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.

Characteristics of Singapore: Statistics from the CIA World Factbook

About the CIA World Factbook:

The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities. Our Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.

- The CIA World Factbook

Their Singapore pace may be viewed here.

Explore how Singapore measures up to other countries with the Country Comparison tool.

Characteristics of Singapore: The economy

SAJC’s economics lecture notes, with useful information on the Singapore economy, is available here.

Characteristics of Singapore

Most Application Questions (AQs) ask for a Singapore-specific response. As such, it’s useful to know Singapore-specific information. But anyone can say that “Singapore is a multi-racial society” or that “Singapore seeks to become a healthcare hub” – so when mentioning characteristics of Singapore, do back them up with solid examples. These could take a variety of forms, from facts, case studies and statistics to news reports, forum page comments, parliamentary speeches and government policies.

[Note: This page is under construction. Do help contribute to this resource by leaving a comment below and providing, with examples, characteristics of Singapore.]

Task

Hit the “leave a comment” button below. State a characteristic of Singapore, and exemplify your point. Do provide references where possible.

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[Update: 9/2/2011]
One useful site to harvest examples from is The Economist’s Country Briefing page on Singapore:

http://www.economist.com/countries/singapore/

[Update: 13/3/2011]

Check out the Singapore Issue of Broader Perspectives here.

For future links, examples, statistics and facts pertaining to “Characteristics of Singapore”, click on the “Characteristics of Singapore” category in the sidebar.

Note: Although this is presented as a handy resource for the AQ, do note that all the information here would be equally useful for a Singapore-based essay question.

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

Attention students: Would you rather your numerical / letter grades be omitted from your assignments?

This caught my interest. It is a study done by two General Paper tutors in Singapore, which “explores how the omission of grades can positively impact a student’s General Paper (GP) essay grades.”

In brief:

Method

Essays for all students were marked with the same level of rigour and the same quality in feedback, except that those involved in the study were not given letter or numerical grades.

Results

Results suggest that there is an increase by 12 percentage points in the final grades of students involved in the study over those in the control group. The results of this study highlights the potential improvement students can achieve through such grading practices and might encourage English teachers to review common assessment practices.

So, students:

Should teachers give you feedback and a numerical / letter grade for your essays, or feedback only?

explores how the omission of grades can positively impact a student’s General Paper

(GP) essay grades.

Foreign workers living in our neighbourhoods: yes or no?

The result is in: after debating whether Singapore should house foreign workers in a dormitory within a residential neighbourhood, the go-ahead has been given.

More than a 1,000 residents signed a petition against the dorm last year when they got wind of the Government’s plan to build it in the neighbourhood

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The key concerns residents raised included increased traffic congestion, security and safety, as well as competition for the use of common facilities such as parks and bus stops.

Wanting to ease the residents’ worries, changes were later made to the development plans.

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Maxi will provide a range of facilities, such as a mini- mart and canteen, to minimise the need for the workers to access amenities outside the dormitory.

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- ST, 15 July 2009

Question: Do you agree with this move? Compare the implications of providing separate facilities, and encouraging them to use public facilities.

 

But how did the public react to this news? Equal opportunities? Or are we prejudiced against having foreign workers as our neighbours? This forum may shed a bit of light on the perceptions of some Singaporeans.

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The Maid Trade – Singapore

Caroline (not her real name) has worked in Singapore for more than four years. Her employer only gave her a day off after two years.

“We need the day off [to] relax the mind for the hard work [we do] every day… but they didn’t give. Even when I asked, they said cannot. ‘Because you’re Indonesian’, he said. If you’re Fillipino, I think you could [take the day off]‘. What’s the difference between Indonesians and Filipinos? We’re all human.”

- Caroline, Indonesian maid working in Singapore.

Check out the video on the Maid Trade in Singapore, which centers on the plight of maids. It includes issues such as the training of maids, the differences in wages between maids of different nationalities, their living conditions, cases of abuse and the lack of avenues to turn to for help: