Singapore must be prepared for a race that is always changing

IMAGINE training for years, only to discover that the rules have evolved.

Those who keep running yesterday’s race eventually fall behind. Those who recognise that the race itself has changed move ahead.

That has been Singapore’s story for the past 61 years.

We have never been the biggest economy, the cheapest producer or the most richly endowed nation. We succeeded because we realised, before many others did, that every era rewards different capabilities.

When labour-intensive manufacturing reached its limits, we moved up the value chain. We invested in advanced manufacturing, biomedical sciences and, more recently, digital capabilities before they became strategic imperatives.

Singapore’s strength has been recognising that the race had changed before change was forced upon us.

Bracing for a different future

As we celebrate National Day, the question is no longer whether the world is changing. It is whether we are preparing our children for the race they will actually run.

Every generation inherits a different future. Ours is arriving faster than ever. Knowledge is becoming increasingly abundant. Information is available almost instantly. New technologies are reshaping industries, careers and even the skills that define success.

Whenever one resource becomes abundant, another becomes scarce.

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As information becomes easier to access, the premium changes: from possessing knowledge to interpreting it wisely, from finding answers to asking better questions, from intelligence alone to sound judgment.

That changes what education should cultivate.

For more than six decades, Singapore’s greatest natural resource has been neither land nor minerals, but people. Education became our economic engine because every generation invested in the next.

That philosophy should not change. What must change is what we value.

In a world of instant answers, curiosity matters more than certainty. Discernment matters more than memorisation. Judgment matters more than simply being right.

While those qualities can be nurtured in schools, they are first learnt at home.

Children rarely become what we tell them to be. More often, they become what they repeatedly see. Adults who read, ask thoughtful questions, admit when they are wrong and remain curious long after school has ended – these experiences teach lessons no examination can measure.

These children discover that learning is not something we complete. It is a state we embody.

No parent can predict the careers today’s children will pursue. Many have yet to be invented. Our responsibility is not to prepare them for one profession, but for many reinventions – with the confidence to adapt, the judgment to choose wisely and the character to earn trust.

From vulnerability to opportunity

Our pioneers transformed vulnerability into opportunity 61 years ago because they recognised that yesterday’s assumptions no longer applied.

Our generation faces the same calling.

The greatest legacy we can leave our children is not simply a wealthier Singapore. It is a Singapore whose people remain curious enough to keep learning, wise enough to exercise sound judgment and confident enough to identify when the race has changed.

Every generation inherits a different course. Singapore has always prospered because we learnt to see it first.

May we never lose this precious gift.