Search

Hong Kong and Singapore are island city-states that exude the complicated tensions of postcolonial nationalism. Both are influenced directly or indirectly by the long shadow of China's rising nationalism and geopolitical power and, in the case of Hong Kong, subject to Beijing's edicts under the terms of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Both have productive economies dependent on global trade, and each has similar rates of population density--Hong Kong's population is 7.4 million and Singapore is home to 5.8 million people. It remains to be seen whether Hong Kong's peripheral nationalist identity will be retained, or whether the increasingly assertive influence and control by mainland China will prevail and fully assimilate Hong Kong. But it is apparent that Hong Kong is at a turning point. Throughout 2019, protesters filled the streets of the city, worried about declining civil liberties, specifically Beijing's refusal to provide universal suffrage as promised previously in law and the disqualification of prodemocracy candidates, along with the growing control of Hong Kong's government and universities by Chinese central government designates and fears of an ever-expanding crackdown on dissent. Singapore provides a less dramatic but relevant example of the tension caused by the influx of foreign national students and academics who often displace native citizens, combined with government-enforced efforts to control dissent in universities. And like Hong Kong, the long shadow of China influences the role universities are allowed to play in civil society. The following is an excerpt from the book "Neo-Nationalism and Universities: Populists, Autocrats and the Future of Higher Education" (Johns Hopkins University Press) that explores the implications of nationalist movements on universities in Hong Kong and Singapore. In both, university leaders, and their academic communities, value academic freedom and the idea of independent scholarship. Yet the political environment is severe enough, and the opportunity costs great enough, that they, thus far, remain generally neutral institutions in a debate over civil liberties and the future of their island states. The exception is the key role students have played in the protest movement in Hong Kong, but for how long?

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the first to assess consistency of results by agency. We find results vary by agent, but consistent with Flynn effects, gains are larger in math than reading, except for the most recent period. Non-whites progress at a faster pace. Socio-economically disadvantaged white, black, and Hispanic students make greater progress when tested in elementary school, but that advantage attenuates and reverses itself as students age. We discuss potential moderators.

While more women than ever now participate in the paid workforce, it still can be hard to find women in top leadership positions. To understand why so few women are in top leadership positions, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) set out to understand what factors help women achieve leadership positions, what factors prevent it, and how organizations could add more women to their leadership ranks. In this paper, the authors raise five key questions that women should reflect on as they consider their ambitions. They summarize five key lessons that came up repeatedly in conversations with women leaders who had worked their way into leadership positions. The authors also discuss some of the changes organizations can make to increase the number of women leaders. These include policies and changes in organizational culture. Research was conducted two phases. First, the authors surveyed 204 women leaders from Singapore, Australia, India, and Korea. The authors gave them a list of reasons that might contribute to the lack of women in leadership positions and asked them to select up to five items they most agreed with and five they most disagreed with. In phase two, the authors conducted 27 face-to-face interviews with women leaders working in Singapore. Women told their personal leadership stories, shared their perspective on women leaders' career enablers and blockers, and also completed the phase 1 survey. The authors learned that there is no single reason or simple solution. Increasing the number of women in leadership positions will require aspiring women leaders to develop themselves professionally and, in some cases, adopt new behaviors. But the organizational context that women work within is also important.

The digital revolution and automation are accelerating changes in the labour market and in workplace skills, changes that are further affected by fluctuations in international and regional economic cycles and employment opportunity. These factors pose a universal policy challenge for all advanced economies and governments. In the workplace, people seek to acquire contemporary and relevant skills to gain employment and retain transferable skills to maintain employment. The central purpose of this paper is to investigate how other nations or regions are dealing with these issues. What approaches are they taking to understanding the mix and dynamics of the skills attained by individuals and, more broadly, the totality of skills that in aggregate constitute a highly capable and adaptable labour force, one that supports firm viability and greater national productivity. This research has examined a range of initiatives and approaches being developed or in use in selected countries, including the United States, Singapore and New Zealand, and agencies/organisations; for example, the European Commission and the Skills for the Information Age Foundation. In doing so, it showcases the good practices used to ensure that occupational-level skills information remains current and widely accessible. [For "Identifying Work Skills: International Case Summaries. Support Document," see ED579875.]

