I was strolling through Holland Village one afternoon when I was accosted by one of a few groups of National Junior College students in their school T-shirts.

They were conducting a social experiment to collect signatures for a petition to raise awareness for the underprivileged by challenging passers-by with a simple but powerful question: What do you think it means to be underprivileged?

The encounter led to a brief exchange, where I was pleasantly surprised to find myself learning from these young millennials and their perspective of the world and social issues.

This is a fine example of the moves to recalibrate our education ecosystem and decouple learning from exams, announced recently by the Ministry of Education, enabling our students to exchange ideas and learn outside of their classrooms about social issues and life skills, such as empathy.

It is delightful that our junior colleges are taking steps to be creative and expand its students' learning environment to beyond the classroom.

Woon Wee Min