In this episode, we will be speaking to Ong Ye Kung, Singapore's Minister for Education. He's been a Member of Parliament since 2015. And he has held a wide range of government positions, including Deputy Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress - NTUC, Chief Executive of Singapore Workforce Development Agency - WDA, and Deputy Chief Negotiator for the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.
Minister Ong recently spoke at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy's Festival of Ideas 2019, where he shared his views on what he considers the key governance issues of our time; like technology disruption, inequality, and climate change.
Global-is-Asian met up with the Minister to follow up and have a deeper discussion:
David Austin: You suggested that an inclusive growth model that is productivity and innovation-driven is the best way to deal with technological disruption. So I was wondering if you could give us some examples of this and what kind of policies have to be part of this growth model?
Ong Ye Kung: First I think we must have faith in technology. While technology advances very quickly, I think throughout human history what we observe is that it does create many more jobs, right? And humans with the right skills can take up those jobs. And we've seen that over and over again when we automate farm work, and then in the industrial revolution and computerisation more recently and now this phase of industry 4.0 as well as AI, big data and so on.
First, I think we must have belief or faith that it's not going to be different this time. I think that's an important starting point. Then the next issue is that as a society, nation, and country, we do have a choice to make.
A recent example, say outsourcing – when outsourcing became popular, say in the 2000s, countries can, and economies and governments can, and industries can choose to implement it in different ways.
You can take an extreme form - I outsource everything and I just focus on what I think is my so-called core competency, which may just be a few management staff. And in the meantime, your jobs have all been exported to lower cost economies. And that is a choice. Technology is not to be blamed for that, but it's the choice of a country or industry or company.
But those companies, by now, I think most of them would have regretted, if you have overdone it, you would have regretted it. That is actually, quite important.Many competencies that you think are not core actually [are] quite core. And by exporting them, you lose capabilities over time. So likewise, if you expand that to an economy, we likewise have to make those choices.
Not everything that can be AI ought to be AI, not everything that can be automated and done by a robot should be automated, and you should have a push in that direction. And I think there is plenty of scope, and probably more ideal that humans and technology work side by side. I've seen the Japanese do that quite skillfully and it's a conscious decision.
The humans are on the factory floors still doing the manufacturing job, but then the repetitive tasks, some of the repetitive tasks are now performed by robots, deliberately designed to have lower payload. I always ask, whenever I see a robot in Japan I'll ask them, what's the payload? [It is] 1.5 kilogramme, sometimes half a kilogramme.
I'm sure they can be stronger, as strong as Terminators, but they have deliberately designed it to be weaker. So that they complement humans. I think we have to consciously decide not to push this overboard because it will bounce, just like outsourcing. There will be a time when we regret and say, "I think we need something a bit more optimal".
I can give you one more example. I went to Shenzhen and I think they are one of the first in the world to implement autonomous buses. And in fact it's done [as] a collaboration with a Singapore company, but these autonomous buses have a driver. The person is still sitting there, the bus drives itself, but he's watching to make sure equipment are, and the computer system is operating properly, to keep an eye on the passengers to make sure they are safe. They are boarding or alighting properly and he's responding to emergencies, if there's one, and other customer service issues. There is still a job there and for that matter, we have driverless trains in Singapore, but they all have drivers. I think that is the future. Yeah, that is the future.
David Austin: Well, when you gave the example of Japan and the robots on the factory floor, was that choice by a company or was it a government-wide choice?
Ong Ye Kung: It was a company that I visited. Yeah. It was a robot, manufacturing company that told me how their robots [have] been deployed. Yeah. Something interesting culturally in Japan as well, I asked them, "Why do you deploy a robot this way?" They say in Japan, robots, are seen as friends because of Doraemon and Pokemons.
So robots have always been seen as friends and pals of humans and working side by side. So all these cultural factors do play a part.
David Austin: How do you foresee the private and public sectors though, adopting such growth models here in Singapore? Do you have a prediction or do you see a trend already?
Ong Ye Kung: In Singapore particularly, I think what the government choose as its policy plays a big part. And I think for this government, since we started industrialisation and we became independent, we have a very strong tripartite cooperation between businesses, government, and the unions. And when these three parties get together, we discuss about how we develop industries, modernise industries, develop our economy for the future, and those conscious decisions will have to be made and the signal has to be sent to the industries.