Countries consider curriculum reform as an important and necessary measure to make schools enter the 21st century and respond to a fast-changing world. In recent years, many OECD countries have engaged in curriculum reform as a way to equip children with the knowledge, skills and competences needed for tomorrow. However, how to initiate such change in the most suitable and effective way remains somewhat challenging. In other words, there is a missing step between the intention, and the realisation of this curriculum renewal, crystallising what has been coined in the literature "the implementation gap". This paper analyses the curriculum reform literature through the lens of the OECD proposed implementation framework that promotes, among others, inclusive stakeholder engagement. Curriculum reform has indeed long been considered from a "top-down" perspective, but has progressively shifted towards a more "bottom-up" approach, emphasising the central role of teachers in the process. The analysis is enriched with successful practices and examples from different countries, and concludes with a specific resource for countries to make the lessons learned actionable through the planning of a coherent curriculum implementation strategy.

Are teachers and principals aligned in their perceptions of the core components of the theory of Leadership for Learning across countries, or are there subgroups of schools in which there is misalignment? The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which a congruency-typology model of leadership for learning is distributed across countries/economies using the TALIS 2018 dataset through examining the interaction of significantly different subgroups of teacher and principal responders through using multilevel latent class analysis (LCA) with a cross-level interaction. I analyse data from lower secondary schools of n=152 635 teachers in 9 079 schools and their principals across 47 countries/economies. Currently in the research literature on school leadership, leadership for learning has emerged as a framework to bring together managerial, transformational, distributed, and instructional leadership. Yet little is known about leadership for learning across national contexts. This study 1) maps the TALIS 2018 survey items to the current literature and surveys for leadership for learning, 2) then details the methods and analysis framework to examine if there are multiple significantly different types of teachers, principals, and schools from a leadership for learning theory framework. The final model 3) identifies a three-group teacher typology and a three-group principal typology, linking these types to school context, covariates, as well as teacher and principal training and experience. Results relate directly to the intersection of research, policy, and practice for training and capacity of school leaders across 47 countries/economies globally.

This paper explores the impact of test-taking conditions on the quality of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) assessment. Interviewers record information about the room of assessment and interruptions that occurred during each interview. These observations, along with information on interviewer assignment size and a careful look at interviewer effects, provide insights into the quality of the assessment. This working paper first describes the variations in test-taking conditions among participating countries. Second, it examines interviewer assignment sizes and the frequency of interruptions, finding that both vary markedly among countries (contrary to the room of assessment). The paper then looks at the relationship between these variations and response rates and engagement measures. While neither the room of assessment nor the recorded interruptions impact quality differences among countries, interviewer assignment size and interviewer effects may have a mild impact on results.

Set against the backdrop of increasing economic interdependence in East Asia, the idea of regional integration is now being discussed as a long-term political process in the region. As in the field of the international economy, de facto integration and interdependence exist with respect to the internationalization of the higher education system in East Asia. Based on the results of a comprehensive Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute (JICA-RI) survey of 300 leading higher education institutions active in cross-border higher education, located in ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member Southeast Asian countries and three Northeast Asian countries (China, Japan, and Korea), this paper examines universities perceptions of the degree of cross-border activities, the significance of their expected outcomes, and their regional preferences for partners. The objective is to envision a direction for a future regional higher education framework in East Asia and to consider the policy implications of the internationalization of higher education in East Asia in the context of regionalization. The findings related to the degree of cross-border activities suggest a current perception that there is more prominent in conventional than in innovative activities, but that innovation will rise considerably in the future. With respect to the significance of expected outcomes,academic and political expected outcome are perceived to be more significant than economic expected outcome, which are nevertheless expected to be more significant in the future. Finally, in terms of their preferred regions of partners, universities in East Asia overall place a high priority on building partnerships within their own region. Yet, among Northeast Asian universities, North America is perceived as the most active partner. (Contains 3 figures, 21 tables, and 13 footnotes.) [This paper was prepared as part of a Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute (JICA-RI) research project titled, "Cross-border Higher Education for Regional Integration and the Labor Market in East Asia."]

