Social Context

As a trainee teacher, I need to ask myself several questions in relations to Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) syllabus before I begin my teaching journey. What is CCE? Why CCE now? What is the purpose of CCE? How does CCE related to me as a teacher? Are teachers the only one responsible? What are the possible challenges I might face in promoting CCE? I shall discuss these questions in the following.

During my early education years, my teachers taught me what it means being a Singaporean and also inculcate moral values. I learnt the meaning of the Singapore Flag, learnt to sing the National Anthem, to recite the Singapore Pledge, and know about the different racial and culture heritage and practices through my Mother Tongue ‘Good Citizen’, Social Studies and Religious Knowledge lessons. Over the years, the citizenship education programmes in school has been constantly on the ‘move’ with the latest introduction of CCE from 2010:
. Ethics (1959)
. Civics (1967)
. Education for Living (1973, interdisciplinary subject)
. Review of the Moral Education (1978)
. Good Citizens (Primary) (1981)
. Being and Becoming (Secondary) (1981)
. Social Studies (Primary) (1981)
. Religious Knowledge (1984)
. Civics and Moral Education (1992)
. National Education (1997)
. Social Studies (Upper Secondary) (2001)
. Character and Citizenship Education (2010/2011)
Now, CCE is a new syllabus that will be introduced in primary and secondary schools from 2014 (MOE, 2012). But, why is there a need for a change?
Singapore is a small geographical size multi-racial country with no natural resources and relies on human resources for economic survival. To compensate for the lack of land and natural resources, Singapore embarked on a process of globalizing its economy, its population, and its culture to make the nation relevant to the needs of the rest of the world. Singapore is named, one of the most globalized of nations, based on the AT Kearney/Foreign Policy globalization index in 2001, and it has since remained in the top four (Measuring Globalization 2003). However, the fast pace of globalisation has created a flurry of problems by weakening the emotional ties Singaporeans have for their nation. This problem is demonstrated by a series of phenomena, including a weakening of social cohesion and a pragmatic attitude toward the collective good and self-sacrifice. We can witness this alarming phenomenon from newspaper and internet sources such as STOMP, social media Facebook and even in our daily experiences. Reports on a group of house owner protested against the building of elderly home at their backyard and the incident of Amy Cheong have highlighted the threat to our nation’s social cohesion and inclusiveness. Our government has grown increasingly alarmed by these trends. “Politically, the task was to construct a unified national system of education from the ethnically divided and politically contested provision inherited from the English. Economically, it was to provide a stock of basic education, skills and attitudes required for industrialization” (Sharpe & Gopinathan, 2002). Henceforth, our government over the past 47 years has given schools the important role in helping to build a nation, develop a shared national identity among the diverse racial and cultural groups who made up the Singapore’s immigrant society.
According to IEA Civic Education Study conducted in 1995 (Lee., 2012), social cohesion and diversity, democracy and the building of a national identity are three important pillars of Singapore’s citizenship education. We can see that our government is building these three pillars through the aims of CCE which are to inculcate values and build social and emotional competences in students. Our students will learn values through three big overlapping ideas, namely Identity, Relationships and Choices and this new framework is to seek in developing student with the essential 21st Century competences to achieve the desired outcomes namely a confident person, a self-directed learner, an active contributor and a concerned citizen (MOE, 2010).
In the past, Citizenship Education subject was taught as a subject separately and among a certain group of teachers, known as CME or Social Studies teachers. Now, it involves every teacher of all subjects. We can see this in the implementation of CCE which comprises the following initiatives in the schools listed below.
1) National Education (NE)
2) Education & Career Guidance (ECG)
3) Sexuality Education (SE)
4) Cyber Wellness (CW)
5) Co-curricular Activities (CCA)
6) Community Involvement Program (CIP)
7) Character Education / Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

Hence, it is expected that all schools and teachers are the in forefront to spearhead in achieving the aims of the CCE but it does not mean all the responsibilities lie in the hands of teachers and school. Quoting our Education Ministry, Mr Heng Swee Keat (MOE, 2011) “The old adage ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is as relevant in our modern society as it was in the rural past.” To achieve this, teachers need the full support and backings from MOE, school leadership, different community groups such as the Singapore Kindness Movement, People’s Association etc., and the most important of all are the caretakers of the students.

It is important to be aware of the challenges in driving this mission. Firstly, I believe citizenship like anything else has to be learned, as young people do not become good citizens by accident (Patrick, 2002). This is one of the most daunting challenges I think I will faced as a teacher. How am I going to infuse CCE into my curriculum lesson? How do I impart values to my student so that they could internalise it? Which are more important, academic results or inculcating values in our student? As I will be teaching PE and Mathematics, I believe there are opportunities in PE lesson to teach children the importance of working together a team. I could use different cooperative game activities and team sports to inculcate values such as teamwork, caring and respect. For example, I would use the game “Treasure island’ to let the children the importance of having good teamwork to reach the objective. But I need to mindful that team sport is competitive in nature and it could bring some negative results. Hence, I will need to de-emphasis the value of winning and instead build a safe and conducive learning by having a culture in which the learning process is more important than results. In addition, I could teach the problem solving skills by linking problem sums to real world context to inculcate the value of caring and responsibility.

Secondly, our society placed an overemphasis on meritocracy that resulted many parents view academic results is the only path for their children to be successful in life. The overemphasis of meritocracy has created an ‘elitist’ mind set of ‘Winners take all’ and is moving our society towards a ‘soulless’ nation. To de-emphasis the importance of academic success, our government has provided multiple pathways in our education system to cater to the varied strengths of our students, for example, the setup of Singapore Sports School for students excel in sports and SATA for students excel in music and arts and the Institute of Education for students that are more technically-inclined etc. Recently, our Education Ministry made some bold changes to send a strong and clear signal by scrapping secondary school banding system and cuts school awards and scrapping top students list to reiterate the importance of recognising our students for their holistic development, and to balance the over-emphasis on academic results.

Thirdly, students nowadays are technologically savvy, and they want to be engaged in a different way. Therefore, teachers are faced with the challenge of making CCE more meaningful and relevant to the students. To overcome this challenge, instructional materials and resources for teachers will be updated to stay current and relevant and students will be engaged in discussions on current national and global issues (MOE, 2012).

Lastly, I believe teachers not only need to have the belief and passion to instil the values, SEL competencies, as well as of citizenship in our pupils. Teachers also must possess and demonstrate these values and competences. Recently, there were a lot of reports on teachers and educators who have committed immoral behavior or broken the laws. I would think this forms one of the biggest obstacles to the success of CCE implementation as teachers are seen as the role models. Our former Education Ministry Dr Ng Eng Hen stated, “No education system can rise above the quality of its teachers.” (MOE, 2008). Henceforth, we have the V3SK Model of Teacher Education for the 21st century at our NIE course to help us to align our beliefs, values and competences to the 21st century competences of our learners.

Looking at an analogy of a person learning to drive a car; he or she needs to find the ‘biting’ point to move the car into gear. If the learner let go of the clutch pedal too fast before stepping on the accelerator, the car will stall. I believe as a teacher, I will need to find a delicate balance between achieving academic results and inculcating values in my students. B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) “Educations survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.” (1524 words)
References:

Ministry of Education. (2010). Press Release. Retrieved March 9, 2010 from http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2010/03/moe-to-enhance-learning-of-21s.php Ministry of Education. (2012). Press Release. Retrieved November 14, 2012 from http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2012/11/new-syllabus-and-textbook-titl.php

Ministry of Education. (2011). Opening address by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Education, at the 1st NIE MOE Character and Citizenship Education Conference on Tuesday, 8 November 2011, 9.00am at Nanyang Technological University Auditorium. http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/speeches/2011/11/08/opening-address-by-mr-heng-swee-keat-at-1st-nie-moe-cce-conference.php Ministry of Education. (2008). Opening Address by Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education & Second Minister for Defence, at the Teachers’ Conference 2008 on Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 10.10am, at the Suntec City Ballroom http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/speeches/2008/05/28/opening-address-by-dr-ng-eng-h.php Measuring Globalization. 2003. Foreign policy. January-February. Retrieved 28 January 2003 from http://www.foreignpolicy.com.

Patrick, J. J. (2002). Defining, delivering, and defending a common education for citizenship in a democracy. Paper presented at the “Summit on Civic Learning in Teacher Preparation”, Boston, MA.

Sharpe, L. & Gopinathan, S. (2002). After effectiveness: New directions in the Singapore school system. Journal of Educational Policy Study, 17(2), 151 – 166.

Wing On Lee (2012): Education for future-oriented citizenship: implications for the education of twenty-first century competencies, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 32:4,498-517

References: Ministry of Education. (2010). Press Release. Retrieved March 9, 2010 from http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2010/03/moe-to-enhance-learning-of-21s.php Ministry of Education. (2012). Press Release. Retrieved November 14, 2012 from http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2012/11/new-syllabus-and-textbook-titl.php Ministry of Education Patrick, J. J. (2002). Defining, delivering, and defending a common education for citizenship in a democracy. Paper presented at the “Summit on Civic Learning in Teacher Preparation”, Boston, MA. Sharpe, L. & Gopinathan, S. (2002). After effectiveness: New directions in the Singapore school system. Journal of Educational Policy Study, 17(2), 151 – 166. Wing On Lee (2012): Education for future-oriented citizenship: implications for the education of twenty-first century competencies, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 32:4,498-517