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issue 86 sep 2023
Character and Citizenship Education in Singapore
Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) has been present in Singapore’s education system since before the nation’s independence. While the curriculum has evolved and transformed over the decades, the main goals of CCE remain the same. It has been a key to the holistic development of Singaporean students’ values, character, social-emotional well-being and citizenship dispositions. Ms Loh Wee Cheng, Divisional Director of Student Development Curriculum Division 1 at the Ministry of Education, shares with us the significance and uniqueness of CCE in Singapore’s context, the key principles which form the foundation of CCE, as well as her thoughts on the newly-launched Singapore Centre for Character and Citizenship Education and its potential to bring CCE to greater heights.
What is the significance of Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) in the context of Singapore’s education system? How does it contribute to the holistic development of students?
CCE is at the heart of education in Singapore.
If you have visited the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Heritage Gallery in recent years, you may have come across some artefacts relating to the history of CCE in Singapore. In 1959, MOE published a syllabus for Ethics that aimed to inculcate ethical values and lay the foundation to nurture students into self-respecting individuals and good citizens.
After Singapore’s independence, Civics replaced Ethics in 1967 as a compulsory subject. As a young nation, it was apt for us to focus on patriotism and civic consciousness then. Over the decades, since our nation-building years, various programmes and initiatives such as Education for Living, Good Citizen, Being and Becoming, Religious Knowledge, Civics and Moral Education, Social–Emotional Learning, as well as National Education were implemented which contributed to the development of character and citizenship dispositions, and life skills in our students.
While the emphases may have shifted with every review cycle, the main goals of CCE remain unchanged. How do we equip our students with sound values, knowledge and life skills? How do we develop good character in our students and to prepare them to be citizens, rooted to Singapore and play an active role in improving the lives of others? As educators, these questions remain just as important and relevant today.
Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and many others – every Singaporean child grows up knowing the major ethnic groups here. As a multiracial, multireligious and multicultural nation, we cannot take our state of peace, stability and harmony for granted. This is why in Singapore, schools are a valued space to integrate our multicultural community with an emphasis on shared values and to nurture active and committed citizens who are rooted to our nation. This is why we hold steadfast to the idea of “schools being a common space”.
Could you highlight some key principles or values that form the foundation of CCE in Singapore? Why do we keep hearing that every lesson is a CCE lesson and every teacher is a CCE teacher?
Figure 1. CCE 2021 Curriculum Frame
An important feature of CCE2021 is its implementation as a school-wide curriculum that helps students develop a strong identity, manage their relationships effectively and make healthy and good choices. This means that CCE is enacted not only during CCE lessons, but also encompasses the culture that every school aspires to foster – a caring and enabling school environment. It is a place where teachers care for their young charges and desire to help every learner develop their potential regardless of their background and starting point.
Every educator in Singapore knows that CCE lessons provide a powerful opportunity for meaningful discussions and learning of important values and skills. This foundational know-how has to be taught and reinforced through our daily interactions with our students, their participation in school life through co-curricular activities (CCAs), community service and other student development experiences. What often helps students internalize their learning are their personal reflections, sense-making and applying what they have learnt in authentic situations.
Hence the adage: “Every teacher a CCE teacher”. As CCE teachers, each and every one of us plays a pivotal role:
- When we rally our class to show care for a classmate who was absent due to a family bereavement – this is when they learn empathy, compassion, and the importance of supporting one another through difficult times.
- When we design learning experiences to take our students out of their comfort zone – think outdoor camps where they shower words of encouragement to a teammate who is hesitant to take the first step before a looming rock-wall.
- When we deliberately inject obstacles into group tasks so that students have no choice but to “be creative and think out of the box” and consider alternatives.
- When we prepare our young charges for a visit to an unfamiliar setting such as a seniors’ activity centre – where the lesson is not just to know, recognize and practise patience, respect, and empathy, but to also make a connection to others who are different from themselves.
If I have to use language familiar to educators, I would say that our syllabus documents summarize these principles – that guide the teaching and enactment of CCE – very succinctly:
- Student-Centricity: We place students at the heart of all our efforts in CCE and seek to understand their needs and interests when designing learning experiences, focusing on student engagement and voice.
- Intentionality: We design and carry out learning experiences within and outside the classroom with intentionality, and do not leave learning of values, social-emotional (SE) competencies and citizenship dispositions to chance.
- Coherence: The educational experience that we provide in our schools for our students needs to facilitate the development of character and citizenship dispositions and SE well-being, in a coherent way across the total curriculum.
Can you share more about MOE’s CCE2021 endeavour, and what are some synergies between SCCCE’s work and CCE2021 endeavour?
There are so many questions the SCCCE can explore and facilitate conversations around:
- In today’s VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world that is threatened by geopolitics and partisan interests, what are the values that we hold dear, and which hold us together, not only as a nation, but as a member of the global community?
- In a world of woke culture and social justice where our young clamour to be heard, how do we guide them to build trust and understanding, to navigate differences and exercise their agency in a constructive way?
- Knowing that they will face the demands and stressors of modern-day life, how can our young continually build up their internal reservoir of purpose and resilience, and thrive?
