Summary of Education and Development Approaches
Again, Singapore and Finland provide interesting contrasts in their approaches to using education to advance development. Both approaches focused on developing an education system of very high quality. Singapore focused its education system narrowly on the development of human capital through tight coordination within and across ministries that subordinated education policy to economic interests of targeted industrial clusters. Curriculum standards and assessments were coordinated with skills needed for a productive workforce and the numbers of students at each level were adjusted to match shifts in Singapore’s development trajectory. The move from a strong basic education to a curriculum
that emphasized mathematics, science, and technology was matched to the shift from a low wage, low-value-added economy to a high-wage, high-value-added one. In a subsequent move, the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and educational ICT all emphasized the development of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship that is needed by a workforce prepared for the newly targeted knowledge-economy industrial clusters.
Finland’s equally successful approach is far more decentralized and broad-based, linking the educational system to the civic and business communities. Decisions on curriculum and instruction are made by local schools and teachers. This distributed effort is coordinated by a vision of a Finnish information society in which technology and information sharing support economic growth and social development. The role of the government in Finland is to foster innovativeness, knowledge creation, and knowledge sharing. Policies and programs support this vision through the development of knowledge-building skills among teachers and
students and through the use of student-centered and collaborative approaches to learning.
Egypt faces significant challenges in harnessing its education system in service of its
development plans. The government has articulated a vision of an information society in
which widespread access to technology can nurture human capital, improve government
services, promote Egyptian culture, and support economic growth. They have targeted the
ICT sector as a vehicle for this economic growth and social development. Yet a number of
barriers reduce the prospects for success: Illiteracy is high, the current technological
infrastructure does not allow widespread use, and civil participation and freedoms of press
and speech are limited. Education could contribute to the development of Egypt’s information society by improving the quality of its human capital, increasing knowledge creation and innovativeness, and fostering knowledge sharing. A reform effort has been initiated and technology has been identified as an important component of this effort. But there are major systemic barriers to change within the education system itself. Most significantly, the country’s curriculum and assessment systems emphasize the memorization of facts and this works against innovative thinking and knowledge creation in schools. To succeed with the information society, Egypt will need to align curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and the use of technology with its vision of the future.