I believe we, through this process that has been tried and tested over the decades, we will arrive at something more optimal rather than technology for technology's sake, which I think will freak out everybody.
Having said that, changes are happening. There are great disruptions happening, but it need not necessarily lead to a decimation of jobs. I don't think that will happen.
David Austin: Well, I was also going to ask you, cause at the beginning you said that, you know, this is just like the kind of changes that we've seen before, you know-
Ong Ye Kung: - Except it's a lot faster now.
David Austin: That was going to be my question, what about the speed? And does the speed worry you at all?
Ong Ye Kung: Absolutely right. The speed is so much faster, and I think that response, therefore, is that learning and education has to try to keep up and each of us, both in terms of support systems and government policies and government help, to individual workers and companies.
But also ourselves as individuals, we have to understand what is happening and take the initiative. Yeah, a top-down driven system alone I don't think will help. So this has several major implications on education. Let me just cite one for now. You are interviewing Tom Friedman, if I'm not wrong.
I'm just reading his book, and he said something in one of the early chapters, that knowledge is no longer a stock, but knowledge is a flow because it keeps changing, which is absolutely correct. But what is the implication on education and training is that if knowledge and skills become a flow, education and training becomes an issue of stock.
Right? Because in the past, when knowledge and skills [were] a stock, education and training can be a flow. I just trained the new cohort. They are ready with their stock of knowledge and skills and they take care of themselves with the rest of their careers. But now that it's become a flow of knowledge and skills, we have to constantly reach out to the stock of workers out there and get them to keep on learning, keep on improving themselves in order to keep up with the very fast changes.
David Austin: That's a good point. And then how are you as a Ministry, how are you adapting to that, knowing that you have to have older workers and you know, retraining. Is that done like in partnership with Ministry of Manpower or is it, how are you dealing with that now that it's not just the cohort, they go out into the world and take care of themselves, but you know, they may need to be re-skilled to have career changes, you know, lateral job moves, deal with new technologies.
How is that affecting the daily workflow here?
Ong Ye Kung: Fortunately, this is something we have done, for some time. In fact, we set up a Workforce Development Agency, which is a statutory government agency. That was 2003, if I remember correctly. So a little more than 15 years ago, because that agency's purpose and objective is to promote lifelong learning. And we set up a lifelong learning endowment fund, several billion dollars, now. And we use the earnings from the fund to support workers for the upgrading and also to support companies to support their employees for upgrading. But with this rapid and accelerated change, the corporation need to be tighter. So one way to make it tighter actually is to restructure ourselves.
So the workforce development agency has since been restructured and became part of the MOE. So that way, we can look at education and training as one process within one government agency, a comprehensive stocktake from preschool all the way to the day you retire. Even post retirement, there's still training and education that you need to participate in.
So that's a major change, especially for all our higher education institutions. The polytechnics as well as the [Universities], with this change, their missions have all changed. They're no longer looking at flow. They're now looking at stock. National University of Singapore now says enrollment to NUS is for 20 years, probably needs to be longer.
It's a bit early, but I think they need to quickly ramp up their programmes that are relevant to adults, quickly master adult learning, which is vastly different from students' learning and deliver in a way that is more convenient and conducive to adults. This is a capability they have to build up quickly.
David Austin: I think another thing that Thomas Friedman was saying is that, you know, the survival of a lot of universities out there really depends on them engaging older students because if they go with the same business model of just taking the high school graduates or the young people, there won't be enough, there won't be enough students to support them.
Ong Ye Kung: Absolutely. And the top universities today around the world, they're taking in less than 2% of adult learners, and that proportion has to increase. And at the same time, while you reach out to adult learners, you also have to review what are you teaching, existing young students. And I think education has to be quite different from the past, and the traditional model [has] many walls between faculties, between industry and institutes, between skills and knowledge. All these have to start breaking down. Okay.
David Austin: Well I'd like to hear what are some methods that you're using to break down those walls?
Ong Ye Kung: Different universities have started different ways. I think one obvious one is between institution and industry. I mean, if you are familiar with the history of universities, they started off teaching clerics, right? They are religious institutions. So it's [an] authoritative, it's "I know better" kind of mindset. But even post-World War Two and you see the rise of research [universities] it's still the same because many of the research breakthroughs, innovation, and technology came from government and from the military. So it's, you're still in the, "I know best" mentality. But I think today, innovation, research, some of the best activities are done by the private sector and done in the industries. Universities have to now say, "I don't know best." Yeah. And sometimes [industries] know best.
