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PRESS RELEASE Ministry of Education PRESS RELEASE Ministry of Education 5 March 2007 Preparing Students for a Global Future Enhancing Language Learning 1. The Ministry of Education (MOE) will be taking further steps to enhance the learning of the mother tongue and other Asian languages, to help prepare young Singaporeans for a globalised future and strengthen Singapore’s identity as an open, diverse and cohesive society. Specifically, MOE will: a. Broaden access to Conversational Chinese and Malay enrichment programmes for students who are not taking these subjects as their mother tongues. b. Provide for the learning of Tamil during curriculum time in eight more secondary schools. c. Provide greater support for the learning of other Indian Languages. d. Offer Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic as Third Languages at the MOE Language Centre. Language Learning for a Global City 2. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted during his 2006 National Day Rally speech the need for Singapore, as an open and cosmopolitan society with Asian roots, to do more to help our diverse communities to keep their mother tongues and cultures alive, while at the same time helping Singaporeans to acquire other languages that will enable them to link up with opportunities outside such as those in Southeast Asia and the Middle-East. 1 3. Bilingualism is a key feature of our education system. Our competence in both English and the Mother Tongue Languages (MTLs) gives Singapore a competitive edge in the world. At the same time, our MTLs help us retain our distinctive Asian identity. 4. The bilingual policy is centred on the four official languages - English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil. From 2004 to 2006, MOE conducted comprehensive reviews aimed at more effective learning of each of these languages in our schools. The implementation of the changes arising from these reviews is an important priority for MOE and schools for the next few years. 5. We will do more to support learning of other MTLs where feasible. Since the late 1980s, MOE has allowed for students to take several Non-Tamil Indian Languages (NTILs) as MTL, in-lieu of the other official languages. Further, MOE will make provisions for new third languages which help prepare Singaporeans for opportunities in a globalising world. 6. It is also useful for more young Singaporeans to know simple, conversational phrases in MTLs other than their own. Since 2005, schools have been encouraged to offer Conversational Chinese and Malay to their students. We will broaden access to these conversational language programmes, as enrichment learning, in the coming years. This will help enhance interaction among Singaporeans of different races in future, and strengthen social cohesion. 7. The further steps being taken by MOE to enhance language learning are described below. I) Promoting Conversational Chinese (CL) and Malay (ML) 8. Conversational CL and ML programmes have taken off well in schools. In 2006, 58 primary schools and 47 secondary schools conducted Conversational CL and/or ML lessons. Most of the programmes tend to provide students with exposure to the conversational languages for a year. 9. Moving forward, MOE will encourage as many schools as possible to offer Conversational CL and ML for students who are not taking these languages as their MTLs. MOE will be providing schools with additional resources to implement these programmes. It is envisaged that within 5 years, all primary schools will be able to offer simple Conversational CL and ML as enrichment programmes. 2 10. MOE will also provide students with opportunities for continued exposure to these conversational languages as they move up in years. They will be able to progress in Conversational CL and ML at their own pace. Students could start with beginner modules and, depending on their interest and aptitude, move on to higher modules. The modules will begin at the primary level and extend through secondary school as well as the post-secondary institutions. 11. An optional oral proficiency certification will also be introduced for interested students. This will not be part of the national examinations framework. Students who have completed a Conversational CL/ML programme in secondary school may opt to take the proficiency certification tests. MOE is discussing the provision of oral proficiency certification in CL and ML with potential partners. 12. MOE will provide additional resources to schools so that they can implement the Conversational CL/ML programmes well. Besides their own teachers, schools can also work with the private sector, parents and the community, or outsource these enrichment programmes. MOE will support instructors in developing appropriate skills for conversational language teaching. MOE will update the current teaching guides for Conversational CL and ML, and continue to provide schools with useful teaching resources including print materials, podcasts and interactive digital media. II) Improving Access to Learning of Tamil (TL) at Secondary Level 13. To broaden access to TL instruction within curriculum time for secondary school students, 8 more secondary schools will offer TL within curriculum time from 2008 (see Annex A for the names of the 8 schools). 