“Mind the gap”: the impact of an incomplete throughline from pre-tertiary to tertiary literature education in Singapore

Investment in education has always been a key national strategy to ensure Singapore's economic competitiveness and growth. Before the turn of the century, in 1997, a major educational reform with the official vision of Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN) was introduced by the then Prime Minister at the 7^th International Conference on Thinking. The aims of Thinking Schools, Learning Nation were to develop critical and creative thinking, instil lifelong learning passion, and promote nationalistic commitment in the young. To support the TSLN vision several initiatives were implemented to promote thinking skills, National Education, and information technology in schools.Sequentially, to enable schools to implement these new initiatives another thrust called Teach Less, Learn More (TLLM) was introduced by the Ministry of Education. This paradoxical phrase is a call to teachers to be less dependent on the use of rote learning and to move away from teaching for tests and examinations. Instead, they are to engage their students with more student-centered pedagogies to prepare them for the challenges of the 21^st century. The focus of Teach Less, Learn More was on the transformation of teaching pedagogies in order to promote more active learning on the part of the learners. To support all these new thrusts and initiatives, the curriculum review committee boldly recommended a content reduction in all subjects thereby freeing up more curriculum time for more student-centered pedagogies in the classrooms.Against this background, geographical education in Singapore has undergone critical transformations to be responsive and relevant to the needs of the changing educational scene in Singapore since the turn of the century. This paper will critically discuss the changes in terms of geographical content, pedagogy and assessments and also highlight the challenges in geographical education in Singapore as a result of these changes.

This chapter discusses moral and values development for early childhood education (ECE) in Singapore and delineates its international implications. Keeping in mind that early childhood spans from birth to eight, this chapter examines three national frameworks adopted in Singapore: Early Years Development Framework from birth to 3 years of age, Nurturing Early Learners Framework for 4- to 6-year-old children, and the refreshed Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) launched in 2021 for lower primary school children of seven and 8 years of age. This chapter critically discusses how the Ministry of Education in Singapore promotes moral and values development as part of student well-being through the abovementioned frameworks. This chapter has elucidated an example of a moral and values educational program that is geared toward the all-embracing development of students. It explained how moral and values education as exemplified in CCE can be relevant to young children and applied in ECE programs to cultivate desired values from young. It provides suggestions on how various aspects of CCE can be adapted to the pre-school curriculum and offers recommendations on possible pedagogies to implement in the pre-school settings.

This chapter discusses moral and values development for early childhood education (ECE) in Singapore and delineates its international implications. Keeping in mind that early childhood spans from birth to eight, this chapter examines three national frameworks adopted in Singapore: Early Years Development Framework from birth to 3 years of age, Nurturing Early Learners Framework for 4- to 6-year-old children, and the refreshed Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) launched in 2021 for lower primary school children of seven and 8 years of age. This chapter critically discusses how the Ministry of Education in Singapore promotes moral and values development as part of student well-being through the abovementioned frameworks. This chapter has elucidated an example of a moral and values educational program that is geared toward the all-embracing development of students. It explained how moral and values education as exemplified in CCE can be relevant to young children and applied in ECE programs to cultivate desired values from young. It provides suggestions on how various aspects of CCE can be adapted to the pre-school curriculum and offers recommendations on possible pedagogies to implement in the pre-school settings.KeywordsCharacter and Citizenship EducationEarly childhood educationCOVID-19 pandemicSingaporeSocial and emotional learningWell-being

This paper looks at current reforms by the Government and Ministry of Education, which are moving from a tight national system to a more locally based system, where schools and teachers will have more choice over what they study and teach. This paper addresses this reform at three levels. First, it highlights the changes in the Singaporean education system at a national level. Second, it examines the issues surrounding these changes, in particular in relation to the dichotomy between the global and local demands of Singapore’s education system. Third, it explores how these demands will change local realities, benefiting certain students and affecting the status of humanities, in particular subjects like English literature and connects macro-level planning with micro-level planning. Increasingly, the language planning literature is stressing the need for education planning to move from a focus on the national to a focus on the local. Singapore, which has adhered to a heavy top-down planning model, with a significant focus on language issues, presents an interesting case study of whether such change is possible.

The entire humanity is gradually drifting into the fourth era – the intelligence era. The transformation is facilitated by the emergence of a better educated and continuous learning and relearning generation that can function comfortably in a knowledge-intensive economy and respond constructively to the fast-changing environment. Therefore, a highly educated population is the main resource that all competitive nations must cultivate. In this respect, the first critical factor necessary for nurturing a highly competitive organization/nation is to optimize the intrinsic intelligence and thinking ability of the individuals, and the second factor is to increase the effectiveness of the interactive dynamics. The primary intelligence sources in such a nation must be connected effectively to elevate the collective intelligence of the systems synergistically. Apparently, individual intelligence and collective intelligence must be nurtured and utilized to the optimal in order to survive in the stiffer and faster-changing competitions. In particular, collective intelligence and its associated attributes must be better cultivated through a deeper comprehension of complex adaptive systems and intelligent organizations dynamics. Therefore, the strategies to be adopted are those that focus on bio-logic rather than machine-logic. In this study, the strategies utilized by the Singapore's education system as an intelligent human organization are examined and the analysis is further substantiated by a more in-depth investigation of three junior colleges as intelligent complex adaptive systems (iCAS) at the operational level.