So if knowledge and skills are now created in an industry much more, much faster than ever, surely you got to bring industry into your campus or, in fact, bring your campus into industry. This is not a new mode of learning. Apprenticeship has been around much longer than the traditional academic university, work study format, the Europeans have done that for centuries.
I think we need to revive that, modernise and implement it in a more modernised format. Yeah, and I think there is a great potential for doing that. Just bring in industries, working together with professors and academics, knowing that each of us don't know best. Institution may be good at laying foundational knowledge and skills for the student, increase their capacity to learn, but industry is the one where you learn practical skills for it to be applied immediately and then continue that process as you are in the industry.
So we are experimenting [with] different formats. Work study programmes [have] become, quite an important focus of ours. And we hope that it become one of our mainstream avenues. That's one wall to be broken down. Another one is between faculties. I think every university realise that. But it's not easy because after a while they become fiefdoms and not easy to break down the walls and get Deans to work together.
MIT has started something. They started [an] IT school, and I think that is really meant to drive cooperation across different faculties. We started the university called the Singapore University of Technology and Design. That was in collaboration with MIT, as well as China's Zhejiang University, but because it started as a fresh university - just celebrated 10 years, its 10-year anniversary. We start from scratch, and therefore we design a university without faculties. So they have what they call "pillars of competencies". So every student starts off their first year doing the common modules for representing these pillars of competencies before they're specialised into their respective fields.
Yeah. The direction is quite clear. You've got to have interdisciplinary learning. It will come. It will mean more breadth at the expense of some depth. It has to be, because we all have 365 days a year and 24 hours a day. But it doesn't quite matter. Considering that learning and education is now for the stock of workers, and you have your whole life to learn deeper.
And it may well be better for you to gain a bit more breadth. Start work first, experience industry, learn on the job, discover your interests, before coming back and deepen in an area that is most suitable and most relevant to you.
David Austin: Resilience is a big buzzword in this day and age so I wanted to ask you just how do you teach resilience and is that even possible?
Ong Ye Kung: Resilience come from experience. You can teach, but it won't make an impact. I can give you a lecture on what is resilience and what constitute resilience. But in the end, it has to come from experience.
Unfortunately, we cannot quite replicate the conditions for young Singaporean students to have resilience. We can't replicate poverty. And the times that my parents have to go through, they went through a World War that taught them resilience. But you don't wish that on our children. So I think we can do as much as we can given the context of the world they live in today.
Some of the things we can try to inculcate those characteristics [are] through, say, outdoor adventure learning. That we can do when they are younger, make them overcome fear of heights, and do [the] high obstacle course. We want to encourage our students to have overseas exposure where, in the safe way, they go overseas for immersion, for community projects, work in teams, go through difficulties, partner difficult people, and having to overcome that.
So sometimes parents and students complain about those experiences, but that is part of the design as well. And of course in Singapore for the boys, they have the privilege of going through National Service.
David Austin: I'm going to change subjects now a bit. Because I think you also mentioned inequality in today's world and also the lack of social mobility that we see in a lot of societies these days. Which do you think is more serious: the income inequality or lack of social mobility?
Ong Ye Kung: It's hard to rank them. If the gap is too big, it is in itself a big problem. But I think inequality cannot be just seen from the perspective of income inequality and the gap between top and bottom income. There's also issues of whether there is a core of middle-class. What is the churn, which is the social mobility you mentioned, and what is the mix?
Does the top mix with the bottom, or they live in separate worlds? All this [plays] a role, and I would say that the four dimensions, the gap, the core, the mix and the churn, I think creates the inequality landscape. Yeah. If you look at Singapore, our Gini coefficient was not compiled until much later in the 70s I think.
But if we trace back earlier, I think the gap has been wider in the past, because there were a few rich traders who settled in Singapore and tycoons, but most people [were] poor. So at that time, inequality [was] actually much worse in terms of income gap, compared to today. But I think what was possible at that time is that even if you are poor, and you are from a humble family background, there is churn.
By working hard, by putting your children through a good education system, you can make good, and the next generation can perform better than today, which means you have a middle class that's constantly improving in quality of life. And at the time, for some reasons, the rich and the poor, I think [mix] much better together.
