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Minister Chan detailed how humans can flourish in the age of AI for work and harness it for learning through four aspects - individuals, industries, institutions, and the government.
"Many people are rightfully concerned about the disruption that AI will bring to our lives, our jobs, our education system, and perhaps every aspect of our lives, but at the same time, I think it's always important for us to remember that there are always opportunities for us to create new value propositions in this fast, changing world.”
This was what Chan Chun Sing, Singapore's Minister for Education, shared at the second edition of the Global Lifelong Learning Summit, which was jointly organised by the Institute for Adult Learning (IAL) and SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) on 1 and 2 October 2024, and attended by HRO
During his opening address, Minister Chan discussed how AI has significantly transformed work and learning, emphasising the importance of harnessing its potential to enhance these areas rather than allowing it to disrupt them.
He set the tone of his sharing by sharing how the summit was set against the backdrop of two key transformations:
AI is transforming jobs in profound ways
According to Minister Chan, the International Monetary Foundation (IMF) estimates that nearly 40% of global employment is exposed to AI, with the figure climbing to 60% in advanced economies due to the higher proportion of skilled jobs. Jobs involving repetitive tasks, such as data crunching, were already vulnerable to automation. With the advent of AI, these roles face an even greater risk of displacement.
Even creative industries, including writing and media production — long seen as relying on originality, imagination, and artistic expression — are now being impacted by generative AI. While these jobs were once considered difficult for AI to replicate, they are increasingly influenced by advancements in technology. However, sectors where AI is less likely to replace humans are those in what we refer to as the "high-touch" and "high-trust" industries, such as healthcare.
At the same time, new jobs are emerging, particularly in areas requiring human skills to manage AI infrastructure and data management. AI tools also promise significant productivity gains, enabling workers to focus more on core functions, like exercising human judgment.
"In fact, the more we use technology, the greater the human judgment needed on what to use, how to use, how much to use, how to use it responsibly, ethically and so forth," Minister Chan noted.
Education technology is rapidly transforming the way we deliver education and skills training
The traditional classroom has long faced a trilemma: it couldn’t achieve quality at scale, speed, and affordability simultaneously. “If you have quality and scale, it may be expensive. If you have quality and affordability, you can't scale. If you have scale and affordability, quality may suffer.”
However, this is changing with asynchronous and blended learning, combining physical and digital environments. "Ad tech and data science can allow us to move towards mass customisation in teaching and learning, putting high-quality, customised, affordable training in the hands of every learner." Platforms like TikTok can now deliver bite-sized, accessible content, allowing learners to engage with material anytime, anywhere.
"The real challenge comes in mass customising to our adult learners," Minister Chan addressed, whose backgrounds, experiences, and requirements vary widely.
How can humans flourish in the age of AI for work and harness it for learning?
"To harness AI as a multiplier of human capabilities, we need to organise ourselves better to adopt a whole society approach," he noted.
Minister Chan broke down the organisation into four aspects: Individuals, Industries, Institutions, and the Government.
Individuals
He shared that individuals must be smart users, in addition to being proficient ones. "To stay relevant, we must learn how to use AI responsibly and ethically. We need to have a basic understanding of how different AI models work, their biases, and their limitations."
For instance, while AI can dispute and discover information, it cannot discern, as that requires human judgment and values. "To gain confidence in all this, we'll need to play around with the different AI tools and understand their potentials and pitfalls."
Minister Chan emphasised the importance of this, especially as concerns about the safety and security of AI continue to grow. He reassured that certain values and interpersonal relationships will remain unchanged, continuing to define how we work and learn. However, he cautioned against overemphasising digital and AI upskilling at the expense of other critical core skills, such as critical and creative thinking, as well as collaboration.
Our lifelong learning must continue to be fuelled by a spirit of inquiry, which must be nurtured from a young age.
It was noted that mastering generative AI, like learning other subjects, involves asking the right questions, which is crucial for prompt engineering. This approach enables the design of inputs for AI tools to achieve optimal outputs for specific purposes.
Minister Chan highlighted that some individuals may require additional support to become effective users and builders of AI, particularly mature workers who may need a skills boost after being away from school for an extended period.
The process of upskilling and reskilling demands significant resources and time commitment, making it challenging to adapt to redesigned jobs or transition to new sectors.
“What we have introduced in Singapore this year is the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, which provides those aged 40 and above with a S$4,000 top-up in SkillsFuture credit to invest in their own upskilling, with over 7,000 courses, including many for digital upskilling.”
The s$4,000 credit serves as a demand-side subsidy, while the supply-side subsidies, which cover 80% to 90% of all courses, remain invisible to subscribers. Furthermore, next year, a training allowance will be launched to support mature workers in full-time, long-form upskilling.
Industries
It was asserted that there is a need to leverage AI to develop respective sectors and human capital. It was also highlighted that individuals and industries share a symbiotic relationship in the innovation and adoption of AI.
