I recall an occasion when I brought my children out to play in the heavy rain with their raincoats and jumping in muddy puddles with my spouse. It is a simple activity that my children enjoy, but I recall receiving numerous stares from passers-by who looked at us in disbelief, particularly after my son climbed down into the drain on his own to pick up a ball that had rolled down. How has the once-normal sight of children playing in the rain come to be seen as odd, reshaped […]
Read More >EDUCATION
The JC-ITE Dichotomy: How Educational Hierarchies Perpetuate the Divide Within
Singapore’s education system has undergone significant transformations over the years, aiming to provide equal opportunities for all students. In 2024, our secondary schools were introduced to the subject-based banding system (G1, G2, G3). While this move towards mixed-ability classrooms is a commendable step, it remains to be seen whether it will truly address the deep-rooted social and academic divisions that exist due to our education system. At the heart of the issue lies the ultimate destination for students: Junior College (JC), Polytechnic (Poly), or Institute of Technical Education (ITE). […]
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Education Reforms over the Past Few Decades: How Best Can Parents Respond?
Singapore’s education landscape has indisputably changed over the past few decades. These changes have been felt at all levels of schooling, and have encompassed not only revisions to subject syllabi but also wider turns in policy direction. Why do all of these reforms matter to parents of school-age children? After all, aren’t schools and teachers well-equipped to take care of students and guide them through their schooling years?
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Staying Sane in an Insane World: Performance and Academics
THE PHD FACTORY
When I first heard the term ‘PhD factory’, it took me a few seconds to realise what it meant and was immediately privy to the precarity of academia. A Doctor of Philosophy or PhD degree connotes a certain level of prestige. It is the pinnacle of learning. You might make friends for life, and friends who challenge your way of thinking. You get to meet and work with professors whose interests align with yours. Securing an opportunity to do a PhD is not easy.
Two Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Have They Meant for Education in Singapore?
In July 2021, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization issued a joint press release calling for the reopening of schools across the world. The press release lamented the fact that over 156 million students were being adversely affected by the continuing closure of schools in 19 countries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both organisations expressed concern that “the losses that children and young people will incur from not being in school may never be recouped”.
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Dreams Realised, Dreams Deferred: Understanding and Addressing the Racial Gap in Educational Achievement in Singapore
Many students in Singapore’s Normal (Technical) (or NT) stream do indeed have specific dreams and aspirations.
Some of these students fail to achieve their dreams, but many others succeed – with the help of specific kinds of interventions.
Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE), commonly derided as “It’s the End”, might be better celebrated as “It’s Truly Excellent”.
The ‘Malay stereotype’ – that Malays lack motivation and aspiration – is just that, an unfounded stereotype.
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Graduates of Institutes of Higher Learning: Surviving the Future
Amid news of the threat posed by COVID-19 to an already ailing global economy plagued by the US-China trade war and deglobalisation, the announcements made by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat when he delivered the Budget 2020 speech on February 18 brought a ray of hope to workers as the outlook for jobs in the near future looked bleak.
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What is the Foundation of Singapore’s Education Policy?
The Report on the Ministry of Education 1978 or the Goh report, endorsed by parliament on 30 March 1979, was the first to propose an explicit form of ability-based streaming. It is underpinned by the ‘fundamental belief’ that ability grouping is responsive to learners’ diverse capacities and would better fulfil their ‘inherent potential’ (Ng, 2008, n.p.). The education system externalises at the level of this belief. That is, this central belief system creates the conditions of life, to which we structure our lives around.
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Welcoming Subject-based Banding in Singapore’s Secondary School: Reform or Re-formation of Our Superstructure?
There was a momentous, if not overdue, education policy announcement in the first week of March 2019. In five years’ time, secondary school students in Singapore will no longer be streamed into Express, Normal Academic (N (A)) or Normal Technical (N (T)) streams. Beginning 2024, there will instead be full subject-based banding (SBB) and students will take up subjects at higher or lower levels based on their strengths.
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Negotiating School Literacy : Why Is It Difficult for Some Children?
Researchers have pointed out that schools may not always be the place where everyone has an equal chance, because hidden inside are all kinds of ways in which certain kinds of social, cultural and class positions are being privileged. And literacy is one of the dominant ways of doing that.
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