So there's this sense that while there's a big gap, inequality wasn't so bad. We are improving. The escalator is moving. I think today's problem, is that the gap I don't think is as wide [in]as the early days, but there's a certain sense that, is social mobility still working? Or are the privileged, preserving their privilege and passing down to the next generation?
And you get an encrusted privileged layer on top of societies. And how do I break into that? So I think that is the frustration that societies are going through.
David Austin: What do you see the trends are right now and how do you think that should be addressed?
Ong Ye Kung: I would think there is a risk that if we are not careful, [the] privileged can [get] encrusted at the top. How do we narrow this? Of course the easiest way to resolve inequality, you tax the rich or make sure those who are talented don't excel as much and then you equalise. But this is what the communists used to do. I don't think it works. It's important for us to understand that it is very natural that if someone has the talent, he or she wants to be as good as they can be.
Parents that care for their children, will not spare any effort or resources to make sure that their children do well, and that is natural. All of us would have done the same. Yeah. So I think it's very understandable human nature. So I think in this whole effort to tackle inequality, we should not try to cap the top. Let them go as far as they can, in fact encourage them.
But, devote more resources, deploy more policy levers to help and lift the bottom. And that has been our philosophy. So now there's a lot more explicit, additional support given to students from more vulnerable backgrounds. Preschool is one major lever and one major intervention.
We have, pretty much made preschool universal for all students because those are important formative years. And we subsidise them, very generously, especially for the vulnerable Families. MOE ourselves, stepped into the market. We [started] delivering MOE kindergartens, and we set aside a third of our places for students from poorer backgrounds.
So even in schools and secondary schools, we now also ring-fence some seats and places to make sure there is better mixing of students from different backgrounds.
David Austin: There is a lot of data to support that intervening at preschool levels just has a lifelong effect. Changes that you make now, you won't be able to measure or see a result - for how many years would it take before we know that this pays off?
Ong Ye Kung: That's the nature of an education enterprise. Everything you do, make a judicious, evaluation. Decide what to do, and you hope that 10 years, 20 years from now, you see the impact. My generation, we started off emphasising on bilingualism. And so now I can see that it really has an impact. You know, we have a whole generation of bilingual, working adults that if we had not done this 20 years ago, we can't benefit from the benefits today.
David Austin: And what's another lever that you have to affect inequality outcomes?
Ong Ye Kung: The entire education system from school to higher education, it is an important platform to bring Singaporeans, all communities, all different backgrounds together, and be able to mix. So beyond the issue of churn, and sharing their social mobility, for those from poorer backgrounds, is also a platform for mixing.
Which is why I mentioned some of the places in schools now have to be ring-fenced for students from different backgrounds to come in. But, the best melting pot actually is in higher education, universities and polytechnics. Three quarters of our cohort every year now goes through tertiary education, either polytechnics or university, and 90% of them will find work within six months of graduation, those that choose to be economically active at least. So I think these are platforms not just to uplift students from all backgrounds, but they're also campuses where we put aside our backgrounds and be able to intermingle.
David Austin: I wanted to ask, you also pointed out that there's a sense that people are losing faith in the idea of meritocracy.
Ong Ye Kung: Yes. Michael Young wrote about that and predicted that after a few generations, you will self-perpetuate. The privilege will start to self-perpetuate and that's when people start losing faith in meritocracy.
David Austin: Do you think that is the same as this encrusted layer of privilege that you were talking about? Or is it something different and is there any other levers or policies that should be considered to deal with that perception that you want people to think that they have a fighting chance, you know, based on their own merits.
Ong Ye Kung: It is definitely related, because as the privileged encrust themselves, then you start to feel that there is no merit in the system.
What makes you successful is what you are born with rather than your ability and your merits. So, people start to lose faith in meritocracy. But if you think about it, is there a better system? We can't think of one. Nepotism doesn't work. Kleptocracy doesn't work. Communism doesn't work. Although it tries to equalise everything, it doesn't work, it's tried before. So meritocracy is a bit like democracy. It's full of flaws, but you can't think of something better. So I think we still need to have a shot at meritocracy. It's a very basic governance principle that we have upheld and has worked well for us for two, three generations.
But in the coming generations, what we need to do is to embrace a broader definition of meritocracy. I think that will make it work for another one, two generations, a broader meritocracy that doesn't overly focus on academic grades, which has been our obsession, I must say. Right from 12 years old, you do your exams, your exam results decide which school you go to and so on and so forth.
