As the Covid-19 outbreak intensifies and accelerates large-scale socio-economic and technology trends, there will be lasting effects on how people live, work and interact with one another. This applies to education too. Across the world, students have been shut out of classrooms. Where schools have stayed open, tests have been interrupted and lessons moved online. Rapid shifts in the employment landscape, made starker by the pandemic, have also called into question what sort of future schools are preparing students for. This has made more urgent the need to ensure that the education system here equips Singaporeans with the ability to learn, work and thrive in a disrupted and significantly changed world.

The most pressing task is to ensure that education continues to enable children from disadvantaged homes to level up to their peers. For instance, schools with a higher proportion of such students could receive more state support to organise after-school programmes - a needs-based resourcing approach which the Education Minister alluded to in his speech last week. Students must also be allowed to excel across multiple pathways, with each child - and school - thriving in his - and its - area of interest or specialisation. A careful balance will have to be struck between generalist courses, deep skills, and vocational training, so that students meet the needs of industry and are prepared for the working world.