What on Earth is a Good School?
During his term as Education Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat led the Ministry of Education (MOE) to embark on a journey towards making every school a good school. The apophthegm ‘Every school, a good school’ made waves when it was first mentioned and was the subject of online discussion. Three Education Ministers later, it is time for us to take a look at whether we have achieved what DPM Heng set out to do.
Let us first take a look at what each Education Minister had to say about ‘Every School, a Good School’.
“Every school a good school does not mean every school the same school. But it does mean every school a good school in its own way, seeking to bring out the best in every child.” — Mr Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Education (2011–2015), 2014 Budget Debate.
“As part of my discussion with the parent, I asked his son, who is in a primary school in Sembawang, if he liked his school, if his teachers were good and were helping him to learn, and if he enjoyed going to school every morning. He readily said ‘YES’ to all of these questions. I replied — ‘Then you are in a good school!’” — Mr Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Education (2015–2020), 2018 Facebook Post.
“…so every school is a good school but some schools get more funding than the others, and the schools that get more funding are the ones with a higher proportion of children who do not do so well, or who come from more challenging family backgrounds.” — Mr Lawrence Wong, Minister for Education (2020–2021), 2020 NUS115 Distinguished Speaker Series.
Incumbent and newly-appointed Education Minister Chan Chun Sing has not made any comments on this, so we will leave him out of the discussion. The comments made by recent Ministers Ong and Wong depict a clear narrative — as of today, every school is a good school. From comments by DPM Heng and Minister Ong, we see that a school bringing out the best in every student, being liked by the student, and having good and helpful teachers are the key markers that determine whether or not a school is good.
It is apparent that the Ministry’s efforts are focused on the students, as it should be, and this is clear on MOE’s website as well. Instead of stating the number of science labs, the minimum size of a library, or the quality of soccer fields, it states a list of markers called ‘The Desired Outcomes of Education’. Among other outcomes, MOE wants their students to possess the necessary skills and knowledge to take on challenges of the future, and to be confident, self-directed learners who are active contributors to society.
These factors are hard to measure, considering that measurements such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test are measured across an entire cohort, meaning that we would not be able to determine if every single school is living up to the standards of a ‘good school’. At the same time, there are no measurements to determine the confidence levels of our students, and without surveys, there is no way of knowing whether or not students like their teachers or schools.
However, the way our lawmakers measure the ‘goodness’ of a school is vastly dissimilar from the way the public does. The name-brand, cut-off points, and examination scores are the most important factors for most Singaporean parents. In the eyes of our lawmakers, this should not be the case, yet this is how most of us determine whether or not a school is good.
By the standards that are set out by the general public, there are only a few good schools. Schools that have the Integrated Programme (IP), Junior Colleges that use the International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations over the Cambridge Advanced Level examinations, and the alma mater of our Ministers are considered good schools to them. Schools that do not live up to these standards are often met with an “Oh, you are from that school.” remark.
So where does this leave us? Our Ministers argue without much data that every school is indeed a good school, while the public argues that only the top schools are good schools, without considering non-academic factors. There is not much point in debating whether every school is a good school when the country does not agree on what a good school is.
It would be unfair to measure schools only by academics or only by a “Do you like your school?” question. This problem is also part of a wider, global issue of what the purpose of education is. I am not a statesman, nor am I an educator. However, I do have 12 years of experience as a student, and this is what I would construe a ‘good school’ to be.
A good school facilitates and nurtures its students to pursue their passions and talents, assisting them in paving their own road to success.
By that definition and in my opinion, every school is a good school, but some are better than others. Not all schools will be able to offer the same level of support to every student, and not all schools will be able to offer the level of support needed to the myriads of interests their student population may have. Some schools are just simply better equipped to give every Ivy League-aiming student the support needed to score that perfect grade, and every aspiring artist the resources needed to be the next Van Gogh.
However, schools that can do so are linked to the ranking based on what the public assumes to be ‘good schools’. Our students who aspire to be a Minister can feel comfortable going to Raffles Institution, and the next Olympic Gold Medallist will likely study at Singapore Sports School. The academically-inclined will have no problem getting into the ‘top schools’, and those who are talented in sports will comfortably earn their place in an elite sports programme.
The weakness in our examinations and Direct School Admission (DSA) programme is that it does not leave room for those who are late to the party. Some students simply need more time to realise their abilities, and some simply have no idea what they want to pursue in the future. These students can often end up in your ‘average’ schools, trapped and limited by the programmes, or lack thereof, in their current school.
The common, bourgeois response to this problem would be to cite the law of supply and demand. If there is little to no demand for a coding programme or a water-polo co-curricular activity (CCA) in an ‘average’ school, why should a school provide it? While it would not make sense to create a water-polo CCA for that one student who wants it, the key idea here is to offer the opportunity for a student to discover their interest in the sport, and at the same time develop their abilities, regardless of when they discover their talents, and regardless of which school they are attending.
Schools that are not specialised in a certain area, like sports or arts, should all offer the same level of support to students, regardless of their initial academic or non-academic ability. This would mean that all schools must be entitled to the same facilities and programmes that the other schools have. The resources available to a student going to a Junior College should not be limited by a below-average ‘O’ Level performance.
The push to upgrade and improve the facilities and programmes across all Junior Colleges will be met with much resistance. After all, why should the Ministry increase their already limited spending on students that are not academically strong? Should students not just aim and qualify for the best schools so they do not lose out on any opportunities? The return on investment may not even be worth the cost. The problem here is that the education system as a whole needs a revamp. We as a society are overly focused on grades and brummagem prestige, and that needs to change.
The solution is not to expand the DSA programme, cutting funding for ‘top schools’, or making every school the same school. The solution is to determine and decide on what we actually mean by ‘a good school’, and when we see that there are schools exceeding that baseline by so much that the other schools, while still good schools, are not as good in comparison, we need to help increase that baseline for everyone else.
Every student deserves an equal opportunity to pursue their dreams at any school, regardless of what it is. Whether they discover it at 13 or 17, they deserve access to the resources needed to pursue them.