This paper reviews evidence on the interplay between professional standards for teachers, the content of teacher education and educational sciences, and provides three case studies to illustrate these interactions from Estonia, Australia and Singapore. In particular, it investigates what aligning teacher education programmes to standards really mean; and what conception of educational sciences is reflected in the standards and the curriculum. Analyses suggest that alignment, as an explicit, direct and consistent correspondence, is difficult to achieve, in part due to different conceptualisations of professional knowledge. However, this paper argues that the main value of standards as policy tools lies in their capacity to create mutual dialogue between different artefacts (standards' requirements, curriculum, course descriptions, accreditation standards, etc.), as well as among stakeholders. Regularly renegotiating the standards as a result of such dialogue and reflections should be a crucial part of the policy process.

Teacher selection, retention, and evaluation form a contentious policy knot. This paper: (1) reviews the recent history of teacher labor markets; (2) describes the teacher selection, preparation and retention policies of three countries that successfully reformed their systems; (3) proposes a different theoretical guide; and (4) reviews key teacher survey data and a large, current experiment in teacher evaluation. Based on this evidence, it then proposes a more promising experiment in teacher selection, preparation, and assignment. This proposed experiment offers an opportunity to overcome some cultural and institutional character flaws. It would systematically select, train, and place our most capable teachers with our highest-need children and families. It deliberately limits turnover and limits costs in several ways.

The paper examines between-country differences in the mechanisms through which education could promote generalised trust using data from 29 countries participating in the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Results indicate that education is strongly associated with generalised trust and that a large part of this association is mediated by individuals' literacy skills, income and occupational prestige. However, education gradients in levels of generalised trust and in the extent to which they are due to social stratification mechanisms or cognitive skills mechanisms vary across countries. Differences across countries in birthplace diversity and income inequality are correlated with how strongly education is associated with trust in different countries, as well as in the relative magnitude of direct and indirect associations. In particular, the relationship between literacy skills and generalised trust is stronger in the presence of greater birthplace diversity but is weaker in the presence of greater income inequality.

This paper focuses teachers' images of their own computer-integrated teaching: the way the teaching process is structured by teachers' relationships with computer technology and how this relationship defines their work and their thoughts, voices, and experiences. It also examines how teachers themselves comprehend and convey their roles and thus search for a new paradigm of opportunities that encompass these roles. Image is proposed in this study as a construct to understand teachers' particularistic knowledge in the context of teaching with computer technology. This study incorporates the utilization of teachers' metaphors as a tool to investigate teachers' images of computer-assisted instruction. Data were collected in three steps. Teachers were instructed to write down personally constructed metaphors in the form of explicit metaphorical statements. This was followed by their creation of narratives of selected metaphorical statements. The last step involved the teachers' derivation of metaphors for the statements. Findings indicate that these underlying images are significant and should be embraced by technology trainers and teacher educators to help better prepare teachers for using technology in instruction. Contains 35 references. (AEF)

We assess the relationship between general literacy skills and health status by analysing data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), an international survey of about 250,000 adults aged 16-65 years conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2011-15 in 33 countries/national sub-regions. Across countries, there seems to be a strong and consistent association between general literacy proficiency and self-rated poor health, independent of prior socio-economic status and income. General literacy proficiency also appears to be a mediator of the association between self-education and self-rated poor health. While the literacy-health association is robust over time, it varies in magnitude across countries. It is strongest for those with a tertiary or higher degree and does not appear to exist among young adults (ages 25 to 34 years). Future studies are required to understand the contextual factors that modify the general literacy proficiency-health association.

This study examined the role of faculty participation on strategic change within higher education. An open-ended questionnaire was completed by seven individuals from Singapore and the United States who had had experience with higher education strategic planning and change as both faculty and administrators in Australia, Canada, Singapore, and the United States. It was found that all of the respondents agreed on the necessity of involving stakeholders, particularly the faculty, in strategic change. Many also pointed to the difficulty of getting quality participation from faculty, due to the fact that faculty often have a narrow perspective, that faculty participation involves a large commitment of time, and that faculty are often reluctant to address complex issues or problems. Respondents emphasized the negative impact of overly hierarchical and bureaucratic organizational structures, which were more typical in Singapore than elsewhere. The comments also emphasized the impact that organizational culture, planning processes, reward structures, and institutional mission can have on faculty participation in strategic change. Suggestions for encouraging and improving faculty participation were also offered. (Contains 32 references.) (MDM)

This paper examines how particular teaching and learning strategies are related to student performance on specific PISA test questions, particularly mathematics questions. The report compares teacher-directed instruction and memorisation learning strategies, at the traditional ends of the teaching and learning spectrums, and student-oriented instruction and elaboration learning strategies, at the opposite ends. Other teaching strategies, such as formative assessment and cognitive activation, and learning approaches, such as control strategies, are also analysed. Our analyses suggest that to perform at the top, students cannot rely on memory alone; they need to approach mathematics strategically and creatively to succeed in the most complex problems. There is also some evidence that most teaching strategies have a role to play in the classroom. To varying degrees, students need to learn from teachers, be informed about their progress and work independently and collaboratively; above all, they need to be constantly challenged. The following are appended: (1) Mathematics Items in PISA 2012; and (2) Explaining Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed-Effects. (Individual chapters contain references.)

Recent educational reforms in Singapore have essentially been motivated by economic and industrial concerns. Six specific training policies and practices are being implemented to respond to the perceived requirements of new work technologies: (1) development of an increasingly flexible training system, including introduction of a dual system; (2) reorganization of the supply of vocational training by reducing the supply of training as more students go to the polytechnics and as workplace apprenticeship replaces training; provision of most training at the postsecondary level, and absorbing excess faculty; (3) retraining of older workers to increase the aggregate level of qualified workers and to avoid unemployment; (4) provision of basic skills training in the workplace; (5) creation and use of vocational training institutions that provide training in the organizational habits, culture, language, and working styles of potential multinational investors; and (6) training for new occupations through multiskilling. Rapid technological change requires more technical education--but a technical education based on a higher, not a lower or watered-down level of academic preparation. The crux of the matter is that no amount of pre-service education or training will suffice to deal with the changing needs of the workplace brought about by technological development. Signs of the merging of education and training are the expanding catalogues of continuing education courses and provision of technical services to industries by training institutions which are discovering that in order to teach they may also have to learn. Firms in Singapore have been recruiting all graduates of the education and training system, but some still invest in training. They have also discovered that organizational learning through participation of all those involved in production is a condition for survival. (Contains 10 references.) (YLB)

This paper provides an overview of the available information concerning selected policy instruments intended to promote employer-provided training, including the stated rationale and objectives, the target groups and operational design as well as a at a summary of the evaluative evidence regarding their operation. The analysis focuses on policy instruments providing financial assistance or incentives, specifically, subsidies (including tax incentives and grants) and levy schemes that devote a least some share of their resources to continuing training. Training leave regulations are considered only to the extent that they can be treated as a form of subsidy or a levy scheme, depending on the main financing mechanism involved. Instruments that focus solely on improving the quality of training or enhancing transparency in the training market are not addressed. In addition to offering a description of different instruments, the paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses (or risks and opportunities, respectively) of different types of instrument or particular elements of instrument design. It also specifies principles of successful instrument design that have been put forth in the literature and concludes with some remarks regarding the choice of policies. Training funds in combination with levy schemes in OECD and non-OECD countries are appended. Individual sections contain endnotes. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

A collection of papers presented at a seminar conducted at the Regional Language Centre (Singapore) on communicative language teaching includes: "Integrating the New and the Old in a Communicative Approach" (William T. Littlewood); "Communicative Competence and Language Teaching: Second Thoughts" (Christina Bratt Paulston); "Communicative Teaching: 'Communicative' in What Sense?" (N. S. Prabhu); "Silence in the Communicative Curriculum" (John Gibbons); "Theory and Methodology: Do We Do What We Are Knowing?" (J. D. Willis); "The Status of Grammar in the Language Curriculum" (Jack C. Richards); "Communicative Language Teaching in the Rural Areas: How Does One Make the Irrelevant Relevant?" (Andrew Gonzalez); "Teaching for Communicative Competence in a Second Language" (Bonifacio P. Sibayan); "Opportunities for Learning through the Communicative Approach" (Paul Nation); "UMSEP and the Deep End-Support-Performance Approach to Language Learning" (Khong Chooi Peng); "The Communicative Approach: Questions Arising from Materials Writing in a TEFL Situation" (P. W. J. Nababan); "The Role of Communicative Language Teaching in Secondary Schools -- with Special Reference to Teaching in Singapore" (T. A. Kirkpatrick); and "Learning Language on the Worksite: Some Implications for Pedagogy" (Bikram K. Das). (MSE)

In this paper the system of coordination within the broader framework of education and technical manpower training is examined. The development of technical education in the schools and of programs offered by the public institutions is first described. A discussion follows regarding technical manpower training, the responsibility for which lies outside the school system and which is undertaken by different public institutions. Coordination of technical manpower development is considered. The closely linked system of progression between the schools and vocational training is then elaborated upon by focusing attention on the joint efforts of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Vocational and Industrial Training Board (VITB) in introducing a mechanism of automatic registration and a Pre-Vocational Training (PVT) program. Two tables and three figures are attached that depict areas of study in the technical education program, proposed PVT projects, the system of automatic registration, and features of the MOE-VITB system of progression. (YLB)

The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the total system of technological education in Singapore. The educational system, its history, and its response to technological needs are first briefly described. A discussion follows of the evolution of the various infrastructures, including the National University of Singapore, Singapore Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Technical College, the Vocational and Industrial Training Board (VITB), Economic Development Board training centers, and VITB-approved training centers. Some major changes that the various infrastructures within the total education and training system have made to respond to economic restructuring in the 1980s are then described. These include the New Education System in the schools, school program revision, a VITB project to develop a Resource and Staff Training Centre, expansion of computer studies, and the recommended establishment of the Nanyang Technological Institute to train engineers. (YLB)

Prior to 1960 vocational and technical education in Singapore received little attention. After Singapore attained self-government in 1959, a policy of diversification to accelerate economic growth through industrialization was adopted. The emphasis then shifted to technical education and training. In 1964 there was a significant move towards the establishment of secondary vocational schools and the first vocational institute was initiated; the secondary vocational schools were later phased out in favor of vocational institutes. The Industrial Training Board (ITB) was created in 1973 to centralize, coordinate, and intensify industrial training. The ITB and the Adult Education Board established in 1960 were merged into a single national authority responsible for vocational training--the Vocational and Industrial Training Board. The significant factors that have impinged upon the trend of vocational training have been the limited human resources, the New Education System of 1980, and the strategy of high economic growth based on industrial restructuring. Recent developments and major efforts to consolidate the training system have been the expansion of training capacity, refinement of the training system, and upgrading of the existing work force. Four tables and four figures are appended that depict full- and part-time enrollment, apprentice registration, and organizational structures in the educational system. (YLB)

