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This paper explores the potential consequences of the Higher Education Sprout Project (hesp) announced by the Ministry of Education (moe) in March 2018. In the fast-changing global arena of higher education, the Taiwanese government is striving for excellence in the performance of its higher education. Together with other East Asian countries like Japan, Korea, and Singapore, Taiwan officially entered the competition of global university ranking in 2006 when the government initiated the first round of the Aim for Top University Project (atup). After two five-year atup rounds, moe reviewed the results and started to revise the policy. Consequently, hesp was proposed and implemented. In this paper, we explicate the context of changing higher education landscape in Taiwan since 1994, the year the most recent education reform started. The discussion then moves to the issues emerging from the nationwide atup project. During the ten years of atup, most Taiwanese universities were influenced by the directions the project established. However, there has been criticism of atup and its outcome was severely in question. After reviewing the atup, the hesp came out in 2018. We analyse the policy as well as address its potential influences on universities in Taiwan.

The emergence of new media technologies has empowered individuals to not merely consume but also create, share and critique media contents. Such activities are dependent on new media literacy (NML)...

While benefits of using computer simulations in teaching and learning are well documented, actual classroom usage remains sporadic. It is acknowledged in the literature that greater embrace of general computer use can be developed when teachers hold positive attitudes towards it. However, to date, studies that investigate teacher attitudes specifically on computer simulations are limited. In this study, the researchers interviewed 14 secondary school science teachers in Singapore, to qualitatively unpack the nuances of the affective, behavioral and cognitive dimensions of teacher attitudes towards computer simulation. Through inductive thematic analysis, the study found the cognitive dimension is the most pronounced and is mediated by perceived usefulness and usability of the tool, student engagement and suitability and teacher professional needs. The authors suggest four ways to foster positive teacher attitudes: (a) overcoming logistical issues with flexible teaching and learning environments, (b) foregrounding the pedagogy of student-centeredness, (c) demanding user-friendly simulation tools, and (d) meeting teachers’ needs for professional growth.

The rapid development of mobile technology have proliferated new media to most aspects of our daily life. This new way of consuming and creating information is in particular attractive to youths as a platform and space for activities not passible in the face-to-face context. This highlights the importance for educators and policy makers to understand where our youths are in terms of their capabilities to participate in the new media ecology. This capability can be conceptualized as new media literacy (NML) that has been theorized into four quadrants with ten fine-tuned indicators. However, existing instruments have yet to explore the prosuming aspect of NML. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop an instrument to measure youth's NML. This paper reports the development and validation of this instrument. This instrument can be used for further studies, contributing to theory building of NML and assessing students' NML for informing practice in schools. Data were collected from 574 Singapore students range from grade 4 to grade 11 (age 10-17). Results suggest that the instrument is reliable and valid. We developed and validated a survey for assessing students' New Media Literacy.We developed a two-dimensional framework for indicators in prosuming literacies.We shared how some of the challenges in developing the instrument were minimized.

This paper discusses the representation of information literacy and media literacy in the Singapore education discourse as part of its twenty-first century competencies framework. Through examining the conceptual definitions, purposes/aims, and means of these two significant twenty-first century competencies in the global context and the Singapore education policy, the authors argue that despite both information literacy and media literacy have been widely recognized as crucial skills in the knowledge-based economy, they are perceived as separate concepts, given differentiated emphasis, and implemented using similar approaches by various governmental and educational agencies in Singapore. To facilitate the acquisition of these critical competencies, this paper argues that an overarching framework featuring the seamless integration of information and media literacy in school curricula and public education needs to be in place to clarify conceptual concerns and guide its practical implementation.

It has been nearly two decades since the education reform movement initiated in Taiwan in 1994. As a consequence of the lift of martial law, this wave of education reform exceeds previous reforms in terms of scale, initiatives, and impacts. Although the performance of Taiwanese students has been in the leading group of various international rankings, the call for an education system that can cater various needs of students rather than focusing on academic achievement has been recurring in the public debate in Taiwan. How to maintain the existing performance and provide opportunities for students with different talents becomes the center of education reform. This paper aims at exploring the path of education reform in Taiwan with a focus on the shifting paradigm of education since 1994. Two aspects including teacher education and curriculum are discussed. We firstly introduce the social context of the recent education reform movement and then explicate the major trends of education reform and various key initiatives. In the third part of this paper, we map out the trajectory of policies, changes, and implementations in the above-mentioned aspects during education reform with the emerging issues, challenges, and future directions. This paper offers international readers insights on how a well-performed education system attempts to improve itself within a complicated and fast-changing social and political context. We argue that unsuccessful reform attempts might provide more lessons than those successful ones. This paper is based on the discussion of two unsuccessful attempts made by the Ministry of Education to reveal the bumping reforming process in Taiwan.

The inception of the “Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” policy initiative in 1997 was a precursor to a myriad of rapid, wide-ranging and deep-changing education reforms in Singapore. This policy initiative received a further boost with the introduction of another major policy initiative, coined Teach Less, Learn More in 2005, which saw further comprehensive reforms in education. In the context of Teach Less, Learn More, schools are expected to satisfy the needs of multiple school stakeholders, namely policy makers, parents and community members. The challenge for school leaders and teachers is to provide appropriate educational curricula that satisfy these needs. School leaders are to mobilise and optimise physical and human resources towards shared organisational goals pertaining to the development of relevant school curricula in increasingly complex educational contexts – within and outside schools. It is therefore understandable that contemporary school leaders have to use more time and energy in managing these increasingly fluid and cross-boundary relationships. It is thus not surprising that school leaders resort to distributed leadership, where leadership decisions are delegated and shared with other staff members beyond the purview of school principals.

