Education Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen revealed three major initiatives that will accelerate improvements in primary education and take education to a higher level in a speech Thursday.

One of the initiatives would be to recruit graduates as new teachers.

The following is an excerpt from his speech:

"More schools, facilities and funds are needed, but it will not be enough to attain broader educational outcomes. Another critical enabler is to strengthen the quality of our teachers and support staff.

"As the McKinsey report on top-performing education systems put it, the quality of the education system cannot exceed the quality of its teaching force.

"MOE is on track to recruiting 30,000 teachers by 2010, and will continue to recruit at current levels even beyond that.

"MOE will continue to select teachers with the aptitude for teaching and those with a heart for nurturing young people. This is a necessary pre-requisite.

"But with the enhancements we want to bring about at the primary level, we will require teachers to also have a stronger mastery of content and pedagogy.

"Currently, 69% of primary school teachers and 92% of secondary school teachers recruited have degrees. The remaining have good diploma and 'A' level qualifications.

"As more of our diploma graduates obtain degrees and with our university cohort participation rate increasing to 30% in 2015, we should be able to recruit all teachers with a degree for our primary schools.

"We have at present in our system, many excellent school teachers and even principals who are diploma holders. Let me reassure you that you will continue to be valued and that there will be no change to the schemes you are on, or your route of advancements.

"Even after the changes, there will still be room to employ diploma holders who possess specialised skills in languages, arts and music. These schemes will continue.

"We are not alone in deciding to employ all graduate teachers. Korea, New Zealand and Sweden require teachers to be degree holders. Hong Kong started moving towards an all graduate teaching force3 since 1994. In Finland, teachers are required to have Masters degrees either in education or in one or two teaching subjects.

"Teacher quality is therefore a critical enabler. We must continue to invest heavily in the professional development of our teachers.

"To facilitate this, MOE has decided to double the quantum for interest-free study loans with effect from next month, so that officers will have more money to offset their living expenses.

"This is for both full-time and part-time degree studies, whether local or overseas."