Economic-Based Education Reform in Singapore
An examination of the case of Singapore illustrates one way a country can make significant
educational investments that pay off economically.
In Singapore, education decision making
is centralized at the Ministry of Education. The high quality of Singapore’s education system
is evidenced by the fact that their students scored at the top of all countries in both mathematics and science in both the 4th and 8th grades in the 2003 Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study, or “TIMSS”, an international assessment of student achievement (Mullis, et al., 2004a, 2004b), as they have performed consistently well in mathematics over the past decade. UNDP (2005) figures indicate that the adult literacy rate is
96.6% for males and 88.6% for females. Singapore’s education policy is strongly linked to the development of human capital (Ashton, Green, Sung, & James, 2002). Officials from the Ministry of Trade and Industry chair the Economic Development Board, a cross-ministry agency that sets directions for policies in other relevant ministries, including education. From the beginning of Singapore’s modern economic development, the government tasked the education system to supply targeted clusters with skills necessary for their labor force. Anticipated skill needs were translated into production goals for secondary, polytechnic, and university institutions. As the initial, low-wage, export-based strategy achieved full employment and the development policy shifted toward high-value-added production, the government upgraded its education requirements. Secondary schools were to produce higher levels of skills in science, mathematics, and language; tertiary institutions were to produce more engineers and scientists. High-stakes tests were used to assure that the most able students had access to the higher levels of education. To upgrade the current labor force, a tax was imposed on low wage jobs; the resulting funds were put into skill upgrading, and these funds could be returned to those corporations that participated in training programs. Unions also participated in the skills upgrading effort. The most recent shift to a knowledge economy development strategy has resulted in yet another set of economic development-driven changes in Singapore’s education system. Indeed, part of the current economic plan includes the development of Singapore as a regional educational hub that would contribute directly to economic growth.
In coordination with shifts in the economic development plan toward a knowledge-based economy, the Education Ministry instituted a number of reforms under the title “Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn: Towards Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2000). An important component of the reform was to create a better balance in the curriculum between the acquisition of factual knowledge and the mastery and applications of concepts, and the development of individual curiosity, creativity, and enterprise. Thus the curriculum was broadened beyond a set of cores skills and values to
include information skills, thinking skills and creativity, communication skills, knowledge application skills, self-management skills, and character development. To develop these skills
and attitudes, cross-discipline project work was introduced into the classrooms. Assessment
was revised to measure students’ skills in analyzing and applying information, thinking, and
communicating. The plan also strengthened the connections between the school, the home,
and the community, as part of a larger social development plan that encouraged a more active
participation of citizens in community life.
ICT has been an important component of Singapore’s education reform. In 1997, Singapore initiated a 5-year ICT plan, called “Master Plan for IT in Education,” to incorporate technology into the school system (Mui, Kan, & Chun, 2004). This $US1.2 billion project provided a national blueprint for the use of ICT in all schools and aimed to create an ICT-enriched school environment for every child. This first master plan focused primarily on installing computers and high bandwidth Internet access in schools and classrooms and training teachers on the use of computers. In 2002 the Ministry launched its Master Plan 2, in coordination with “Thinking Schools: Learning Nation” reforms. The new master plan adopted a more systemic, holistic approach in which all the key components of the system— ICT, curriculum, assessment, instruction, professional development, and school culture— were integrated. Changes in one area were to be matched to changes in others within the Education Ministry. For example, the curriculum was reduced by 10 to 30% to allow for the integration of technology in the subject areas and university admission required the submission of an electronic portfolio of student work, in addition to exam scores.