Speech By Acting Minister For Manpower and Senior Minister of State For Digital Development And Information, Ms Jasmin Lau, At The 40th ASEAN Council Of Teachers Plus Korea (ACT+1) Convention Opening Ceremony

Mr Mohamed Salleh, President of the Singapore Teachers' Union,

Leaders and teachers from across ASEAN and Korea,

Good morning.

It is a pleasure to join you at the 40th ACT+1 Convention. Four decades of teachers from ASEAN and Korea learning from one another. And it is a special year for the Singapore Teachers’ Union, which turns 80.

Today, we bring together educators from different countries and cultures, united by a shared belief that teachers play a unique role in shaping society and preparing young people for the future.

Your theme this year is beautifully chosen: "Navigating Our Future: Steered by Teachers; Anchored in Relationships; Propelled by AI."

The order of those words matters.

Many conversations about the future begin with AI and technology, and then ask where people fit into the picture.

Your theme turns that around.

The teacher is at the helm.

Relationships form the anchor.

AI provides the propulsion.

In other words, technology matters, but it does not determine the destination. People do.

In my work in digital Government, and now at the Ministry of Manpower, not a day goes by when I don’t hear from workers everywhere asking what AI means for their jobs.

The answer depends less on the technology than on how we choose to use it. When workers help shape it, AI takes away the repetitive tasks and leaves more room for the human ones.

Teaching is one of the clearest examples.

AI can help teachers prepare materials quickly, handle administrative tasks, and give students faster feedback.

But teaching has never been simply about producing worksheets, or marking assignments.

The core of teaching has always been about the relationship between a teacher and a student, and knowing what that child needs next.    

When I was 23, I studied for a little over a year under a professor at MIT called Joe Coughlin.

That was twenty years ago. Since then I have changed roles countless times. And every time, an email arrives from Joe. A few lines of congratulations, a bit of advice, a word of encouragement, and a question or two about my family and my children.

When I went into politics, he wrote to say he was surprised. So, frankly, was I.  We talked through my worries. Mostly, he listened.

Professor Joe taught me for one year. But he has been teaching me for twenty.

I could not tell you what technology we used in his classroom 20 years ago. But I can tell you exactly what he did, and continues to do, for me.

That is because learning is fundamentally relational.

Students learn best when they feel seen, supported and understood.

Technology can support that kind of relationship. It cannot replace it.

The best thing AI can do for teachers is give them back time for what only they can do. But that only happens if teachers decide where AI helps, and where it does not.

The future of education should not be something that simply happens to teachers and students. Teachers and students must have agency in shaping it. Teachers should help shape how AI is used, while students learn to use it thoughtfully and responsibly. When teachers steer the use of AI and relationships remain at the heart of learning, technology can be a powerful force for good.

This is not only true in schools.

For 80 years, STU has made sure teachers have a say in decisions about their work. With AI, that matters more, not less. In Singapore, we try to bring in new technology with workers, not do it to them. 

Our unions, employers and Government sit at the same table. We understand that the people closest to the work usually know best where technology helps.

The same should be true in your schools. AI should be done with teachers, not to teachers.

Singapore does not have all the answers. None of us does. Your four Convention tracks, from the Helm to the Compass, are a good place to start looking.

Let me come back to Professor Joe.

I suspect many of you have had a Professor Joe. A teacher whose encouraging words you still hear in your heads today.

And some of you have also been someone else’s Joe. You have had the wedding invitation from a student you taught years ago. Or the message that begins, “Teacher, you probably don’t remember me, but…”

You do remember. That is the point.

My two sons will grow up in classrooms where AI is as ordinary as the blackboard or the OHP was for us. That does not worry me. What I hope for them is simpler, that each of them is blessed with a teacher who sees them, and keeps seeing them long after the school year ends.

No technology can promise them that. Only teachers can.

For forty years, this Convention has helped teachers across our region do that a little better. I hope these few days do the same for you.

Thank you, and I wish all of you a meaningful and rewarding Convention.