Tomorrow today; 2010 - unesdoc - Unesco

the first thirty years of the life of the republic, the governmentfocused on developing a comprehensive system of mass educationof high quality for all its people to prepare them for effectiveparticipation in the world of mass and later high-end manufacturing.Since the Asian financial crisis of the mid-1990s, thepolicy focus has increasingly been on preparing the Singaporeanworkforce for effective participation in the global economy asa leading knowledge economy and global city specializing infinancial services, shipping, basic and applied research, tourismand hospitality, and high-value manufacturing in electronics,shipbuilding, computers and biochemical industries. This neworientation to human capital formation and nation building hasbeen strongly reflected in educational policy, beginning with the‘Thinking Schools, Learning Nation’ policy framework set up bythe then Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, in 1997, and followedby a raft of specific activities to promote initiative and enterprise,high quality teaching and learning, the (relative) decentralizationof school governance, the integration of technology into classroompractice, strengthening and lengthening of the pre-serviceteacher education programme, a major expansion of in-serviceprofessional development, and the building of a world classsystem of professional training for school leaders at the NationalInstitute of Education (NIE).From a sustainability perspective, Singapore’s educational experiencehighlights the fact that sustainability depends on bothindividual and organizational capacity-building, on systemic institutionalalignment and tightly coupled governance, on high qualityleadership at all levels of the system, from individual schools to themost senior levels of the Ministry, and on a culture (in Singapore, a‘mindset’) of continuous innovation and improvement.Capacity-buildingFirst, at a very broad systemic level, Singapore has been committedstrongly to capacity-building at both the individual and organiza-tional levels. At the individual level, this work centres onstudents, teachers and school leaders.Individual capacity-buildingStudents: Ministry of Education officials and NIEresearchers are committed to developing the rangeof skills, understandings and dispositions youngSingaporeans will need for 21st-century institutionalsettings, above all, but not limited to, the labour market.In particular, since the release of the ‘Teach Less, LearnMore’ policy initiative in 2004 and ‘Curriculum 2015’in 2008, the government is determined to ensure thatthe classroom experiences of young people nurturethe development of 21st century skills rather thanthose of a bygone era. This is reflected, particularly,in a commitment to de-emphasize a traditional pedagogyof knowledge transmission and reproduction infavour of one that focuses on developing cognitive anddispositional capacities associated with contemporaryforms of knowledge work, including disciplinary andtransdisciplinary knowledge production, justificationand communication.Teachers: the National Institute of Education hasdeveloped a relatively unique and high quality pre-serviceprogramme at both the undergraduate and graduatelevels, integrating (and calibrating) content knowledgegained through courses in domain-specific subjects,pedagogical content knowledge gained through coursesin the curriculum, teaching and assessment, and extensiveclassroom experience gained through a carefullygradated programme of school practicum. Selection ishighly extensive and intensive as it is limited to thetop 30 per cent of each annual student cohort. Duringtheir programme, students are paid a generous stipendImage: NIE, SingaporeImage: NIE, SingaporeClassroom of the Future is an initiative set up to demonstrate and model technologies for use in the learning of tomorrow’s students. It demonstratesa student-centric learning environment where technology is used to support pedagogical and instructional approaches[ 103 ]