The problem in this study is how is the quality of education set by the Singapore Ministry of Education to realize the excellence of students at every level of education? How to develop early education to overcome the drop out at the primary school education level in Singapore? The method used in this study is a qualitative descriptive method. Data collection techniques through library studies. Literature research is a data collection technique by reviewing books, literature, notes, and various reports related to the problem to be solved. Data analysis techniques are carried out by reducing, presenting, and inferring the data that has been collected. The results showed that (1) The quality of education at every level and unit of education in Singapore has always been of particular concern to the Singapore Ministry of Education. Singapore's Ministry of Education always oversees the development of the national curriculum to obtain the desired Educational outcomes. in the form of student excellence in life skills, knowledge skills, and subject discipline knowledge organized into eight core skills and values: character development, self-management skills, social and cooperative skills, literacy and numeracy, communication skills, information skills, thinking skills and creativity, and skills of application of knowledge. (2) Singapore is a barometer of early childhood education programs in the Asia Pacific Region. The involvement of parents in supporting children's learning activities at home is a must so that the child's learning atmosphere while at school is supported and strengthened by the learning atmosphere at home.Keywords: education system, early childhood, Singapore, Schools, singapore

After the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese government, on the one hand, had to send the Japanese civilians and the war prisoners back to their country, and on the other hand, had to recall and transport the Chinese students and common people overseas back to their homeland. The recall and the screening of these overseas students became an important event in education during the time. In February 1946, the educational department of the Taiwan Provincial governor's office promulgated and enforced two important laws to deal with the issue-”The Measures for Handling the Taiwanese Students Who Went to Japan and Received their Education” and ”The Measures for Handling Overseas Students Who Wished to Return to Taiwan.” The two laws were reported to the Ministry of Education on April 30. In January 1947, the Nationalist Government promulgated ”The Measures for Recalling Overseas Chinese in Japan.” At that time, the Ministry of Education did not acknowledge the educational status of overseas Chinese in Japan. Hence ”The Measures for Screening Overseas Chinese in Japan” was drawn up to examine and to screen the students who received education in Japan. In July 1947, the Ministry of Education announced that the students who had received education in Japan and who had come back to Taiwan needed to report to and register at the Ministry in Nanking. At the same time, the educational department of the Taiwan government also set up a screening committee to screen the students. By the end of August 1946, a total number of 1434 students, most of them from junior college and majoring in medicine, had been screened.

THIS REPORT compares the changes in the proportion of local populations that seek post high school education in areas with newly created public community junior colleges and in areas without public junior colleges. One of the objectives of the community junior college movement is to overcome the geographic, economic, and motivational barriers which con tribute to the failure of students to enroll in insti tutions of higher education. The junior college movement attacks these barriers by providing local, low-cost, open-door educational facilities. That economic and geographic factors do act as barriers to college attendance is evidenced by studies of the junior college population. Florida students indicate that these factors are impor tant. In fact, forty-eight percent report that they attended a particular junior college because of its proximity to their homes. Twenty-seven percent report that cost was a major factor in the deci sion to attend a junior college (4). In the past five years, Florida has moved rap idly towards the development of a comprehensive public community junior college system. The enrollment of this system grew from 5736 in 1957(1) to 38,210 in 1962(2). However, the State of Florida is also growing. It is one of the fastest growing states in terms of population. This could mean that instead of meet ing the needs of a different section of the popula tion, the community junior colleges are merely taking up the excessive growth that the univer sities cannot handle. If this is true, the propor tion of the local population that enrolls in higher education will not increase even though the num ber of students enrolling does increase. This study was conducted to determine whether or not the junior colleges do in fact affect the pro portion of the local population who enroll in post high school educational institutions. This is a matter that cannot be decided merely by counting heads or by calculating ratios of enrollment to population for the State or the Nation. It can be decided by comparing locales having new public junior colleges with control locales that have no public junior colleges. Evidence on this matter can be obtained by controlled comparison in which changes are revealed in the proportion of the pop ulation attending institutions of higher education when low-cost, local facilities become available. This study was also designed to estimate the effect of a junior college on the proportion of the local population that plans to extend their educa tion beyond high school. Such estimates are quite valuable in predicting future enrollments. If the beginning of a new junior college increases the proportion of the local population which enrolls in college, then these new junior colleges not only satisfy the present demand for educational insti tutions but actually create new demand.

