TTA’s feature in a South Korean Documentary

Recent­ly, we received the most unex­pect­ed email. It was from the Korea Edu­ca­tion­al Broad­cast­ing Sys­tem or bet­ter known in short as EBS. Before we received this email, we did not know much about the EBS. But they seemed to know a lot about us. Our curios­i­ty was no doubt piqued — why would a news out­let from South Korea con­tact us so sud­den­ly and unex­pect­ed­ly?

The answer hum­bled and excit­ed us. Out of a num­ber of Sin­ga­pore edu­ca­tion cen­tres the EBS had con­sid­ered, we, as well as our stu­dents and par­ents, were cho­sen to fea­ture in their upcom­ing doc­u­men­tary. In choos­ing the right cen­tre, sev­er­al fac­tors were tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion. Chief among them were the track record of the cen­tre, as well as on-the-ground reviews and impres­sions. We swelled up with pride know­ing that we were adjudged to have passed both cri­te­ria with fly­ing colours!

As part of the doc­u­men­tary, we were to share our thoughts on pri­ma­ry school edu­ca­tion in Sin­ga­pore, and show­case how we guide stu­dents to achieve suc­cess in the PSLE. What the EBS want­ed to find out and share with their view­ers in South Korea was why and how Sin­ga­pore stu­dents can grow to be what many regard as the most capa­ble and com­pe­tent learn­ers in the world.

For those of you who, like us, may not be aware of the EBS, EBS is a major tele­vi­sion and radio net­work owned by the gov­ern­ment of South Korea. As its name sug­gests, the EBS focus­es main­ly on pro­duc­ing edu­ca­tion­al relat­ed con­tent, with its most recent project being a 10-episode doc­u­men­tary on edu­ca­tion around the world — fea­tur­ing coun­tries such as South Korea, the Unit­ed States, Ger­many, Fin­land, France, Aus­tralia, Israel, Esto­nia, and of course, Sin­ga­pore.

The 10-episode docu-series on edu­ca­tion around the world is envi­sioned to be one of their biggest and most ambi­tious projects. For the Sin­ga­pore seg­ment, the EBS decid­ed to shine the spot­light on Think Teach. The EBS team flew down to Sin­ga­pore to meet with our team, scru­ti­nise our teach­ing mate­ri­als, film our lessons, inter­view our stu­dents, par­ents and teach­ers, and even fol­lowed one of our stu­dents to col­lect his PSLE results in school.

The film­ing process was very inten­sive and gru­elling and took place over 3 short days in Novem­ber. Despite the hec­tic sched­ule, it was a won­der­ful and heart­en­ing expe­ri­ence. While we have worked with our local news media in Sin­ga­pore before, we had not yet got­ten the chance to work with a for­eign news out­let. It was inter­est­ing to speak with them and dis­cov­er how high­ly regard­ed our edu­ca­tion sys­tem in Sin­ga­pore is out­side of our tiny red dot.

This episode (no pun intend­ed) with the EBS made us proud to be prod­ucts of the Sin­ga­pore edu­ca­tion sys­tem. It made us even more proud that we, as edu­ca­tors, are still part of the sys­tem that is fly­ing our nation­al flag on a glob­al scale. Need­less to say, we will con­tin­ue to hone our craft and main­tain our stan­dards so as to sup­port the qual­i­ty of edu­ca­tion in Sin­ga­pore. We will also do our utmost to help per­pet­u­ate the suc­cess of Singapore’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem and its revered rep­u­ta­tion around the world. We can­not wait for this doc­u­men­tary to air on the ten­ta­tive date of August 2023.

Rest assured that once we get our hands on the episode, we will share it loud­ly and proud­ly with you. Watch out for it!