President's Award for Teachers 2020
21 September 2020
Congratulations to Mdm Ira Wati Sukaimi, recipient of the 2020 President's Award for Teachers. Read about her inspiring approach to art education.
Congratulations to our President's Award for Teachers Recipient, Mdm Ira Wati!
We are proud to inform that Madam Ira Wati Sukaimi, our Art Lead Teacher, was one of the seven teachers who received the prestigious President’s Award from President Halimah Yacob this year. This award for teachers (PAT) recognizes the critical role teachers play in moulding the future of our nation. It was presented at a virtual ceremony, also attended by Education Minister Lawrence Wong.
Mdm Ira believes that educating the mind starts with educating the heart. Through Art, she seeks to equip her students with values, dispositions, knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in a global community.
Tapping on the affordances of Art as a discipline, Mdm Ira strives to break negative misconceptions pertaining to the issues of identity and sense of self-worth for her low progress learners. By bringing these students to the art museums to see for themselves the stories of how professional artists have reconciled their own identities with perceived social norms, she hopes to inspire them to find themselves through art.
She said: "Education to me now has been about touching hearts and building students’ self-efficacy to move forward in life."