Standing between the dead and living

“Standing between the dead and the living”

This is another quote from Mr Chin on education which he deems one of the most sacred professions. Mr Chin thought this biblical quote captures the essence of the responsibilities that rest on the shoulders of him and many other educators nowadays. Aaron, who saved thousands of sinful lives with his burning incense, is a personification of educators, who are expected to guide the students towards a worthy direction, and restore the lost souls onto the correct path.

“Guardian of social fabric, that is”, Mr Chin said, referring to the army of teachers whom he prefers to call “educators.” Indeed, we need to teach the students the right values, on top of equipping them with the right skills, so that Singapore’s future will be in safe hands.

“Seeing needs and meeting needs”, according to Mr Chin, is what educators should set out to do besides building relationships and crafting characters. This is echoed by the 21st Century Competencies Framework launched by the MOE in 2009 to equip our students with the capabilities required of the 21st century. This is exceptionally important especially for Singapore that relies heavily on its human capital, due to its inherent lack of natural resources.

Another facet of education that we touched on was how it can be closely linked with a country’s economic performance, political stability and more importantly, its social fabric which can either make or break a nation. The result of an educator in shaping the students, in moulding the school culture, can only be seen ten years down the road. Perhaps due to the exact same reason, similarly, education can have a far-reaching impact on the different aspects of the society. A poorly educated and ill-prepared generation of citizens can hardly lead the nation into a promising economic future, let alone securing a gainful position in the increasingly competitive world. The case studies of the European debt crisis reveal how important it is to put in place a relevant education system that delivers the relevant competencies.

Thanks to the extensive coverage of the European debt crisis, we know that Germany is the economic engine that’s kept the Eurozone afloat. The Germans attribute their success in large part to their dual education system. At a young age, schoolchildren are given options between vocational training to prepare them for employment or go to university.

While the system provides little flexibility, it delivers high youth employability Germany, as well as Switzerland and Austria — which has similar education models — have the lowest youth unemployment figures in Europe. Whereby countries like France and the U.K., which traditionally place a greater emphasis on college degrees, fare much worse.

However, it takes more than educators to put in place a change. Mr Chin likens the education system to a mega spaceship, in which schools, institutions, teachers, parents and students themselves have a part to play, similar to the different technical parts involved in a spacecraft.

We are not fighting a one-man war, if we were to achieve prescribed results and get our students to exhibit the hard and soft skills required of the 21st century, we need to involve every, and slowly manoeuvre the spacecraft.

So much effort, for such small changes. Mr Chin acknowledged that changes are hard to implement, and results are very often hard to measure, but we must do it.

However, one thing is sure: our education needs more such devoted teachers like Mr Chin.