Singapore - yes you can copy my working.

Having moved to Malaysia to teach, I have become more aware of the educational achievements of their close neighbor Singapore. In 1965, Singapore became an independent nation with few natural resources. So the country's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew developed a strategy to develop Singapore's only natural resource - the people of the newly formed state of Singapore.

53 years later, Singapore’s education system is lauded as being one of the best in the world. PISA rankings constantly have the country at the top by a margin as illustrated below. 

So with this in mind, surely Singapore must have something to offer the world of teaching. However, it appears few countries are asking just what makes Singapore head of the class. The reasons for this are most likely manifold. Traditionally, Singapore has tended to favor a more teacher-directed instructional approach also known as didactic teaching. That contrasts with the present global preference, at least in Western liberal democracies, for more constructivist teaching where learners co-create knowledge through the application of core competencies or skills. Although research suggests that direct instruction is indeed a good way of conveying knowledge, some progressive critics argue that such an education will not prepare learners for what the 21st century requires and create workers for an industrial age which has passed. This, in turn, creates a false dichotomy.

Yet Singapore shows that knowledge of what need not come at the expense of knowledge of the how. In 2015 Singaporean students also came first in a new PISA ranking designed to look at collaborative problem-solving which is considered a 21st Century skill. Perhaps more surprisingly, Singaporean students also reported themselves to be happy—more so than children in Finland, for instance, a country that educationalists regard as an example of how to achieve exceptional results with more student-led methods of teaching. Singapore has been aware that didactic teaching alone does not lead to creative thought and critical thinking and has therefore introduced reforms to improve creativity. This is not a concession, but rather an illustration of the commitment of Singapore to a gradual, evidence-led approach to education. Something other countries could do well to follow.

Countries like New Zealand often enact piecemeal and uncoordinated reforms due to the politicized nature of education in western democracies. Singapore however, tries to look at the system as a whole. Educational research is a fundamental part of this. Teachers enquire into their practice. All pedagogy is tested, with the outcomes for learners analyzed and developed appropriately. Resources are carefully considered, worksheets, and worked examples—practices often seen as retrograde in more progressive systems, are used to transition learners from being novices to experts into the classroom. The result is an alignment between assessments, accountability, and teaching styles.

Singapore also emphasizes a narrower but deeper curriculum and seeks to ensure that a whole class progresses together. Struggling pupils get extra sessions to help them keep up; even the less-able do comparatively well.

Finally, Singapore focuses on developing and motivating excellent teachers something which New Zealand is attempting to do, in part, through pay negotiations this year. In Singapore, teachers get 100 hours of training a year to keep up to date with the latest pedagogical techniques. Salaries are high, too. The government also accepts the need for larger classes, something often challenged by teacher unions. Better, so the thinking goes, to have big classes taught by excellent teachers than smaller ones taught by mediocre ones. The best teachers usually stay in the classroom by becoming “master teachers”, with responsibility for training their colleagues. The very best teachers get postings to the Ministry of Education and hefty bonuses: overall, teachers are paid about the same as their peers in private-sector professions. The flip side is that teachers are also subject to rigorous annual performance assessments.

You might think from reading this that the Singaporean system is faultless. However, Singapore does divide students based on academic achievement into separate schools from the age of 12. This seems not to be based on any solid research which actually suggests the opposite with mixed-ability classes having better educational outcomes. Singapore is also a small country based on a strong sense of national identity which creates an unusual degree of centralization and homogeneity. However, there does clearly seem to be some advantage to learners in the following parts of the Singaporean approach. So may we should copy some of Singapore's home learning for the test tomorrow.