Singapore’s Digital Education Journey:
Lessons New Zealand can learn to propel Digital Globalization through education
Singapore’s education has been internationally recognized as one of the world’s best education systems. But where Singapore is today is no accident, it is the result of dynamic and effective policy actions dating since it gained independence. At independence in 1965, Singapore had several ethnic groups (i.e. around 74% Chinese, 13% Malay, 9% Indian and 3% other) with no common language and no common schooling system. The Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew took measures to realize Singapore’s pledge:
“One united people regardless of race, language or religion”
He introduced two years of compulsory national service that in turn helped to unite the different ethnic groups. Due to lack of natural resources, human resources were and are still seen as the Singapore’s most valuable asset. Therefore education was considered the central building block for building both the economy and the nation. At independence, most of Singapore’s people were illiterate and unskilled. Therefore prime minister’s primary focus was to expand basic education as quickly as possible.
“A nation’s wealth in the 21st century will depend on the capacity of its people to learn” ~ Goh Chok Tong
In January 1979, a new education system was introduced to move Singapore from a third-league, labor-intensive economy to a second-league, capital and skill-intensive country. Singapore moved away from its earlier one-size-fits-all approach to a new schooling aimed at creating multiple pathways for students to enable all students to reach their potential while also recognizing that all students do not grow academically at the same pace. The multiple pathways included three types of high school:
i) academic high schools, which prepared students for college;
ii) polytechnic high schools that focused on advanced occupational and technical training and that could also lead to college; and
iii) technical institutes that focused on occupational and technical training for students.
Drop-out rates from schools declined significantly and performance in the O-level English examinations went from a 60% failure rate to a 90% pass rate by 1984, and by 1995 Singapore led the world in mathematics and science on TIMSS. From 1997 Singapore realized that they need to change the way schools work and created a modified educational vision.
“Thinking Schools, Learning Nation”
Singapore’s top universities, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, formed research partnerships with the world’s leading universities to focus in fields like bioinformatics, information sciences and medical technologies. Singapore also invested significantly in the Institute for Technical Education involving creation of master plans to promote information and communication technology (ICT).
In 2004, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong introduced another idea as the next step under the Thinking Schools, Learning Nation umbrella i.e.
“Teach Less, Learn More”
Education spending rose to 3.6% of GDP in 2010, approximately 20% of total government expenditure and second only to defense. Singapore government effective manpower planning approach helps students to move faster into emergent sectors and reduces oversupply in declining sectors more quickly. The ability of the government to manage supply and demand of education and skills is a major source of Singapore’s competitive advantage. The next action towards taking the education and other services to a next level is the Singapore SmartNation initiative.
Where most countries are busy making smart cities Singapore is harnessing technology to build SmartNation with the aim of improving the lives of citizens, creating more opportunities, and building stronger communities. Government’s Smart Nation Fellowship Programme is intended to bring top data scientists and technologists to the country to collaborate with Singapore government.
Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) promotes the adoption of infocomm technology as a key enabler to enhance Singapore’s economic competitiveness. It actively works to develop IT and telecommunications within Singapore. They do this by supporting the growth of innovative technology companies and start-ups in Singapore, liaising with leading global IT companies and also developing exceptional IT and telecommunications infrastructure, policies and capabilities for Singapore. For example IDA launched Infocomm Talent Portal which is a one-stop Infocomm Educational and Career Resource Portal. The IDA is also planning to launch PlayMaker Programme that will offer child-friendly, technology-enabled toys to promote tactile and more kinaesthetic experiences using gadgets. This is aimed at helping kids to explore and find creative solutions and to also encourage kids to work in small groups. This was as a result of growing concerns raised by educators and parents about excessive screen time and the lack of kinaesthetic and social interactions.
As part of the SmartNation initiative, SkillsFuture portal was developed to provide Singaporeans with the opportunities to develop their fullest potential throughout life, regardless of their starting points and now equip people with workplace-ready ICT skills. There are also plans to introduce enrichment programmes like CODE@SG aimed at encouraging coding and computational thinking from an early age to students so that they can contribute to Singapore’s national capability. The joint venture by IDA and MOE, Code for Fun, Enrichment Programme is offered to all primary and secondary schools to increase student’s exposure to coding and computational thinking. Under this programme the fees for student’s training and purchase of education kits are heavily subsidized by IDA i.e. up to 70% for students training and 50% for education kits.
Though the geography and governing styles are completely different for New Zealand and Singapore but there are definitely some lessons that we can learn from Singapore’s constantly adapting and improving education system to facilitate change in the mind set of students, educators and parents. There needs to be better shift towards supporting ICT as moving forward digital globalization will play a major role in country’s economy. Key elements of Singapore’s Education system are described below:
• Alignment of the education system to economic development goals
The strong link between education and economic development in Singapore has kept investment in education a central priority, made education policies highly pragmatic, led to high-quality mathematics and science and also to world-class vocational/technical education — an area where most countries fail.
• Coherence of the education system
Leaders with a bold long-term vision of the role of education in the society and economy are necessary for creating educational excellence. Generally there is a huge gap between policies and their implementation at the school level. In Singapore, whenever a policy is developed great attention is placed on the details of implementation from the MOE, NIE and other educators.
• Training teachers and principals
Singapore has put great emphasis on obtaining high-quality teachers and professors who could meet its ambitions of world-class education. Singapore introduced the GROW package, particularly to promote teacher Growth, Recognition, Opportunity and Well-Being. National Institute of Education (NIE) is the national teacher training institute in Singapore. At the institutional level, both policy coherence and implementation consistency are brought about by the very close tripartite relationship between the Ministry of Education, the NIE and the schools. Recently, NIE revamped its teacher education model to produce teachers who themselves have such 21st century literacy.
• Strong central capacity and authority to act
The MOE in Singapore is housed by knowledgeable and practical individuals who are themselves qualified at some of the best universities in the world. They work together in regularly assessing what is and isn’t working using both data and practitioner experience.
• Accountability Singapore runs on performance management.
Utmost importance is given to the performance of teachers, principals and professors. Annual goals are set for them and any kind of support needed to meet them is provided. Student performance and contribution to school and community are also monitored. High performing individuals or schools are always rewarded and recognized with honors and salary bonuses.
• Use of proven international best-practices
Use of international bench-marking in education has enabled Singapore to recognizes the rapidity of change around the world and develop world class universities in a very small time.
• Collaboration with top global universities
There has been an increase in foreign university qualifications that can be awarded in Singapore over the past few years. For example top universities like INSEAD, James Cook Australia Institute of High Learning, Rutgers Business School Asia, SP Jain college of management, UCLA Andersun-NUS, Yale-NUS either have campuses or collaboration with local universities.
With the focus increasing on Digital Globalization and ICT, New Zealand need to bring forth reforms in education sector to sustain and develop high-quality engineers in the country. This blog is in continuation to my first blog “Digital Globalization: Lessons New Zealand can learn from Singapore’s SmartNation initiative”. In this blog my intent was to share some ideas that can drive improvement in education system to move New Zealand closer towards Digital Globalization. Next I will be covering cyber security. Do share in your comments regarding improvements that can be made in education to make contribution to ICT in a meaningful way. On that note I will conclude the post with a quote from Nelson Mandela.
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”
