As we had discussed last week, Singapore will stop streaming students by 2024. This week’s topic in focus is a wider overview on Singapore’s education system, how it developed to be what it is today, and what are its successes and challenges.
Development of Singapore’s education system
In 1965, the Singapore government’s main priority was to find the most efficient and effective way to develop an industrialised economy and start on an export-oriented industrialisation strategy to remain competitive on the world stage. Colonialism had produced an economy which strongly depended on entrepot trade, and the urgent task was to break away from this dependency. To accommodate new economic strategies, education was the tool to develop its people with new skills and work attitudes. Emphasis was therefore placed on the intimate link between education and economic development.
Not forgetting the role of education in socialisation and nation-building, features of the education system were designed to aid national integration. Compulsory primary school education was put in place for children from the age of six, without discrimination of race, sex, or wealth. Bilingualism was a key policy that aimed to achieve social cohesion across the different races, yet retaining individual cultural roots. Learning English was seen as a tool to help Singaporeans find their place in the global market.
In two decades, education opportunities rapidly expanded and universal primary and lower secondary education was achieved. Shifting their focus, the Government decided to look into quality rather than just quantitative demands. The initial system assumed that all children learned at the same pace, and classes were taught at the moderate pace to suit an average child. In 1979, education was then revamped to improve efficiency, and reduce dropout rates by introducing three streams in primary and secondary schools.
(Source: The Development of Education in Singapore since 1965, a background paper prepared for Asia Education Study Tour in 2006)
Successes of the education system
Singaporean students are known to top the ranks of global test scores in math, science, and also their ability to solve complex problems in teams, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Assessment (Pisa) test. The strong focus on quality of education and efficiency has resulted in nurturing students’ abilities to perform well. The achievement has intrigued educators and policy makers from different countries who are interested to learn how the Singapore education system is made coherent and aligned to the effects intended.
Challenges and unhealthy trends
Inevitably, the system is not infallible, and there are downsides to this systematic approach. Those who have been through the education system can attest to how grades-centric it can be. Most of the time, due to the stress inflicted to perform under time pressure, a student may forgo fully understanding what they learn, and choose to memorise for the sake of getting correct answers for their examinations. This style of learning disempowers students and can even be said to kill their joy for learning. In the new digital economy, the continuous renewal of skills and learning is crucial to remain relevant, and the old methods of education may not be as helpful.
Recognising this unhealthy trend in the recent years, the Government has been making tweaks to signal a shift in focus towards more holistic development. The future workplace will also value skills such as creativity, teamwork, resilience, and empathy, more than the grades one achieved in tests.
Questions for further personal evaluation:
- What are the purposes of education?
- To what extent do you consider the Singapore education system to be successful?
Useful vocabulary:
- ‘intrigued’: fascinated, aroused the curiosity of
- ‘imperatives’: essential, urgent necessities
- ‘imbue’: to inspire or permeate with
Here are more related articles for further reading:
- Channel NewsAsia: This commentary reflects on the narrative of education in Singapore, and how it is changing.
“While providing students with equal opportunities in education is vital, the stress that comes with education could be markedly reduced if we stopped to consider the true objectives of education.
Should the main objective really be winning in the academic rat race?
Some experts say it should be about helping students find themselves – learning what they are good at, what they can be good at, learning how to overcome challenges and most of all, developing a love for learning.
In fact, there is a camp that believes one of the ways in which all these can be achieved is through integration of students rather than stratification along academic or socio-economic lines.”
- Current Affairs: This article is a discussion against a rightist view of how we should give less public funding to disciplines which are impractical for children to become useful workers. The arguments focus on the purpose of education.
“A deeper problem here, as anyone who isn’t a libertarian economist will have noticed, is Caplan’s narrow definition of the “usefulness” of education. He treats “value in the job market” as education’s main measure of worth. The debate over whether education teaches job skills or just offers signals is an interesting one, but it contains a hidden premise: that what we’re supposed to be doing is preparing kids to be good employees. Of course, if that’s how you measure the worth of teaching, then the arts aren’t worth a damn, because, as Caplan points out, artists starve. (Unless they go to work for advertising firms.) But while liberals and conservatives alike often speak of education as if it’s mostly supposed to be a pipeline to a skilled job, there are humanistic approaches (i.e. the ones that see people as more than productivity machines) with somewhat different views of what education ought to be doing.
…
There are many possible visions for what education could and should be. But the one thing it shouldn’t be is preparation for wage work. Attempts to destroy education in the name of efficiency are going in exactly the wrong direction. Instead of more efficiency, we need less of it. Students should be finding out about all of the fascinating things in our big, wonderful world, not being fitted and measured for future drudgery. What is education for? It’s for becoming a person, not a worker.”
Picture credits:https://unsplash.com/photos/4V1dC_eoCwg