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Singapore's remarkable performance in PISA has placed it among the world's high performing education systems (HPES). In the literature on HPES its 'secret formula' for education success is explained in terms of teacher quality, school leadership, system characteristics and educational reform. This article offers an alternative explanation for the education success of Singapore, and in so doing, questions the basic assertions of the HPES literature and, in particularly, the use of PISA results as the prime indicator of the educational performance of a school system.The explanation is informed by a historical perspective on the development of the Singapore education system and based upon a body of empirical findings on the nature of pedagogical practice in classrooms, both of which are vital for understanding the educational performance of the Singapore's education system. The article concludes by addressing the implications of this analysis for educational policy borrowing.

The educational reforms being enacted in Singapore can be considered exceptional in that they are being undertaken within a highly effective system. We explore these reforms using Brown and Lauder's ideal-typical analysis of neo-Fordist' and`post-Fordist' models of national economic development. Singapore's reforms have been extensive, ranging from changes to early childhood education through to tertiary education. We examine the nature of state-market relations in education within the context of Singapore's`soft authoritarian' political culture and assess the chances of success of the reforms.

ABTRACT: This article depicts the landscape of teacher professional development (PD) in Singapore, one of the world’s top-performing countries in education. We provide an overview of the resources available to the approximately 30,000 teachers within the 350 primary and secondary schools run by the Ministry of Education (MOE). We focus on the three main PD providers: the National Institute of Education, the Academy of Singapore Teachers and six Centers of Excellence, and schools themselves. Guided by the “Teacher Growth Model,” these providers aim at making PD coherent with teachers’ interests, the needs of schools, and the national curriculum. Teachers in Singapore are given the exceptionally high allotment of 100 voluntary hours of PD per year. There are multiple types of activities teachers can engage in, ranging from formal/structured courses and programs to more informal/reform-based initiatives (action research, lesson study). Teachers with different levels of expertise and career paths have access to different PD opportunities. Most PD is subject-specific and provides teachers with opportunities for networked learning, collegial sharing, and collaboration. In fact, all MOE schools have been recently mandated to become Professional Learning Communities (PLC). We conclude that this comprehensive set of PD resources, considered as a whole, presents the features of “high-quality” PD described in the international literature. However, we suggest that more research is needed to examine the extent to which such an ambitious PD model is enhancing teachers’ knowledge and pedagogies, and ultimately students’ learning.