Learning Beyond English, Mathematics, Science and Mother Tongue

Most primary school students go through the daily grind of these four subjects: English, Mathematics, Science and Mother Tongue. These subjects provide them with knowledge about the world and sharpen their analytical and creative thinking skills. However, is what children learn in schools today enough to help them navigate their lives as young adults?

Most pri­ma­ry school stu­dents go through the dai­ly grind of these four sub­jects: Eng­lish, Math­e­mat­ics, Sci­ence and Moth­er Tongue. These sub­jects pro­vide them with knowl­edge about the world and sharp­en their ana­lyt­i­cal and cre­ative think­ing skills. How­ev­er, is what chil­dren learn in schools today enough to help them nav­i­gate their lives as young adults? What if we, as adults now, had learnt oth­er skills that would have bet­ter equipped us for the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges of our age?

The world of the next gen­er­a­tion is ever evolv­ing, fuelled by fast-paced tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments and a volatile cul­ture both online and offline. Hence, it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear that these four sub­jects are not suf­fi­cient to pre­pare stu­dents for the mod­ern and glob­alised world of today. In recent years, the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion has empha­sised the need for stu­dents to devel­op a suite of 21st cen­tu­ry com­pe­ten­cies, like civic lit­er­a­cy, col­lab­o­ra­tion and infor­ma­tion skills, high­light­ing that these must under­pin the edu­ca­tion they receive in schools.

Here are four impor­tant skills we think stu­dents must learn, whether inside or out­side the class­room, to help them thrive in this com­plex world:

1.   Financial Literacy

Finan­cial choic­es faced by young peo­ple are like­ly to be more chal­leng­ing than before. The finan­cial land­scape of today is ever-chang­ing, with cryp­to-cur­ren­cy and non-fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs) being the lat­est to rock the finan­cial boat. Hav­ing said that, before one can begin to take advan­tage of these finan­cial options, it is nec­es­sary to learn how to man­age your per­son­al finances. How many of us have strug­gled with under­stand­ing con­cepts like loans, cred­it and invest­ments as a young adult? To bet­ter posi­tion our chil­dren for the future, teach­ing them finan­cial lit­er­a­cy must begin at a young age.

Accord­ing to the Rowe Price’s 11th Annu­al Par­ents, Kids and Mon­ey Sur­vey, near­ly half of the par­ents who par­tic­i­pat­ed said that they miss oppor­tu­ni­ties to talk to their chil­dren about finances. On the oth­er hand, the Chil­dren and Young People’s Finan­cial Capa­bil­i­ty 2019 sur­vey found that 90% of chil­dren and young peo­ple who had learnt about man­ag­ing mon­ey in school found it was use­ful. Teach­ing finan­cial lit­er­a­cy to chil­dren in pri­ma­ry school can feel daunt­ing, but schools and par­ents can start from some­thing as sim­ple as sav­ing. Give them a pig­gy bank and encour­age them to save a por­tion of their allowance towards a short-term goal like their favourite toy or can­dy. Then, set up var­i­ous goals with them and teach them to bud­get wise­ly for each. Demon­strate how to dif­fer­en­ti­ate needs from wants and spend with­in one’s own means. After strength­en­ing their under­stand­ing of these basic con­cepts, they can move on to inter­me­di­ate con­cepts like the Cen­tral Prov­i­dent Fund, invest­ments and more as they mature.

Build­ing a healthy rela­tion­ship with mon­ey from a young age will have pos­i­tive effects on all areas of life. It teach­es goal-set­ting, dis­ci­pline, self-con­trol and inde­pen­dence. Our chil­dren will then grow into adults who are able to deal wise­ly with risk, work well with their future part­ners to man­age their joint finances, and make savvy finan­cial choic­es.

Schools must play their part as well. Finan­cial edu­ca­tion with­in the school cur­ricu­lum is recog­nised as an effi­cient way to reach young peo­ple on a large scale. MOE cur­rent­ly works with Mon­ey­Sense to deliv­er finan­cial lit­er­a­cy edu­ca­tion dur­ing Char­ac­ter and Cit­i­zen­ship Edu­ca­tion lessons in pri­ma­ry schools. How­ev­er, more can be done to devel­op a struc­tured cur­ricu­lum that will effec­tive­ly instill healthy mon­ey habits in stu­dents. Impor­tant finan­cial val­ues should be incul­cat­ed at home as well. In this way, our chil­dren will be poised not only to sur­vive, but to thrive.

