Recent Developments in Education in Singapore

Kam, Ho Wah; Gopinathan, Saravanan

doi:10.1076/sesi.10.1.99.3512

Cited by 33 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…This process enabled a low initial base of educational literacy to be heightened quickly. As the economy matured and changed, so did the types of skills required in meeting the needs of a burgeoning Singapore economy (Kam and Gopinathan, 1999). The system subsequently underwent an overhaul with the publication of the report on the MOE (Goh and the Education Study Team, 1979), and recommended that its students should be "streamed" into ability groups (Mourshed et al, 2010).…”

Section: Tight Prescription Of Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Pedagogical reforms within a centralised-decentralised system

Toh¹,

Hung²,

Chua³

et al. 2016

IJEM

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the dialectical interplay between centralisation and decentralisation forces so as to understand how schools leverage on its autonomous pedagogical space, influence the diffusion of innovations in the educational landscape of Singapore and how a centralised-decentralised system supports (or impedes) pedagogical reform for twenty-first century learning. Design/methodology/approach The paper first outlines the evolutionary stance of Singapore’s decentralisation from its past to present trajectories, thus providing a broader social-historical interpretation to its tight-loose-tight coupling of the education system; followed by situating the context of reform within the national narrative of Ministry of Education’s (MOE) twenty-first century competencies framework. The authors examine how school autonomy should be accompanied by systemic enabling mechanisms, through two case illustrations of whole-school reforms. Findings There are four carryover effects that the authors have observed: structural, socio-cultural, economic and epistemic. Middle managers from the two schools act as a pedagogical, socio-technological and financial broker outside the formal collaborative structures organised by the MOE. Such a “middle-out” approach, complemented by centralised mechanisms for “coeval sensing mechanism”, has resulted in boundary-spanning linkages and multiplier effects in terms of knowledge spillovers. Research limitations/implications Socio-cultural context matters; and what constitutes as co-learning between policymakers and practitioners in Singapore may be construed as policing that stifles innovations in other contexts. Originality/value In addition to the conceptualisation of how school autonomy may lead to school-based innovations, the paper provided some preliminary empirical evidence of how the co-production of knowledge has been engendered within, across and beyond individual Singapore schools through the mechanism of innovation diffusion. The unit of analysis is innovation ecosystem.

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Section: Tight Prescription Of Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Pedagogical reforms within a centralised-decentralised system

Toh¹,

Hung²,

Chua³

et al. 2016

IJEM

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“…Singapore is a particularly fascinating context for exploring how educators' and government's discourse link tracking and student types, because, unlike most Western nations where tracking is in decline, it remains a robust feature of the local educational structure in Singapore (Kam & Gopinathan, 1999;Talib & Fitzgerald, 2015). Singapore is also dramatically different from other high-achieving Asian countries (e.g., Korea, Japan, Hong Kong), with its higher income inequality and lower social mobility (Corak, 2013;I.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The discursive construction of lower-tracked students: Ideologies of meritocracy and the politics of education

Anderson

2015

EPAA

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This study considers the discursive construction of a particular type of student in Singapore - the lowest-tracked, Normal Technical (NT), secondary school student. Shaped by meritocratic policies, educational practices, and ideologies common to many late-modern societies, students in the NT track are institutionally and individually constructed through the results of high-stakes testing regimes and essentialist views of ability. This article extends an understanding of the NT student as a widely held, deficit construction in Singapore by considering its use as an ideological label in interpersonal and institutional discourse. I consider how school leaders’ and government commentaries about NT students’ abilities, opportunities, and supposed characteristics provide insights about the processes through which students are recruited into institutional categories of deficit and risk¾i.e. differentiated instruction, ascribed ability, and these processes’ translation into educational structures and practice in the name of meritocracy. While the illustration of this phenomenon is uniquely Singaporean, implications include concerns about equity, constructions of ability, and ideologies of merit common to late modern society.

