SINGAPORE – The arts can be used to teach core education subjects like science and geography in schools, and art in public spaces should be better labelled to help passers-by engage with the works.
Arts Nominated MP Usha Chandradas offered these suggestions in Parliament on Aug 7 to improve arts education in Singapore.
In an adjournment motion – where a Parliament member is given the floor for 20 minutes to speak on an issue before the relevant ministry replies – Ms Chandradas said there must be “more concerted and systematic” effort to ensure arts education is not segregated from other subjects.
The inclusion of the arts in other subjects is mostly ad hoc now, depending on the personal initiatives of teachers.
She pointed out that works by Singapore artists such as Robert Zhao, for instance, hold important lessons about how Singapore has evolved and the ways in which human urban design can shape the natural world.
Zhao, 41, is Singapore’s representative at the Venice Biennale 2024 and is known for his documentation of the interaction between nature and the man-made in Singapore’s secondary forests.
“Lessons such as these are universal,” Ms Chandradas said. “They have roots in science, geography and environmental issues, and when conveyed in the context of artworks, allow students to imagine and dream of possibilities beyond the confines of academic book learning.”
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The NMP also addressed recent controversies over public art, particularly over the samsui woman mural in South Bridge Road and the Sir Stamford Raffles and Dr Nathaniel Wallich statues at Fort Canning Park.
She called for better policies on the labelling of public art works, characterising the move as “low-hanging fruit” which can immediately turn these sites – frequently the first points of contact with art for members of the public – into “mini-museums”.
She suggested this can start with works in government buildings. Labels should ideally be enforced whenever works are displayed publicly.
The Raffles and Wallich statues could be better contextualised with notes on the former’s complicated legacy: “You will see that the colonial figures are blending into, and almost dissolving, into the foliage around them. This is an image that is open to multiple interpretations. But without labels to guide understanding, the audience is lost.”
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Shawn Huang, in his answer, said Singapore’s arts curriculum standards and teaching methods are on a par with those of other developed countries, and that MOE has strengthened arts education over the years with a suite of programmes that cater to students with varying levels of interest and ability.
In addition to schools like the University of the Arts and School of the Arts, as well as elective programmes and arts co-curricular activities, all students up to Secondary 2 receive arts education through the Ministry of Education’s centrally designed curriculum.
He said that arts syllabuses are updated regularly and include works by local artists and musicians: “We continue to explore how more we can enhance connections across disciplines meaningfully, while ensuring that knowledge and skills within each discipline are not diluted.”
He was short on time when replying to Ms Chandradas’ suggestion about the public labelling of works but said all works commissioned by the National Arts Council through the public art trust must be dated and attributed, without elaborating on the suggestion for more expanded texts.
Ms Chandradas also said there should be more “consistent, clear and transparent” direction about whether art and music teachers can maintain their own public-facing creative practices outside of teaching.
Mr Huang said MOE encourages arts teaches to continue being practitioners, as it helps them teach better.