2. Thinking about media critically

We live in an era where media, espe­cial­ly social media, plays the role of par­ent, teacher and friend to our chil­dren. Chil­dren grow up exposed to ideas, news, and cul­ture from the dig­i­tal space. A 2017 report by Com­mon Sense Media dis­cov­ered that 39% of chil­dren sur­veyed, who were aged between 10 and 18, obtain news from online sources like YouTube. Anoth­er sur­vey con­duct­ed by UNICEF found that 57% of chil­dren sur­veyed said they imi­tate their media heroes. It is clear that what chil­dren see and hear through the media shapes their thoughts, atti­tudes, and world views and ulti­mate­ly, their per­son­al val­ues. There­fore, in a world rid­dled with mis­in­for­ma­tion and over­stim­u­la­tion, schools and par­ents must guide chil­dren to think crit­i­cal­ly about what they absorb through social media.

The key lies in teach­ing them to be an active par­tic­i­pant in their media con­sump­tion. First, start a dia­logue about what they have been con­sum­ing from the media late­ly. Ques­tion if they can dif­fer­en­ti­ate reli­able news sources from the unre­li­able, teach­ing them to look for trust­ed news out­lets that can cor­rob­o­rate the infor­ma­tion. Help them under­stand that the media often exploits emo­tions with sen­sa­tion­al­ist head­lines and click­bait, and that it is best not to take every­thing at face-val­ue. Schools and par­ents must also encour­age chil­dren to take a crit­i­cal look at their favourite shows and celebri­ties. What kind of mes­sages are they putting out? Are what they are idol­is­ing healthy for them to emu­late? What lies beyond the shiny veneer of social media feeds?

Teach­ing chil­dren how to think about media crit­i­cal­ly must start at a young age, so that they may grow into adults who are wise enough to use the media for what it actu­al­ly is – not to imi­tate idols butas a prac­ti­cal tool.

3. Emotional Intelligence: Self-Regulation

A key part in prepar­ing our chil­dren for the future is to devel­op their under­stand­ing of them­selves and their emo­tions. Many adults find them­selves unable to emo­tion­al­ly self-reg­u­late or respond to hard­ships and trig­gers in a healthy man­ner. Chil­dren there­fore need to be armed with the emo­tion­al intel­li­gence to mon­i­tor, under­stand, and man­age their emo­tions effec­tive­ly at a young age. Stud­ies show that chil­dren with high­er emo­tion­al intel­li­gence pay bet­ter atten­tion, are more engaged in school, and have more pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships. As adults, emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion helps them to cope with stress and burnout.

So, what is self-reg­u­la­tion and how does one teach it to a child? Self-reg­u­la­tion is the abil­i­ty to man­age your emo­tions in accor­dance to the demands of a sit­u­a­tion. It includes being able to resist high­ly emo­tion­al reac­tions to upset­ting stim­uli, adjust to changes in expec­ta­tions and to han­dle frus­tra­tion. Par­ents and teach­ers need to pro­vide a sup­port­ive frame­work for chil­dren to work through their emo­tions and han­dle these chal­lenges on their own.

For exam­ple, when a child is frus­trat­ed with a math­e­mat­ics prob­lem and starts to throw a tantrum, instead of hov­er­ing over him and nag­ging at him to keep try­ing, teach­ers and par­ents should encour­age the child to take a minute to acknowl­edge his emo­tions and the rea­sons for them, then self-reflect and think of bet­ter ways to respond to the sit­u­a­tion. For instance, you can sug­gest that the child take a short break, stretch and get a snack before try­ing again, or attempt anoth­er piece of work before going back to the prob­lem­at­ic ques­tion. This allows the child to slow down, process their emo­tions objec­tive­ly and find health­i­er ways to deal with the sit­u­a­tion.

Par­ents can mod­el emo­tion­al self-aware­ness and self-reg­u­la­tion for their chil­dren at home, while teach­ers can teach stu­dents how to apply these skills to their stud­ies. Lessons on emo­tion­al skills and atti­tudes can also be inte­grat­ed into the cur­ricu­lum for Eng­lish, Math­e­mat­ics, Sci­ence and Moth­er Tongue. If devel­op­ing emo­tion­al intel­li­gence becomes a pri­or­i­ty in the way we nur­ture the next gen­er­a­tion, our chil­dren will mature into cool-head­ed adults who are able to direct their behav­iour towards a goal even in unpre­dictable sit­u­a­tions and build a life that is sta­ble and free.

4. Building healthy relationships

Rela­tion­ships with oth­er indi­vid­u­als are formed wher­ev­er we go, be it in one’s fam­i­ly, school or work­place. As one matures from a child to a teen then to an adult, rela­tion­ships can become more com­plex and more dif­fi­cult to han­dle. There­fore, it is cru­cial that our chil­dren under­stand how to build healthy rela­tion­ships as this will impact the qual­i­ty of the rela­tion­ships they build in the rest of their lives. Chil­dren must learn to iden­ti­fy unhealthy rela­tion­ships, define and imple­ment bound­aries, and com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly with oth­ers.

Many chil­dren have already expe­ri­enced abu­sive rela­tion­ships but are unable to recog­nise that they were unhealthy. A study showed that 75% of girls and 50% of boys aged between 13 and 17 had expe­ri­enced some sort of emo­tion­al abuse, and 25% of girls and 18% of boys had suf­fered phys­i­cal abuse. A research project ‘Boys to Men’ found that 49% of boys and 33% of girls aged between 13 and 14 thought that hit­ting a part­ner would be ‘okay’ in cer­tain sce­nar­ios. Chil­dren and teenagers find it dif­fi­cult to judge if behav­iours are con­sid­ered abu­sive, and this will inevitably be car­ried over to their rela­tion­ships as adults. There­fore, teach­ing chil­dren about healthy rela­tion­ships ear­ly on can ensure they avoid unhealthy rela­tion­ships in the future. Incor­po­rat­ing healthy rela­tion­ships into the school cur­ricu­lum has also been shown to be an effec­tive pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure against future rela­tion­ship abuse.

The next step is to coach them to define and assert their bound­aries. Have a con­ver­sa­tion with your chil­dren about what kind of rela­tion­ships they wish to have and dis­cuss what bound­aries to imple­ment to achieve that. For exam­ple, teach them that it is okay to say ‘no’ to hugs, even if they come from a fam­i­ly mem­ber, or to speak up when a friend or an adult has dis­re­gard­ed their feel­ings. This will help them bet­ter com­mu­ni­cate and assert their bound­aries in order to pro­tect them­selves in future rela­tion­ships.

Last­ly, learn­ing to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly is essen­tial to build­ing a healthy rela­tion­ship. The key is to resolve con­flict by putting them­selves in the shoes of oth­ers. Chil­dren must learn to express their thoughts and feel­ings in a respect­ful man­ner, lis­ten to other’s points of view, and com­pro­mise. Par­ents and teach­ers should mod­el com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills like mak­ing word choic­es that val­i­date the emo­tions of oth­ers and make them less defen­sive, instead of adding fuel to the fire. Skills such as this will form the bedrock upon which their rela­tion­ships will stand and pre­pare them to han­dle rela­tion­ships in all facets of life wise­ly. Incor­po­rat­ing these lessons inside and out­side of the class­room will ensure that our chil­dren can enjoy their rela­tion­ships to the fullest.


The lessons chil­dren learn now will stay with them for life. So, what kind of adults do we want them to become? On top of mas­ter­ing their aca­d­e­m­ic sub­jects, chil­dren require a holis­tic edu­ca­tion that can pre­pare them for the chal­lenges ahead. Skills like finan­cial lit­er­a­cy, think­ing about media crit­i­cal­ly, emo­tion­al intel­li­gence and build­ing healthy rela­tion­ships are crit­i­cal in mould­ing them into well-round­ed and healthy adults. As par­ents and teach­ers, let’s do our part to shape the next gen­er­a­tion for good!

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