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“…While it has often been assumed that as age increases, so does the cost of elderly care ( 40 ). Further study confirms that the last year of life is the greater driver of elderly health care spending, and that the cost is higher for those who die younger ( 41 ) than for those who die older ( 42 ). Therefore, increasing life expectancy reduces older people's health care costs.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…As the economy matured and skill requirements changed, Singapore's education became more diverse to foster different talents with tertiary degree. In short, education has always been an essential development strategy for Singapore ( 41 ). The early accumulation of higher education talent provided Singapore with more dependency at the beginning of an aging society.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How working-age population education and health of older people shape the burden of population aging: A comparative study of Macau, Hong Kong, and Singapore

Xue

Bai²,

Bian³

2022

Front. Public Health

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Macau, Hong Kong and Singapore are all facing increasing population aging. Those aged 65 and over make up the old-age population. The working-age population refers to the population aged 15 to 64. Conventionally, the burden of population aging is measured by the Old-Age Dependency Ratio, which is the ratio of the old-age population to the working-age population. As life expectancy rises, depending exclusively on age to calculate the burden of aging hinders the development of effective anti-aging strategies. The working-age population's education and the elderly's health affect the aging burden's support and generator, respectively. Including them in the calculation gives us a fuller view of the burden of aging.ObjectiveTo compare the population aging burden in Macau, Hong Kong, and Singapore by including working-age population education and elderly health.MethodsThe overall, working-age and old-age population and proportion, as well as the Old-Age Dependency Ratio of Macau, Hong Kong, and Singapore, were collected from the World Bank database. The life expectancy at 65 was extracted from the 2022 World Population Prospect. The tertiary education rate of the working-age population and the self-rated health status of the old-age population were retrieved from governments' statistical reports. We then calculated the Education-Health Adjusted Old-Age Dependency Ratio, a set of four equations showing the support of the working-age population on the old-age population, where OADRh_t and OADRuh_t represent the burden of healthy and unhealthy old-age population on the working-age population with tertiary education; similarly, OADRh_nt and OADRuh_nt indicate the burden placed on the working-age population without tertiary education by healthy and unhealthy old-age population. Lastly, for comparison with the conventional Old-Age Dependency Ratio, we generated the Weighted Education-Health Adjusted Old-Age Dependency Ratio.ResultsHong Kong has the greatest old-age population proportion and Old-Age Dependency Ratio, yet its growth rates are moderate and stable, ranging from 0 to 4% and 0 to 6%, respectively. Macau and Singapore experienced sharper changes in old-age population proportion and the Old-Age Dependency Ratio, with Macau's Old-Age Dependency Ratio varying between −2.66 and 8.50% and Singapore's ranging from −1.53 to 9.70%. Three cities showed different patterns in four Education-Health Adjusted Old-Age Dependency Ratio indicators. In Macau, the OADRh_nt and OADRuh_nt increased by 0.4 and 6.2, while the OADRh_t and OADRuh_t decreased by 13.5 and 15.3 from 2004 to 2016. In Hong Kong, only the OADRuh_t fell by 9.4, and the other three increased from 2003 to 2015. In Singapore, the OADRh_nt and OADRh_t increased by 3.8 and 1.0, while OADRuh_nt and OADRuh_t decreased by 1.2 and 3.9 from 2007 to 2011. The Weighted Education-Health Adjusted Old-Age Dependency Ratios are all smaller than the conventional Old-Age Dependency Ratio in the three regions, particularly in Singapore. The Weighted Education-Health Adjusted Old-Age Dependency Ratio of Singapore was reduced by 9.5 to 30.5% compared with the conventional Old-Age Dependency Ratio, that of Hong Kong reduced by 6.2 to 22.5%, and that of Macau reduced by 4.4 to 16.1%.ConclusionThis is the first study to compare the aging burden in Macau, Hong Kong, and Singapore in connection to working-age population education and elderly health. With the new assessment, the burden of population aging in three regions has been reduced, showing that improving the education of the working-age population and maintaining older people's wellbeing can assist authorities to deal with population aging, especially in Macau and Hong Kong.

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Recent Developments in Education in Singapore

Cited by 33 publications

References 2 publications

Pedagogical reforms within a centralised-decentralised system

Pedagogical reforms within a centralised-decentralised system

The discursive construction of lower-tracked students: Ideologies of meritocracy and the politics of education

How working-age population education and health of older people shape the burden of population aging: A comparative study of Macau, Hong Kong, and Singapore

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