challenge
SLS began as a policy ambition, but quickly moved into high-stakes, high-velocity execution. The mandate was clear: deliver a national platform that could support every school, subject, and mode of learning. Beneath that clarity sat deep design tensions: Fragmented ownership across MOE divisions, committees, and vendor teams Wide pedagogical variance by age, subject, and teaching style Legacy assumptions about content, classrooms, and control The real challenge wasn’t uptime or usability—it was coherence. Coherence across ministries, policies, delivery partners, and the lived realities of classrooms. The platform’s early growth was shaped by features and timelines. What was missing was a shared understanding of the experience it was meant to create—and how to deliver that across roles, levels, and long-term horizons.
Client
Ministry of Education
Format
Platform
ACTION
I was the Principal Experience Design Lead, partnering directly with MOE’s core programme team, engineering leads, and the ministry’s design taskforce. This included: Orchestrating multi-agency collaboration between MOE, GovTech, and Ufinity, bridging operational, pedagogical, and technical domains Reframing the platform experience—from static resource delivery to dynamic teaching and learning flows Embedding design practices into a programme previously dominated by delivery targets and committee decisions Facilitating alignment workshops across policy teams, curriculum specialists, and implementation squads Leading insight framing through classroom immersion, interviews, co-creation with teachers, and behavioural mapping of platform use during live lessons Establishing common artefacts to align teams: shared journey maps, design principles, interaction models, and rollout support playbooks SLS had to function at multiple layers simultaneously: as a tool for teachers to shape lessons, a portal for students to learn across home and school contexts, and a platform for MOE to deliver curriculum at population scale.
RESULTS
SLS became the single point of access for every teacher and student in the country during COVID-19 lockdowns Enabled the institutionalisation of blended learning across Singapore’s public school system Reduced friction in lesson design and delivery by introducing shared flows, templates, and support models for teachers with different digital fluency levels Shaped the product direction around moments of learning—not modules of content—leading to greater teacher uptake and alignment with classroom needs Established foundations for future integration with AI-driven learning insights, differentiated instruction, and cross-institution collaboration Winner IDC Smart City APAC Award (SCAPA) 2018
LEADERSHIP LENS
This project demanded clarity to unify learning across fragmented mandates and institutional silos. It required a steady cadence to align fast-moving delivery with grounded classroom needs. And it held together through care—for the teachers and students relying on the platform, and for the teams building under pressure. Clarity to align decisions around real learning. Cadence to keep experience and execution in sync. Care to serve education as a shared public good.
