Characteristics of Singapore: Education & Social Mobility

An extract from FY 2011 Committee of Supply Debate: 1st Reply by Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence on Social Mobility — The Singapore Story: Past, Present and Future:

 

Positive International Accolades

33 International experts have also analysed our progress and provided a sound basis for comparisons with other countries.

34 The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which conducts the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has constructed an Economic, Social and Cultural Status (ESCS) index to measure the socio-economic background of students. OECD found that across the education systems participating in PISA, there was a general positive relationship — the higher the ESCS, the higher the PISA scores. In all countries, Singapore included, students from better socio-economic backgrounds do better academically.

35 But, they then found that in some education systems, among them Singapore, China, Korea and Finland, a larger proportion of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds were able to perform better than predicted. OECD called them “resilient students”, students who excelled despite having come from less favourable circumstances. We were ranked 5th out of 65 countries for the proportion of resilient students. Almost one in two of our students were resilient, compared to one in three in the OECD. The PISA average was 26% – or one in four.

 

Full speech here.

Characteristics of Singapore: A foreign perspective

I am in the Gan Eng Seng Primary School in a middle-class neighborhood of Singapore, and the principal, A. W. Ai Ling, has me visiting a fifth-grade science class. All the 11-year-old boys and girls are wearing junior white lab coats with their names on them. Outside in the hall, yellow police tape has blocked off a “crime scene” and lying on a floor, bloodied, is a fake body that has been murdered. The class is learning about DNA through the use of fingerprints, and their science teacher has turned the students into little C.S.I. detectives. They have to collect fingerprints from the scene and then break them down.

[...]

This was just an average public school, but the principal had made her own connections between “what world am I living in,” “where is my country trying to go in that world” and, therefore, “what should I teach in fifth-grade science.”

I was struck because that kind of linkage is so often missing in U.S. politics today. Republicans favor deep cuts in government spending, while so far exempting Medicare, Social Security and the defense budget. Not only is that not realistic, but it basically says that our nation’s priorities should be to fund retirement homes for older people rather than better schools for younger people and that we should build new schools in Afghanistan before Alabama.

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Explained Ravi Menon, the Permanent Secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry: “The two ‘isms’ that perhaps best describe Singapore’s approach are: pragmatism — an emphasis on what works in practice rather than abstract theory; and eclecticism — a willingness to adapt to the local context best practices from around the world.”

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Full article here.

National Education

Recently, Nexus and the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), with the support of the Ministry of Education, organised the first ever National Education Gaming Championship (NEGC).

NEGC is the first gaming competition that Nexus, MINDEF in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, is organising to engage youths.

The NEGC is a fun and engaging way for youths to discover what the Third Generation SAF is about. It also allows youths, especially the boys, to learn about defence and National Service before enlistment. Virtual Battlespace 2 (VBS2) is the official game used in NEGC. It is a PC-based virtual simulation training software used to train soldiers in the SAF.

- NEGC

 

Questions:

Education plays a vital role in fostering a deeper appreciation for one’s country. To what extent is this true in your country?

The way we educate our children must change with the times. How far do you agree with this statement?

 

Should universities use positive discrimination to increase diversity?

Affirmative action in education

Task:

Read some of the arguments for and against affirmative action in education, and give your view on the question, “Should universities use positive discrimination to increase diversity?”

What our Biology students are learning

This post highlights the essential features of the H2 Biology curriculum in Singapore. The writer then goes on to highlight some of their concerns with the emphasis of the Biology curriculum.

Questions:

Education in Singapore is unnecessarily concerned with the needs of her economy. Discuss.

To what extent should the school curriculum concentrate on topics deemed important to the economy of the country?

One’s interest is irrelevant – the needs of the country should take priority. How true should this be of education in your country?

Breath of study is more important than depth. To what extent do you agree?

Dr Goh played pivotal role in S’pore’s education system

“Dr Goh always believed that the key to Singapore’s success was having an excellent education system.”

- Ms Ho Peng, Director-General of Education,
Dr Goh played a pivotal role in S’pore’s education system

Think:

Why did Dr Goh hold this view? Is his view valid?
Dr Goh is remembered for many things, and his contribution to Singapore’s education system is one that is always spoken highly of. Why?

Further reading:

The Development of Education in Singapore since 1965

Go forth and multiply a lot less

“Lower fertility is changing the world for the better”
– The Economist

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The move to replacement-level fertility is one of the most dramatic social changes in history. It manifested itself in the violent demonstrations by students against their clerical rulers in Iran this year. It almost certainly contributed to the rising numbers of middle-class voters who backed the incumbent governments of Indonesia and India. It shows up in rural Malaysia in richer, emptier villages surrounded by mechanised farms. And everywhere, it is changing traditional family life by enabling women to work and children to be educated. At a time when Malthusian alarms are ringing because of environmental pressures, falling fertility may even provide a measure of reassurance about global population trends.

- The Economist

Full article here.

Questions:

Should Singapore continue to be concerned about her low fertility rate?

“Fertility is no longer an issue in today’s world”. To what extent is this true?

“The best solution to environmental problems is to reduce our population size”. How far do you agree?

Transsexual toilets for Thai school

However, not everyone is in favour of these toilets.

“Separate toilets won’t make anything better for us. We can use both the men’s and women’s. It’s unnecessary to build them,” Worakarn says.

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Donnarid Meksri, a science student, does not agree because it will “separate transsexuals”.

- ‘For whom the toilet flushes‘, Daily Express, 2008

Question:

Do you think the move to build separate toilets for transexuals would have positive or negative effects on prejudice and discrimination against this group?

Meritocracy and its discontents

[...] Members of the talent elite try hard to give their children every possible advantage. One recent bestseller in China, “Harvard Girl”, tell sthe story of two parents who trained their daughter for Harvard from birth, barraging her with verbal stimuli, subjecting her to a strenous regime of home study and making her swim long distances. A “greater” example is Raffles Junior College in Singapore, one of the most successful schools at getting students into American Ivy League universities.

- Meritocracy and its discontents, The Economist, Oct 5 2006

[full text here, but it's only free to subscribers of The Economist]

Multicultural Education

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get anything better than this cached version of the article I’m looking for.

The article touches on the major goals of multicultural education, the five dimensions of multicultural education, and surface culture vs. deep culture.