PurposeThe concept of “servant leadership” becomes increasingly relevant in organizations while the “authoritative leadership” style continues to be in place as one of the effective styles. The purpose of this paper is to explore which leadership style is perceived a preferred one in the public sector in Singapore. Empirical data come from a survey with school leaders in several school clusters in Singapore, with instruments designed by the researchers.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is written up on the data drawn from the authors' research project. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis approaches were applied to analyzing the preference between “Servant leadership” and “Authoritative leadership” styles.FindingsIt was found in the study that servant leadership is more acceptable than authoritative leadership and that servant leadership is more effective because it reflects a better use of leaders' power. The findings are displayed in this paper to demonstrate comparisons in the acceptability of servant and authoritative styles.Practical implicationsThe paper demonstrates the perceptions of organizational members towards the leadership styles with positive impact on their professional life. Drawing on the insights from the analyses, the paper provides organizational leaders with insights on the relevance and effectiveness of their leadership styles.Originality/valueThe paper is original and is the product of empirical research, with instruments designed by the researchers.

Background: Compared with the traditional ways of gaining health-related information from newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, the Internet is inexpensive, accessible, and conveys diverse opinions. Several studies on how increasing Internet use affected outpatient clinic visits were inconclusive. Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the role of Internet use on ambulatory care-seeking behaviors as indicated by the number of outpatient clinic visits after adjusting for confounding variables. Methods: We conducted this study using a sample randomly selected from the general population in Taiwan. To handle the missing data, we built a multivariate logistic regression model for propensity score matching using age and sex as the independent variables. The questionnaires with no missing data were then included in a multivariate linear regression model for examining the association between Internet use and outpatient clinic visits. Results: We included a sample of 293 participants who answered the questionnaire with no missing data in the multivariate linear regression model. We found that Internet use was significantly associated with more outpatient clinic visits (P=.04). The participants with chronic diseases tended to make more outpatient clinic visits (P

The advent of new media has drastically changed the mode of communication and information dissemination among people. Communication and information are two key elements that constitute learning, regardless of whether one views learning as knowledge acquisition, meaningful participation within a community, or knowledge creation (Paavola et al. 2004). Consequently, many educators are advocating revolutionary changes in teaching and learning supported by new media and emerging technologies. For example, the TE21 report that illustrates a twenty-first-century model of teacher education as articulated by the National Institute of Education (NIE) Singapore emphasizes much on the impact of new media on learning and teacher education (NIE 2009). Thomas and Brown’s (2011) depiction of the new culture of learning that emerged from self-motivated teenagers afforded by new media also creates challenges to the traditional notion of education that emphasizes structured curriculum to be delivered to students. In short, current and emerging technologies are creating new learning spaces that defy many assumptions of the traditional education practices.

Preface Carl A. Grant and Agostino Portera Acknowledgments Introduction 1. A Global Invitation: Toward the Expansion of Dialogue, Reflection, and Creative Engagement on Intercultural and Multicultural Education Carl A. Grant and Stefan Brueck 2. Intercultural and Multicultural Education: Epistemological and Semantic Aspects Agostino Portera Intercultural Education 3. The Intercultural Perspective and its Development through Cooperation with the Council of Europe Micheline Rey-von Allmen 4. Comments on Intercultural Education in German Guidelines and Curricula Cristina Allemann-Ghionda 5. Intercultural Education in Post-Communist Countries Krystyna M. Bleszynska 6. Cross-Cultural Education in Greece: History and Prospects Soula Mitakidou 7. Intercultural Education: The Theory Deficit and the World Crisis David Coulby 8. Intercultural Education in Japan: Foreign Children and Their Education Maki Shibuya 9. Becoming American: Intercultural Education and European Immigrants Cherry A. McGee Banks 10. Philosophical and Historical Foundations of Intercultural Education in Mexico Fernanda Pineda and Hilary Landorf Multicultural Education 11. The Development of Multicultural Education in Taiwan: Overview and Reflection Meihui Liu and Tzu-Bin Lin 12. Ethnicity and the State of Multiculturalism in the Malaysian Education System Hazri Jamil and Hairul Nizam Ismail 13. Multicultural Education in a Color-blind Society Carl E. James 14. Multiculturalism in South Africa: In the Shadow of the Rainbow Dennis Francis and Crispin Hemson 15. Cultural Transformation of Educational Discourse in China: Perspectives of Multiculturalism/Interculturalism Zongjie Wu and Chunyan Han 16. The Politics of Inclusion and the Search for the "Other": The International Education Policies and the Politics of "Difference" in Pakistan Ayesha Khurshid Intercultural and Multicultural Education 17. Multiculturalism in the Nordic Countries Johanna Lasonen 18. Multicultural and Intercultural Education in Spain Teresa Aguado and Beatriz Malik 19. Citizenship and Intercultural Education in an International and Comparative Context Jagdish S. Gundara 20. Moving from Multicultural to Intercultural Education in Australian Higher Education Valerie A. Clifford 21. Interculturalism, Multiculturalism, and Diversity as Social and Educational Policies in Chile, 1990-2008 Carmen Montecinos and Guillermo Williamson Contributors. Index.