Employers today are still hiring, many of them still hiring on the basis of academic results, and really it's not optimal. It wasn't what meritocracy in the pure sense was meant to be. A meritocracy means you get jobs and rewards and recognition through your merit and not just through academic merit.
There has to be a broader definition of what that merit is to be. So if I'm hiring someone, I ought to recognise what skills [I am] looking for, and look for manifestations and proof of those skills, which need not necessarily be academic.
David Austin: Do you think that, people's attitudes are changing that hiring new hiring managers and company owners, you see that their expectations are broadening where they look at people's outside experience beyond that?
Ong Ye Kung: I think so. I'm seeing some changes already in the way employers hire. Especially in this age of AI and big data, they can easily select applicants based on different criteria.
If I need someone who is gung-ho, and can work in teams, I need not just look at your academic results. I can say, do you play a team sport? And does your resumes show that you have an interest in traveling and learning about other cultures? I mean like I can easily put that as a shortlist criteria.
And I'm seeing more companies prepared to do that, including civil service organisations, are starting to do that.
I can also see students and parents putting emphasis on different aspects of learning, more than just exams and grades, which is a good thing. One very encouraging thing we have been noticing is that parents are increasingly prepared to send their kids to schools near their home. So the concept of a "good school" used to be, of some brand, belong to certain brand names.
Now I think it's giving way to saying that a good school [is], maybe just a school nearby so my kid can sleep longer. Yeah. That's a good school, you know? Yeah. And amongst teachers, educators, I think that has also evolved, probably evolving the fastest within MOE and I think the concept of what is a good student is, is also evolving quite quickly.
So, in general, and I'm optimistic It may take a generation to change this mindset, but I think we are evolving.
David Austin: Before you go, I wanted to ask about climate change. Also in your speech you talked about technology and things like green finance and fiscal policy such as carbon taxes. I was wondering, are these concepts being introduced into the Singapore curriculum to educate the young?
Ong Ye Kung: Well, first, I would say for climate change, I know our students, young people especially, they are very seized by this issue and they feel that the world might come to an end one day, and this is the burden of their generation.
But I have to assure them, every generation thinks that the world is ending. [In] my generation, the Cold War was happening when I was in school and as a kid, I always thought there will be a nuclear apocalypse and I wouldn't survive beyond my middle [age], and this year I'm turning 50. And still, an earlier generation worried about World War Two and others. Yeah. So every generation we have our survival concerns. The good thing about, I think the Singapore society, is a fairly evidence-based and science-based society. We look at evidences. And in Singapore we, I don't sense there is a strong lobby denying climate change, but I have not seen it. Nobody has ever made statements and say, this is all a hoax. And most people are just looking at how are we going to mitigate and how are we going to adapt.
Yeah. So in school, I like to think that partly it's because of the way we teach in school, it if often evidence-based and fact-based, and that includes climate change. We teach global warming from lower primary school and in secondary school, we teach the carbon cycle. So many schools I've visited, they all have what we call applied learning programmes, which means they do projects as project teams.
And often, it will be climate related. I just saw the other day, a group of students did a robot. Then released it into the pond so that it can measure the pH level, and so that whether the fish will survive, simple lessons like that. I think it sharpens their sense that the environment is vulnerable and we all have to do something about it.
David Austin: And finally, I'd just like to ask you, how do you foresee the daily lives of teachers and students changing over, say, the next five years or the next 10 years?
Ong Ye Kung: I am not a fan of overhauling [the] education system to the extent that we don't need teachers, we don't need classroom, we don't need schools anymore.
I think these are still important places for different people to mix, for values to be transmitted person to person, for students to learn from teachers, and then discuss and debate amongst themselves. So that has to be basically still a human activity. And I think the role of teachers will always be here to stay.
But what I think will happen is that teaching and learning will become more effective, more customised, more fun, more applied because of technology. But I also wish to see that technology is not front and centre in everything we do in school. Instead, it should fade into the background so that the teacher is in the front, but aided by technology can conduct a much more interactive class. And I start to see that happening in some of our classrooms.
We now have a crowd-sourcing group. There are 7,000 teachers in one Facebook group, and they're constantly discussing better ways of enacting their lesson plans, better techniques to implement in class, and it's quite vibrant, quite dynamic. So I really hope that 10 years from now we see classrooms that are a lot more vibrant and use technology for more effective teaching and learning.