SINGAPORE – Excursions abroad may spell an escape from repetitive classroom routines, but such opportunities, which have evolved with time, hold more educational significance, especiallyin the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As an educator himself, Mr Thomas Lazzerine of Republic Polytechnic (RP) has seen how such trips have evolved in his 11 years of teaching.
“In the past, overseas school trips were largely planned around what would benefit students’ learning while appealing to their interests. Now, we want to make it even more meaningful for them,” the programme chair of the hospitality and tourism management diploma says.
PHOTO: REPUBLIC POLYTECHNIC
Beyond cultural and educational exchanges, today’s educators are infusing topics such as climate change, innovation and technology into the trip’s curriculum.
Mr Lazzerine believes this generation of students understands concepts better with the experiential activities that come with travel.
For instance, on a school trip to Medan in Indonesia in March, students tried their hand at making fabric from natural materials with locals, which allowed them to appreciate how environmental sustainability is woven into local tourism.
He says: “It’s easy to provide the theoretical aspect in a classroom, but nothing beats learning from first-hand experiences.”
Educational institutions often work with travel agencies approved by the Ministry of Education(MOE) to coordinate trip itineraries for students, book flights and accommodation and make contingency plans.
Pac-West Travel is one such travel agency, with 80 per cent of its clientele from educational institutions and the remaining 20 per cent being leisure travellers.
According to its director Leong Kwok Wei, travel agencies typically have to undergo a process, which includes submitting proposals and detailing their standard operating procedures, before MOE evaluates their suitability.
In the past 12 months, Pac-West Travel has conducted nearly 100 school trips, exceeding pre-pandemic levels of at least 80 school trips in 2019.
The company has also had a 60 per cent increase in demand for familiarisation trips for school staff in 2024, compared with 2019.
Ms Leong says: “Post-pandemic, many educators seek to re-establish their connections with foreign counterparts. Also, in the light of the incidents that have taken place in the past years, teachers are going overseas to familiarise themselves with the destination and do comprehensive risk assessments.”
These incidents include a trekking expedition to Sabah in 2015, where pupils and a teacher from Tanjong Katong Primary School were killed in an earthquake, and an unchaperoned school trip to Cambodia in 2023, where a 17-year-old student from United World College of South East Asia died in a road accident.
Travel agency, The Experiences Firm, primarily conducts sport-related overseas school trips for co-curricular activity groups, such as basketball and hockey, that involve playing against foreign teams and training in new environments.
To a smaller extent, the company also organises overseas trips for community service, cultural immersion, leadership training and outdoor adventure. As at June, it has arranged roughly 30 overseas school trips this year, about half of the 70 to 80 trips in 2019.
Its special projects director Triston Yeo estimates that 90 per cent of destinations are in
South-east Asia, China and Taiwan. He says the choice of destination is usually a function of budget, as schools are able to accommodate more students when travelling within the region.
Educators to whom The Straits Times spoke are aware that schools’ budget limitations and students’ varied financial capabilities mean not everyone gets to go on overseas trips. Student subsidies vary from trip to trip, but are typically around 50 per cent of the total travel cost.
Mr Mohammad Zulhaqim, 23, who graduated from RP with a diploma in hotel and hospitality management in May, has been on two 10-day International Service-Learning Projects to Vietnam in 2023 and 2024. Each trip was subsidised by 50 per cent, which meant he paid only around $560 for all-inclusive travel, he says.
While there are only so many trips that schools can organise in a year, Professor Sam Yam of NUS Business School believes in the value of experiential learning abroad, which led him to plan an additional trip of his own volition.
In October 2023, more than half a year before the planned trip, Prof Yam, who is the head of the department of management and organisation, began laying the groundwork for a study tour to Kyoto for a group of 15 students, which allowed them to accrue academic credits for their degree.
As this was a personal initiative, he had to source for monetary sponsors on his own so as to provide students with subsidised rates for airfare, accommodation and activities. He also liaised directly with organisations in Japan to arrange company visits.
The itinerary for the week-long trip in May consisted of visits to an 800-year-old temple, exchanges with two Japanese schools and professional Japanese basketball team Kyoto Hannaryz, as well as other experiential learning activities.
Prof Yam says: “As educators, coordinating a school trip can be difficult as it is not our primary job. But going the extra mile to make such opportunities possible is something I feel teachers should think about more often.”
Community service trips, also known as service-learning projects, are meant to cultivate a senseof responsibility and greater empathy in students.
On such trips, students typically interact with underprivileged communities, experience their way of life and do volunteer work like teaching English to children and helping to build simple infrastructure.
