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This paper analyzes stakeholder engagement in educational policymaking in Singapore and Finland, two countries renowned for successful education systems. While both countries achieve high academic standards, they employ distinct approaches to engage stakeholders in shaping educational policies. Singapore adopts a centralized model where policymaking is primarily directed by the Ministry of Education (MOE), with limited participation from external stakeholders. In contrast, Finland adopts a decentralized approach, empowering local authorities and schools with significant autonomy and actively involving stakeholders in policymaking. Key stakeholders, including teachers, parents, students and the private sector, play different roles in each country's education governance. In Singapore, stakeholders are consulted through formal channels but have limited influence on decision-making, whereas, in Finland, stakeholders actively steer fundamental policy directions through extensive participation and consensus-building. The paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and their impacts on education outcomes. Despite differences in governance models, both countries prioritize inclusive education, social cohesion, and holistic development. The analysis underscores the importance of meaningful stakeholder engagement in crafting effective education policies that align with national values and visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The three neighbouring nations of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore participated in the 2009, 2012 and 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) cycles. Despite many similarities between the three nations, Singapore has consistently been a top PISA performer, with Malaysia and Indonesia in the bottom third of the international league tables. This paper aims to sketch the comparative Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) context and uses PISA-derived metrics to contrast how differences in decision-making and school leadership, particularly in relation to staff development and training practices, may impact school performance across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Design/methodology/approach: Ten scales from the 2015 PISA School Questionnaire for Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia were analysed using ANOVA and t-tests as an aid to exploring the extent to which different approaches to teacher training, school leadership and governance may impact student performance. Findings: Although Malaysian and Indonesian school principals report higher levels of autonomy than Singaporean peers, other evidence suggests that schools in Singapore may actually have greater decision latitude. Most significantly, Singaporean teachers take responsibility for key staff development decisions and skills transfer, whereas in Indonesia and Malaysia, teacher training is controlled by government administrators, a factor that may be a critical differentiator between the school systems. Practical implications: In Singapore, teacher training is controlled by and for teachers through professional learning teams within schools and professional learning communities across schools; in Malaysia and Indonesia, similar decisions are taken by external administrators. Giving Malaysian and Indonesian teachers control over their own training could be a simple and powerful reform to target skills gaps and to generalise improvements in pedagogy quickly across schools and thus to lift school performance in these countries. Originality/value: This paper highlights how differences at systemic and school levels, particularly in approaches to teacher training and leadership and may explain differentials in school performance in three ASEAN education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Singapore's bilingual education policy mandates children study English and a mother-tongue in school. To understand the language shift from Malay to English in Malay homes from the perspective of family language policy, this paper reports on the diverse language ideologies and practices of three Singaporean Malay mothers of preschool children. The in-depth interviews were conducted in 2013- 2014 and transcribed verbatim by a bilingual English-Malay transcriptionist. Although the mothers were of similar ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, their home language practices were distinctly different. Their language practices reflected the beliefs, values, and feelings they ascribed to Malay, English, and Mandarin, languages their preschool-age children were exposed to as well as their ideas about language development and bilingualism in Singapore. While subscribing to some state bilingual education policy assumptions, mothers actively formed different family language policies to resist the state bilingual policy, shield their children from academic pressure, and carve out a unique Malay identity. Major forces such as Malay as a minority, language and social mobility, and English ownership, in addition to state bilingual policy and education system, were discussed in connection to mothers' family language policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A general shift towards competency-based curricula has meant that, for quite some time, skills including critical thinking have been central considerations in educational policy reform internationally. However, what happens at the policy level is only one aspect of change: gaining a deep understanding of how new curricula are approached and interpreted in practice, at the classroom level, is crucial. This study sought to explore connections between policy, practice and professional learning in the context of a critical thinking policy. The aim was to investigate teachers' perspectives to address the following research questions: What are teachers' perceptions and knowledge base of critical thinking? And how, and to what extent, do teachers incorporate critical thinking into their classroom practices? The study employed a collective case study approach. Participants were a sample of six teachers (three beginning and three experienced teachers) in Singapore. Data collection involved teacher interviews, lesson observations and the gathering of students' work. The data were analysed qualitatively. Through in-depth analysis of data, four major themes emerged, which characterised the teachers' perceptions, knowledge and classroom practices of critical thinking in relation to the policy context: (i) gaps in teacher knowledge; (ii) contextual factors shaping teacher knowledge; (iii) teacher knowledge shaping practice; and (iv) contextual factors shaping practice. This study offers, from the perspectives of teachers, insight into the connections between policy, teacher practice and professional learning, and points to systemic and contextual factors that can represent barriers and enablers to the enactment of a critical thinking policy. More broadly, it deepens the understanding of factors that may shape policy enactment at the classroom level, highlighting the crucial role played by teacher knowledge in effecting educational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper reviews the regulatory framework that the Singapore government has put in place since 2009 to improve the standard of governance of private education institutions (PEIs) in Singapore. It recommends a shift in focus, from procedure to product, to give greater assurance to students that the qualifications attained with the PEIs are valued by the hiring companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The educational policies of the Singapore government are driven by the needs of a modern knowledge-based society and economic development, with the state advocating modernity while the Muslim minority, arguably, appeared to be caught in tradition and holding on to "old fashioned" education. However, whether the new attempts at modernizing madrasah education driven by the state will succeed remains to be seen, as earlier attempts of reformation driven by the Muslim community, or parts