14. This will allow over 90% of secondary school students taking TL to attend TL lessons during curriculum time (see Annex B for the full list of schools offering TL within curriculum time). Students who choose to go to other secondary schools will be able to take TL in the afternoons at the Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre and at 11 other school-based TL centres, distributed around the island1. 15. MOE will also work with primary schools to provide pro-active advice to parents and encourage them to send their children to the secondary schools offering TL within curriculum time, so that the children need not travel to attend classes in the afternoons. 1 School-based TL Centres and the Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre provide TL instruction to TL students from secondary schools that do not offer TL. 3 III) Greater Support for Non-Tamil Indian Languages (NTILs) 16. Since the early 1990s, MOE has provided for 5 NTILs (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu) to be part of the national examinations, i.e. the Primary School Leaving Examination, ‘N’, ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level examinations. The instruction of NTILs is organized by seven South Asian community groups2. The community groups hold classes, employ their own teachers, design their curriculum and set their own assessments except the national examinations. The Board for the Teaching & Testing of South Asian Languages (BTTSAL) oversees the delivery of NTIL instruction by these community groups and standardises the examinations across the various communities. 17. To support these community groups in keeping their mother tongues and cultures alive, MOE will provide funding support for the instruction of NTILs from 2008. MOE will provide them with a total grant of about $1.5 million each year to support the learning of the NTILs3. 18. MOE will also be working together with BTTSAL to effect the necessary processes to facilitate the recognition of NTIL grades for students’ level-to-level progression within school, before the students take the national examinations at the milestone years. Once these processes are in place, MOE will also allow students to use NTIL grades to count towards their eligibility for Edusave awards such as the Good Progress Award and Edusave scholarship. IV) Offering of Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic as Third Languages 19. MOE will offer Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic as Third Languages at the MOE Language Centre at Bishan from 2008. We are offering the two new languages so that, over time, we will have a pool of Singaporeans with facility to engage with Indonesia and act as bridges into the Middle East, a fast growing region in the world. 20. This will bring the number of Third Languages that MOE offers from five to seven. The other Third Languages are Chinese (Special Programme), Malay (Special Programme), French, German and Japanese. 2 These community groups are Bangla Language and Literary Society and Bangladesh Language and Cultural Foundation for Bengali, Singapore Gujarati School (Gujarati), D.A.V Hindi School Ltd and Hindi Society Singapore for Hindi, Singapore Sikh Education Foundation (Punjabi) and Urdu Development Society (Urdu). 3 This will enable BTTSAL and the community groups to provide subsidies for around 4,500 Singaporean and Permanent Resident students and 250 foreign students who are taking the NTILs as their mother tongues. 4 21. Bahasa Indonesia/Arabic as a Third Language will be a four-year course. The languages will be taught from the beginner’s level at Secondary One. The curriculum will place greater emphasis on the development of speaking and listening proficiency, and reading skills. 22. Bahasa Indonesia/Arabic will be available to all Secondary One Singaporean/ Permanent Resident students who have the interest and inclination to study these subjects as a Third Language. Given the similarity between ML and Bahasa Indonesia, students taking ML as their MTL will not be allowed to offer Bahasa Indonesia as a Third Language. Background on Third Languages and Conversational CL/ML 23. Since the late 1970s, French, German and Japanese have been offered as Third Languages. In 1986, the Malay Elective Programme [renamed in 2001 as the Malay (Special Programme)] was introduced to allow interested non-Malay secondary school students to take Malay as a Third Language. The Chinese (Special Programme) was introduced in 2004. 24. From 2005, MOE has been encouraging schools to offer Conversational CL and ML as enrichment programmes. To support schools, MOE has developed and disseminated teaching guides on Conversational CL and ML to schools. MOE has also provided schools with some useful teaching resources to enable them to design their own learning activities and develop their own resources for the programmes. ___________________________________________________________________ MINISTRY OF EDUCATION 5 March 2007 5 Annex A New Secondary Schools Offering TL Within Curriculum Time from 2008 NO.
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