Singapore - Singapore and Malaysia signed a government-to-government memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Tuesday, aimed at providing opportunities for greater sharing and learning among school principals, teachers and students from both countries.
Extending the already close ties between the education ministries in Singapore and Malaysia, the MOU was inked at the Singapore-Malaysia Business Forum.
Speaking on his relationship with his Malaysian counterpart, Education and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said: "I have known Datuk Hisham rather well for several years. Fortunately, we both happened to land in the same boat of education and I can tell you that I have no relationship with a foreign counterpart that is as close as my relationship with Datuk Hisham.
"We hit it off very quickly and from our very first meeting, we agreed on what needed to be done and agreed that we were going to do it... there is no other relationship like that."
In fact, Malaysia‘s Education Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said he is going to miss Mr Tharman when he gives up the education portfolio early next year.
He said: "In August, when the prime minister (Lee Hsien Loong) was in Malaysia for the Merdeka celebrations, I happened to be sitting behind him and I actually asked him - ‘What are you going to do with Tharman?‘. And he said, ‘It depends on where you are going and you in Malaysia are going to have elections earlier than us‘."
Schools between Malaysia and Singapore are already cooperating closely in a series of twinning projects.
The MOU will further entrench the levels of cooperation and help to build personal rapport between students, teachers and principals in both countries.
Mr Tharman said: "We will soon be starting a joint programme to train some of our school principals. The first batch of Singaporean principals will be going over to Kuala Lumpur in March next year for a combined programme and we will have this two-way flow.
"(Let‘s) see what we can share in the area of school leadership and create links between the school principals so that they will form a network of their own over time."
A joint working group will review and monitor the progress of the various collaboration projects.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com (5 Desember 2007)