thereof, have been rather unsuccessful. This paper analyses the discourse between tradition and modernity of Islamic religious education in Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Singapore, a small island city-state, has achieved notable economic advancement within 40 years since independence. It is fast becoming a global city and a knowledge society. In education and training, the Singapore system has evolved from its British roots. Macro performance indicators of participation rate, literacy rate and mean years of schooling, show that the current education system can be regarded as highly successful. The contributions of general education as well as technical education and training to the overall success of the nation are often cited. Technical education and training, which is globally perceived as having a lower status than "academic" curricula, has largely overcome its "image" problem in Singapore. Singaporeans have seemingly embraced technical education and training as an accessible, attractive mode of education, which therefore enjoys a high participation rate. The success and quality of technical education and training were affirmed when its main provider, the Institute of Technical Education, became the first educational institution in Singapore to win the Singapore Quality Award in October 2005. This paper provides a review of the contemporary education system and curriculum in Singapore with a focus on technical education and training vis-à-vis a vision of education and training in and for postmodern knowledge societies. Suggestions are made on how the technical education and training sector in Singapore can further develop and thrive in the 21st century, while continuing to be accessible and of high quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we explore the extent to which diversity of educational levels among research scientists and engineers (RSEs) in the context of a firm's level of technological diversity influences innovation performance. We used data from the 2004-2008 National R&D Survey in Singapore. The results from 366 firms across different industries indicate that when a firm's technological domains are heterogeneous, those firms with an RSE workforce comprising similar educational levels have positive innovation performance, measured as the number of patent applications, while those comprising diverse educational levels have negative innovation performance. Our further exploration of the positive interaction between technological domain heterogeneity and similarity of educational levels suggests that firms that had a high ratio of RSEs with lower educational levels had more positive patent outcomes compared to those that had a high ratio of RSEs with higher educational levels. The results show that there are limits to the strength of technological diversity in a firm's absorptive capacity as explained by organizational demography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States commonly employ education policy to build a strong sense of citizenship within young people and to create types of citizens appropriate to the country. In Singapore the government created a policy to build citizenship through both policy statements and social studies in the school curriculum. In the context of a tightly controlled state regulating schooling through a highly controlled educational system, the government expected teachers to obey these policy documents, political statements and the prescribed curriculum. What do teachers understand about citizenship in this context? In schools do teachers demonstrate independence of thought on citizenship education or do they acquiesce to government policy? This article reports on a small group of social studies teachers’ understandings of citizenship, and explores the nature of these understandings in the context of government policy. The study showed an unexpected diversity of conceptualization amongst Singaporean teachers with their understandings of citizenship located in four themes, namely a sense of identity, rights and responsibilities, participation, and national history. This response was unintended by government and reflects an independence of citizenship education landscape in schools, despite the tight policy and bureaucratic controls over teachers by the Singapore state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Singapore underwent decolonization after World War II, its government—keen on constructing a Singapore‐centered identity—sought to replace Chinese schools, which taught a China‐centered worldview. This attempt provoked tough resistance from the local Chinese. Succumbing to this pressure, the ruling regime accommodated Chinese schools as part of the state education system. Afterward, the authorities, eager to make sure the now‐incorporated Chinese institutions would not unleash symbolic effects detrimental to their position, endeavored to transform the curriculum of Chinese schools into a locally centered one. This attempt, however, failed, because the state was unable to curb influences from non‐local pedagogic agents and, without a strong indigenous intellectual tradition, the Singapore authorities found it difficult to produce a genuinely local curriculum. This historical case suggests that we should consider the incorporation and remaking of subordinated culture as two distinct processes of hegemonic strategies necessitating analytical distinction. It also urges us to differentiate conceptually the institutional and symbolic dimensions of culture when using a theory of hegemony to examine education and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After World War II, Chinese residents of Singapore demanded the establishment of local Chinese universities. The ruling regime, however, which was under the shadow of the neighboring Malay-dominated Malay Peninsula, was forced to suppress the development of such schools. In Hong Kong, the British needed to install a Chinese university to counter Beijing's and Taiwan's campaigns for recruiting students from the colony. As Hong Kong was a monoracial Chinese society, the government, not having to worry about the reaction of other indigenous groups, met this challenge by founding a fully recognized Chinese university. This research demonstrates that under diverse backgrounds of racial politics, state authorities have unequal latitudes to accommodate the educational institutions of subordinated racial groups. It also reveals that state education policies in small and dependent settings, unlike those in big and sovereign nations, are more susceptible to pressures from external powers and influences from the metropolis. These findings urge scholars to pay more attention to the factor of race and use comparative methods when employing the theories of state and hegemony to investigate education and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines pedagogic reform in Singapore from 1945 to 1965. Definition of state formation and education; Description of Basil Bernstein's concept of pedagogic device and its implications for a more nuanced theory of state formation; Formulation of Bernstein's theory out of the contexts of Great Britain and Western Europe.

This article focuses on the joint attempt by the Singapore Government and the minority Malay Community during the decade from 1982 to 1992, primarily through the formation of Mendaki (the Council on Education for Muslim Children), to tackle the problem of Malay educational underachievement. It analyzes the complex interplay of social, economic and political factors that led to the formation of Mendaki. The strategies adopted by Mendaki to improve Malay educational achievement will also be examined, along with the problems it encountered, in particular with regard to its legitimacy among the Malay community. A major theme running through the article is that the issue of Malay educational underachievement is closely related to, and cannot be considered in isolation from, wider political, social and economic trends pertaining to the problems of interethnic harmony in a multiethnic society . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]