however, began a five- or six-year process of startling and sustained school improvement.This improvement, we believe, has to be accounted for by the initiatives taken by the new school principals. societal culture, as articulated from above provided them with a cultural and social stock of readily available recipes that were already showing their worth in raising the general standard of Singapore schools (Neville, 1994) But it was how the principals were able to capitalize on, and develop, these preexisting frameworks that for the outstanding performance of their accounts schools.