SCCCE has the potential of developing CCE as a cross-disciplinary field of study. In my mind, it probably is the first in the world. The setting up of SCCCE reinforces our intentionality to strengthen character, well-being, and citizenship dispositions in our education endeavours for all our learners. Our aspiration is for the SCCCE to strengthen the nexus of research, policy and practice, where its research can inform the work of policymakers, curriculum designers, school leaders and teachers.
And of course, true to the purpose of NIE, the SCCCE will be a hub for teachers’ professional development in CCE whether you are a student-teacher just starting on your journey or a seasoned educator.
What is so unique about CCE as a field of study?
“Hence, CCE is not a single discipline in the traditional sense, but a distinct cross-disciplinary field of knowledge that focuses on synergizing key aspects of child and youth development, character development, SE well-being, and citizenship dispositions to inform how we can better facilitate the holistic development of our children.”
–Ms Loh Wee Cheng, on CCE as a cross-disciplinary field of knowledge
When the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.
When my colleagues1 were conceptualizing the set-up of the Singapore Centre for Character and Citizenship Education (SCCCE) at the National Institute of Education, we first had to unpack the concept of CCE. In essence, this is what I learned from them: CCE is not a single “discipline” in the traditional sense; CCE 2021 was a brave attempt to draw connections between the concepts of values, character, citizenship dispositions, SE competencies, well-being and resilience and future-readiness; many of which have both philosophical and psycho-social dimensions.
In a secular state like Singapore that is culturally and socially diverse and at the cross-roads of the East and the West, there is no single philosophical perspective or psychological theory that can fully address the various dimensions of child and youth development.
As such, the learning and developmental needs of the child both as an individual and as a member of society are fundamental in our design of the CCE curriculum. This involves seeing character and citizenship education as two sides of the same coin; nurturing good character to developing individuals and citizens who are willing to apply sound values, social and emotional as well as civic competencies as they strive to understand themselves, the community they live in and its needs, and what they can do to address those needs.
Hence, CCE is not a single discipline in the traditional sense, but a distinct cross-disciplinary field of knowledge that focuses on synergizing key aspects of child and youth development, character development, SE well-being, and citizenship dispositions to inform how we can better facilitate the holistic development of our children.
There are so many questions the SCCCE can explore and facilitate conversations around:
- In today’s VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world that is threatened by geopolitics and partisan interests, what are the values that we hold dear, and which hold us together, not only as a nation, but as a member of the global community?
- In a world of woke culture and social justice where our young clamour to be heard, how do we guide them to build trust and understanding, to navigate differences and exercise their agency in a constructive way?
- Knowing that they will face the demands and stressors of modern-day life, how can our young continually build up their internal reservoir of purpose and resilience, and thrive?
SCCCE has the potential of developing CCE as a cross-disciplinary field of study. In my mind, it probably is the first in the world. The setting up of SCCCE reinforces our intentionality to strengthen character, well-being, and citizenship dispositions in our education endeavours for all our learners. Our aspiration is for the SCCCE to strengthen the nexus of research, policy and practice, where its research can inform the work of policymakers, curriculum designers, school leaders and teachers.
And of course, true to the purpose of NIE, the SCCCE will be a hub for teachers’ professional development in CCE whether you are a student-teacher just starting on your journey or a seasoned educator.
What is our end-goal for CCE? How can teachers find out how students have learned and developed through CCE2021?
“Assessment in CCE” is not an easy concept. Similar to how we grow and mature over time, the development of character and citizenship dispositions of our students will also take time to reach various milestones. As our students grow, we as educators can help them in several ways:
- How are we enabling students to make sense of their learning experiences? Have we given time to dialogue with their peers? Are they ready to reflect on their own or do they need some scaffolding?
- How are we enabling students to gain a better sense of their own growth and progress? Is it through self-assessment, peer feedback or teacher advice? Probably a combination, depending on the age of your students.
- As they become better at this, how do we nudge them to stretch for a higher goal? So that beyond the schooling years, they will have the resilience and drive to keep growing and learning to become their best selves in life.
Indeed, our founding Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew said it very well back in 1979:
“The litmus test of a good education is whether it nurtures citizens who can live, work, contend and co-operate in a civilized way. Is he loyal and patriotic? Is he, when the need arises, a good soldier, ready to defend his country, and so protect his wife and children and his fellow citizens? Is he filial, respectful to his elders, law-abiding, humane and responsible? Does he take care of his wife and children, and his parents? Is he a good neighbour and a trust-worthy friend? Is he tolerant of Singaporeans of different races and religions? Is he clean, neat, punctual and well-mannered?”
The end-goal that many of us educators want for our students is for them to develop a sense of purpose in life, to discover how their strengths, talents and interests can be meaningfully applied, be it in the family, community, nation and beyond.
References
Student Development Curriculum Division. (2020). Character & Citizenship Education (CCE) Syllabus Secondary. Ministry of Education. https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/secondary/syllabuses/cce/2021-character-and-citizenship-education-syllabus-secondary.pdf
[1] I would like to acknowledge my SDCD1 colleagues, notably Master Specialists Dr Thavamalar Kanagaratnam, Dr Dennis Kom and Dr Jeffrey Chan, Lead Specialist, Ms Ng Hwee Chien, as well as Senior Specialist, Mr Sim Swee Cheong and several others who contributed to the conceptualizing of the Singapore Centre for CCE and the concepts within CCE.
