MEMBERS of a committee to study ways to enhance primary education in Singapore will be fanning out to schools over the next few months to gather feedback from teachers, pupils and parents.

It's a concerted push to get ideas on how to boost primary education so children are ready for a fiercely competitive world.

Primary Education Review and Implementation Committee CHAIRMAN Ms Grace Fu Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Education(MOE) MEMBERS Dr Lily Neo MP(Jalan Besar); chairman, Government Parliamentary Committee(GPC) on Education ... more

Headed by Senior Minister of State for Education Ms Grace Fu, the 11-member committee made up of educators, parents and industry leaders, will solicit views and inputs through focus group discussions and various online platforms.

Its job is to recommend strategies in three main areas:

- Including more skills and values in the curriculum to prepare the young for the future,

- Moving all primary schools to a single session to give them more space and time for holistic learning,

- Hiring all graduate teachers for primary schools by 2015.

The committee said on Wednesday they believed these areas were ripe for change.

One of its members, Mr Piyush Gupta, chief executive of Citi in the Southeast Asia Pacific region, argued for the importance of self-motivation and relational skills in the real world.

'Confidence and collaboration are skillsets which are extremely important,' said Mr Gupta, 48, who is married with two children, 16 and 19.

'For instance, they need to collaborate with different nationalities, actively do self research to take learning forward. These are important skillsets which you can learn very early in life.'

Read the full story in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.