The Educational Research Unit Project ITL2 Study A in Singapore was quasi-experimental research designed to measure the effectiveness of non-traditional personnel and resource material package in developmental career guidance. Comparisons were made between experimental group and control group, and group guidance and individual counseling. The total samples comprised secondary one and two pupils (N=144) from two government schools in Singapore. A new instrument "Career Self-Concept Checklist" was specially constructed and validated in a pilot study for the pre- and post-test comparisons of treatment effects. The outcomes of this study showed that the package was effective in group guidance, the total sample's (N=32) gain in mean scores was statistically significant. The gain of mean scores in both Sec 1 and Sec 2 groups was significant. As for the control groups, there were no significant differences of mean scores in both the Bowen Secondary School and Thomson Secondary School groups. The treatment effect of individual counseling (N=16) using this package was also statistically significant. The mean scores difference in the pre- and post-tests, was a gain of 4.81 points which is slightly greater than the mean scores difference of 3.32 in the group guidance samples (N=32). As for all the control samples, there were no significant differences of mean scores at all. Generally speaking, the career guidance package has received very favorable responses from its users (teachers and pupils) in the experimental samples. The treatments were successful. (Author)

This report provides an overview of Singapore's strategy for human resource development and the country's concerted effort to successfully orchestrate the many separate initiatives between 1960s to 1980s into an effective market-driven, three-tiered higher education system emphasizing technology and modernization. The study highlights the pre-eminent role of the government in the planning, funding, and implementation of strategies to achieve an effective, high quality, and sustainable higher education system. The study then outlines the structure of the system (two universities, four polytechnics, and ongoing job training), its diversified institutional development, the growth in student numbers (a seven-fold increase in 30 years), and the reasons for the large numbers of students studying abroad (between 2,000 and 3,000 annually). The report describes the central features of Singapore's higher education: relevance and quality; emphasis on research and postgraduate studies; the service role of the system; the relationship of the state to the system; and the financing of the system. Finally, the study discusses emerging issues in the future direction of Singapore's higher education system and the lessons other developing countries can learn. The appendix presents a brief history of higher education in Pre-Independence Singapore. (Contains 81 references.) (Author/GLR)

Interviews with 42 middle-level technical workers in the electronics industry in six Singapore manufacturing companies explored the training they received. Study findings revealed that technical workers carried out various functions across the whole productive process, including product development and industrial engineering, input, the production line, product testing, and back end. Integral related activities included process engineering, maintenance, and quality assurance. The typical technical worker obtained the Technician Diploma or the Industrial Technician Certificate by full-time institutional training, after school and before national service. These workers were probably pursuing an additional formal qualification through continuing education and training, had been sent by the company to an external training program, and/or had been sent on overseas training. The study found that job skill formation required these prerequisites, generally provided by preparatory and off-the-job formal and nonformal training: personal abilities, technical knowledge and skills, and technological know-how and job knowledge. To attain job competence, the worker needed to develop and apply knowledge, job skills, work skills, and accumulated experience. Three levels of jobs were supervisory, technical, and routine. In companies, line management carried out on-the-job training, implicitly rather than explicitly. No company considered apprenticeship. (YLB)

The new economic and industrial policies of the 1980s called for a major restructuring of the industrial profile of Singapore. The government decided to set up three new technical institutes to prepare and supply skilled workers to new investors: French-, German-, and Japan-Singapore Technical Institutes with the collaboration of the government and industries in the respective countries. The technology to be transferred was that of running technical training institutes. The Japan-Singapore Technical Institute (JSTI) was created to provide skilled workers for operation and maintenance jobs. A few critical characteristics of the institutional arrangements were institutional training; educated, experienced staff; and freedom to organize training around workplace needs. Other characteristics of the Japanese style emerged: total immersion in the work and managerial style. Five years after its start, JSTI realized the need for more technical education and less skills training. The addition of a mechatronics course reflected the distinctive characteristics of the institution and the Japanese influence during the development phase. Results included the following: most students received scholarships and were bonded for 3 years after graduation; curriculum changes included offering a higher order certificate and moving into research and development activities; and JSTI was not only a training institute, but also helped promote and sustain Singapore's technological development. (YLB)