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EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE
Singapore is one of the countries I most enjoy traveling to. I love the way the education system is shaping the nation to be among the best in knowledge and talent. According to the PISA 2016 report, Singapore has the highest achieving students in the international education rankings, with its teenagers topping tests in math, reading, and science. For more than a decade, Singapore has been at or near the top of international league tables that measure children’s ability in reading, math, and science.
In light of the above, the strategies followed in Singapore that made them achieve the number one ranking constitute a matter worthy of discussion. In Singapore, the education sector is managed by the Ministry of Education, which formulates and implements education policies on education structure, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. It oversees the management and development of government-funded schools, the Institute of Technical Education, polytechnics, and universities. The Ministry of Education aims to help students discover their talents, make the best of these talents and realize their full potential, and develop a passion for learning that lasts a lifetime.
According to The Conversation, an independent source of news from the academic & research community, Singapore’s institutional arrangements are characterized by a prescribed national curriculum. It consists of national, high-stakes examinations at the end of primary and secondary schooling that stream students based on their examination performance and essentially prompt teachers to ensure coverage of the curriculum and the test. The alignment of the curriculum, assessment, and instruction is exceptionally strong.
On top of this, the institutional environment incorporates top-down forms of teacher accountability based on student performance (although this is changing) that reinforces curriculum coverage and teaching to tests. Major government commitments to educational research ($137 million between 2003 and 2017) and knowledge management are designed to support evidence-based policy making.
Finally, Singapore is strongly committed to capacity building at all levels of the system, especially in the selection, training, and professional development of principals and teachers.
In addition, parents, students, teachers, and policy-makers share a highly positive but rigorously instrumentalist view of the value of education at the individual level. Further, students are generally compliant and the classrooms orderly. Importantly, teachers also broadly share an authoritative vernacular or "folk pedagogy” that shapes understandings across the system regarding the nature of teaching and learning. These include the fact that "teaching is talking and learning is listening,” authority is "hierarchical and bureaucratic,” assessment is "summative,” knowledge is "factual and procedural,” and classroom talk is teacherdominated and "performative.”
Clearly, Singapore’s unique configuration of historical experience, instruction, institutional arrangements, and cultural beliefs has produced an exceptionally effective and successful system.