean rock band group that came to perform for the students was also a good as they told the students about the good and bad things in life.
In CIP, I think that it should not be quantity but quality. In most schools, one would have to work for 6 hours just the get merit points. I think that it should be measured in categories fulfilled by the students.
Most importantly, I think that teachers’ should not mention the words ‘national education’ at all when he or she is about to teach on the subject as it would probably make the students ‘switch their minds’ off. Teachers should keep the students awake by engaging them with questions, telling small jokes once a while to keep the students awake and that they would pay attention as by nature, many people like to hear funny things as they would make them happy.
Tan Si Hao, 3E3 reflects...
Reflections
National Education, NE, is a very important topic which we, Singaporeans, did not really take it into our attention. It is about knowing the Singapore story - how Singapore succeeded against the odds to become a nation; Understanding our country is also one of the purposes why we promote National Education in schools. As Singaporeans, having a sense of identity or pride is what we should observe.
The six messages of National Education are:
Singapore is our homeland; this is where we belong.
We must preserve racial and religious harmony.
We must uphold meritocracy and incorruptibility.
No one owes Singapore a living.
We must ourselves defend Singapore.
We have confidence in our future.
The purpose of this symposium was to discuss and give feedback on NE. It was thought that NE is boring and disengaging. Students have to interest or rather they do not recognize the importance of NE. A presentation was given about the holistic approach towards NE by the National Education Taskforce. After that, we had a group discussion of how and what your school had done about NE. This is some of the things we had shared about:
Having NE in the school but do not feel the presence of it; did not absorb the meaning of it
Having NE ambassadors in school – organize NE activities for schools
Learning NE without being known by students as they will ‘switch off’ their minds when the hear NE
Teaching NE through different ways to catch their attention or rather to get their interest
Finally, not only learning NE but also how to apply them.
I had learnt much from this symposium with the NE taskforce. It has enlightened me the importance and allows me to know more about what National Education means to us. As a Singaporean, had learnt to have pride for my country no matter where I go. Therefore, I concluded that it had gained much experiences and knowledge of what NE is.
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