While community service trips have remained largely similar in scope over the years, Prof Yam cautions that such credit-bearing projects could inadvertently diminish the intent of volunteerism – to instil social responsibility.
“It may degrade the selflessness of volunteering when students are incentivised – with school credits or other rewards – to provide help to the other party. Thus, they must understand the purpose of community service,” he says.
Gen Z students, who are born between 1997 and 2012 and grew up with the internet and social media, are known for being socially conscious.
Students such as Mr Joshua Ng, 24, who are interested in community service, indeed have a greater understanding of economic disparity.
Mr Ng, a business and economics double degree student from National University of Singapore(NUS), recalls making canned food donations to an orphanage during his first school trip toMalaysia in secondary school.
“Later in life, I realised that the orphanage would probably have benefited from other things like clothes and socks. Canned food tends to be an over-donated item, but at that moment, it felt meaningful,” he says.
In that respect, the tides are turning. Educators and students are now seeking ways they can truly make an impact on the communities they visit.
Both of the RP student-led trips that Mr Zulhaqim went on were to Maison Chance, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Ho Chi Minh City that helps the disadvantaged, some of whom are orphans or physically disabled. There were around 30 students from the polytechnic on each trip who would plan programmes for nearly 150 children.
To address the NGO’s needs, Mr Zulhaqim, who was overall in charge of the 2024 trip, communicated with its management team beforehand. Only then did he find out that it wanted a programme themed on sustainability.
“The request took me by surprise. But we eventually came up with activities based on the theme, had a dry run before the trip and ran the programme as planned. It was tiring but extra meaningful,” he says.
Cultivating Global Citizens
Compared with 2019, Pac-West Travel has seen a 70 per cent increase in establishment visits, such as to factories and offices, as part of overseas trips it has facilitated for secondary schools in2024.
Vietnam, in particular, has become a popular destination for school trips since the reopening of borders, says Ms Leong. She has arranged 15 school trips to the country in 2024.
She suggests that its popularity could be due to the development of Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park projects that are in nine provinces across the country, which house companies invarious industries like light manufacturing and logistics.
“Students get to learn from Singapore businesses that are established overseas with factory visits and dialogue sessions with employees. It gives them a better understanding of operations and shapes them into global citizens,” she adds.
NUS business administration student Tei Yee Chong, 24, agrees. He was one of the 15 students who went on the May study tour to Kyoto organised by Prof Yam.
As part of the trip itinerary, the group visited game studio Chuhai Labs, where it had a glimpse of the operations and learnt how to find investors in a foreign market.
The participants also had activities at Japanese homeware company POJ Studio, where they got a better appreciation of how the business blended traditional craftsmanship with modern business practices.
“The trip gave us a different kind of exposure that we may not have been able to get in Singapore. We had lectures, workshops and cultural activities almost daily. The pace of learning is much more intense too,” says Mr Tei.
NUS student Joshua Ng, who was also part of the same study tour, says he picked up valuable skills in effective networking and negotiating, and making positive first impressions.
He adds: “During the trip, I felt like we were being taught life skills for navigating the modern world. Some of these could not be easily learnt in the classroom.”
Building Character
The Experiences Firm’s Mr Yeo has observed that schools have placed more focus on character development in recent years.
“Educators are looking for more than just a cultural experience for their students. They also want them to have personal growth. In the past, things like written or verbal refl ections were not ascommon as they are now,” he says.
Post-trip, reflections can be done in the form of journal entries or reports to be handed in, or through discussions facilitated by educators to reinforce students’ learning and encourage introspection.
He admits that he sometimes sees students losing during a friendly sport match overseas as a good thing. For sport-related travel, students get to play against foreign teams on a new turf, which puts their skills to the test.
“Going against strong opponents build resilience. I’ve seen so many teams lose their first match overseas only to become more bonded as a team and eager to up their level of proficiency for the matches after,” he says.
Generally, overseas school trips have an element of taking students out of their comfort zones, which pushes them to be adaptable and builds confidence that can serve them well in the future.
On the last day of Mr Zulhaqim’s visit to Maison Chance in May, he recalls some of the children running to hug him with tears streaming down their faces.
That was when he truly felt like he and his team had made an appreciable difference to their lives.
He says: “I feel like I’ve grown wiser from this trip. It just drives home that character development is enhanced on school trips beyond the classroom.”
A version of this article was published on The Straits Times on July 01, 2024, with the headline Overseas school trips more popular and meaningful after Covid-19 pandemic