Making sure education remains a social leveller is new Education Minister’s priority

Prominent ruling party politician Lawrence Wong revealed that one of his priorities as Education Minister is ensuring that education remains an effective social leveller, in a recent social media post.

Mr Wong is not new to the Ministry of Education (MOE). The former civil servant was made MOE’s Minister of State right after he was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2011.

He was briefly promoted to Senior Minister of State for Education, the next year, before leaving the ministry a few months later when he became acting Minister in the Ministry for Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY).

Mr Wong was subsequently promoted to full Minister for MCCY in 2014. After the general election that took place in the following year, Mr Wong became Minister of National Development.

The ruling party member relinquished the National Development portfolio and returned to MOE when he was made Education Minister after the most recent election, last month.

In a Facebook post published this weekend, Mr Wong set out his priorities as Education Minister. Revealing that he has been receiving questions about his focus since the new Cabinet line-up was announced, Mr Wong said that his priority is to make sure education continues to give pupils social mobility.

He wrote: “Have been asked by many about my priorities as Education Minister. It goes back to ensuring that education remains an effective social leveller, and enabling schools to continue to be an uplifting force for our students.

“We want to bring out the best in every student, while recognising that all children are different, with individual interests and aptitudes. Schools play an important role in nurturing this, by offering varied programmes and opportunities for growth.”

In the same post, Mr Wong spoke about how Marsiling Secondary School offers pupils a variety of applied learning and leadership opportunities like in its student-led environment council. Asserting that such facets of school life help students to “achieve both academic and non-academic successes,” Mr Wong promised:

“My team in MOE and I will continue to partner schools and educators to help students maximise their fullest potential.”