"When enterprises adapt to new technology and rework their business models, they set the tone in encouraging their workers to acquire the correct skills and stay relevant to the business.
"In turn, these workers will not only be able to implement the new approaches effectively, but also now (become) agents of change to develop new ideas for the company."
Additionally, businesses that prioritise human capital and invest in their employees, as well as effectively utilise AI, are experiencing gains in productivity and manpower savings.
Minister Chan emphasised that the real breakthrough in the industry should focus on doing better things. In fact, it was suggested that improving existing processes with AI is fundamental, as it allows for utilising current data and processes to achieve cost-effectiveness and efficiency. However, the true breakthrough for the industry should stem from creating better things that generate new value propositions.
For instance, in the healthcare sector, tapping on data analytics will help improve the healthcare system. "But if one day, we can combine the science of genomics with the individual needs of the public healthcare system and create new models of preventive healthcare, then we would have achieved doing better things, and not just doing things better, but doing better things," he shared.
Institutions:
"Our education institutions are key enablers to support this scaling of our digital upskilling needed at the national level," Minister Chan stated. He explained that classrooms have traditionally catered to the average learner and a largely homogeneous student profile, leading to the issue of teaching to the average.
In large classes, instruction tends to be tailored to the average, which poses a problem: 50% of students find the material too difficult, while the other 50% find it too easy, resulting in a significant mismatch. Furthermore, adult learners have a wider range of needs and come from diverse backgrounds. Continuing to teach to the average does a disservice to adult learners, given the time and resources invested in their education. Educational institutions, such as institutes of higher learning, are already employing AI to develop adaptive materials for adult learners. These learning analytics systems can create lesson plans, provide feedback, and guide learners to the next level.
For instance, Singapore Polytechnic and the Institute of Technical Education utilise learning analytics systems to monitor and support students in grasping math and science concepts, identifying gaps for both students and teachers to adjust lesson plans accordingly.
"Every class will be different, and every class can be different because we customise the learning needs; we customise the teaching material according to the respective learning needs of our students," he added.
Minister Chan stressed that schools and institutions in Singapore must continue to establish and strengthen the social and emotional foundations before integrating technology into the lives of students, particularly for those with higher needs. He underscored the need for high-touch support before introducing high-tech solutions, stating,
We need high trust before we need the high touch, and before that, we need high tech.
He also highlighted that research institutions and collaborations are vital for advancing AI, particularly in hardware, and that continued investment in core research is necessary for innovation. With a strong foundation in AI capabilities, there is a need for more experimentation and applied research to address industry challenges while ensuring effective educational outcomes.
A key question was raised about how to harness technology if its evolution outpaces human development. While concerns about screen time for young learners exist, more research is needed to determine the appropriate types and amounts of screen time for diverse learning needs. Institutions must view AI as a multiplier of human potential. Despite Singapore's workforce of around 4mn, it was suggested that this could be significantly enhanced through technology.
Minister Chan shared that a combined research approach that integrates learning science with AI interventions is essential for improving learning across all ages. Researchers from the National Institute of Education are collaborating with A*STAR to develop AI-enabled learning tailored to individual student needs. Additionally, the Institute of Adult Learning launched the Adult Learning Collaboratory to explore best practices in education and enable individuals to thrive in a digital and AI-driven environment.
Government
"First, we must ask ourselves, what is the role of the government in this new environment?" Minister Chan reflected.
It was noted that providing thoughtful leadership on the ethical use of AI, along with establishing guardrails and responsible practices, is essential; while the minister also highlighted the importance of uniting society to ensure that technological advancements benefit everyone. While setting these goals is straightforward, the government also needs to establish regulations that encourage innovation and allow positive developments to flourish.
Regulations should not only prevent negative outcomes but also enable beneficial ones. The government is committed to creating the necessary rules, sandboxes, and frameworks for industries and institutions to experiment with new approaches to achieve better results.
Many significant global challenges remain, such as climate change and rising healthcare costs. To address these issues, it is crucial to learn how to effectively use new tools and apply innovative frameworks. This will help enhance governance and legal structures to promote innovation. Singapore aims to contribute to these important global discussions.
One example cited was the launch of a model governance framework for generative AI earlier this year to set up a balanced approach that addresses generative AI concerns more on facilitating innovation.
Concluding his session, Minister Chan said: "While we focus our energies to overcome many of the challenges, like upgrading the skill sets of our people, upgrading the capabilities and capacities of our industries and research institutions, we must also apply our minds to see how we can seize those opportunities that come to technology and AI that enable our people to do better, that we can complement the right technology to be a multiplier of the human potential.
"And ultimately, our goal is not just to solve problems. It's not just even to pre-empt problems.
"Our ultimate goal as a society is to unleash the human potential."
READ MORE: Top 3 areas where next-generation leaders see AI becoming important
Photo / Provided by GLLS
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