This paper explores the fairness of meritocracy concerning admission to secondary schools based on the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) in Singapore. The Ministry of Education has consistently adopted the ideology of meritocracy as so to select talented students, stimulate effort, and optimize the allocation of rewards. The PSLE results can largely determine students’ educational tracks and even career orientation in Singapore. The paper shows how the principle of meritocracy works and how the government uses meritocratic belief in the education system. The paper argues that meritocracy has posed a threat to equality in admission to secondary schools in Singapore. The findings indicate that the meritocratic policy does not recognize both the importance of family SES and the gap between elite schools and neighbourhood schools in the Singapore education system. Students with wealthy and well-educated parents and students in elite schools are more likely to acquire better educational attainment, since they tend to gain more cultural capital from family and social capital from school. The principle of meritocracy fails to allocate opportunities fairly to students and can lead to inequality in education and exacerbate educational stratification.

Previous articleNext article No AccessAn Analysis of the High-School Records of Junior-College StudentsVictor H. KelleyVictor H. Kelley Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 37, Number 8Oct., 1929 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/438905 Views: 1Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in The School Review (1893-1979), which is continued by the American Journal of Education (1979-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

ABSTRACT: The spurting growth and development of early childhood are usually identified as a golden time, the window of opportunity and critical period as well. It needs appropriate and optimum method of caring for loving and teaching in informal education. This informal health educational program is accomplished by parenting method, primary health care, adequate nutrition intake and healthy environment. Breastfeeding, including early breastfeeding program as well as exclusive breastfeeding, adequate nutrition intake, healthy environment, disease prevention, healthy house and utilization of sanitation as healthy and clean life behavior are contents of informal health education for early childhood. Stimulation and embrace from mother provide satisfaction and secure feeling to baby. Mother’s instinct to educate through learning-by-doing method, supported by knowledge and skill to maintain health, disease and nutrition control, healthy house and environment, healthy life behavior and nutrition awareness will complete the education in concrete situation. Healthy and clean life behavior are vice versa healthy environment. Family members and parents, especially mother, have roles, functions and responsibilities in informal health education. This article purposes to provide information and present materials and how informal health education is implemented as well as the role and importance of parenting in growth and development of early childhood in Indonesia. KEY WORDS: informal education, early childhood, growth spurt and development, nutrition, healthy environment and healthy life. About the Author: Dr. Hadi Siswanto, S.K.M., M.P.H. is a Lecturer and Dean of the Faculty of Health Science URINDO (University of Respati Indonesia), Jalan Bambu Apus I No.3 East Jakarta, Indonesia. He can be reached at: hadisis_viva@yahoo.com How to cite this article? Siswanto, Hadi. (2009). “Informal Health Education for Early Childhood in Indonesia” in EDUCARE: International Journal for Educational Studies , Vol.1(2) February, pp.219-232. Bandung, Indonesia: Minda Masagi Press owned by ASPENSI in Bandung, West Java; and FKIP UMP in Purwokerto, Central Java, ISSN 1979-7877. Chronicle of the article: Accepted (December 14, 2008); Revised (January 18, 2009); and Published (February 17, 2009).

The need for a more vigorous and organized Moral Education programme in Singapore schools is emphatically made in the Report on the Ministry of Education, 1979 (Goh et al., 1980). It recommended that Moral Education be formally taught as a subject in the school curriculum throughout primary and secondary schools. The concern for Moral Education manifested itself in yet another attempt by a group of parliamentarians, resulting in the publication of the Report on Moral Education (Ong et al., 1979). This report serves as a common frame of reference for all Moral Education programmes currently implemented in Singapore schools. The state of Moral Education in Singapore schools was systematically documented and relevant issues were objectively studied in 1981 by a committee appointed by the Ministry of Education (Eng et al., 1981). Subsequently, exising programmes were improved on and new programmes introduced. At present, there are no less than six moral education programmes, both secular and religious, in Singapore schools.

La integración de programas de mindfulness en el ámbito educativo ha ganado interés en las últimas décadas, especialmente por su potencial para mejorar el bienestar general y las habilidades socioemocionales de los estudiantes. El objetivo es explorar la implementación y los efectos de los programas de mindfulness en la educación de tercer nivel, considerando su efectividad en el desarrollo de habilidades socioemocionales, identificando las mejores prácticas y componentes clave que contribuyen a su éxito en instituciones de educación superior. La metodología es de carácter cualitativo, donde se usó analizaron 15 libros, artículos académicos y estos se los relaciono con las entrevistas realizadas a cinco docentes de educación superior o de tercer nivel. El principal hallazgo de la exploración de la implementación de programas de mindfulness en la educación de tercer nivel es su efectividad en el desarrollo de habilidades socioemocionales de los estudiantes. Este hallazgo se basa en la evidencia tanto de la revisión bibliográfica como de las entrevistas con docentes, que destacan la reducción del estrés y la ansiedad, así como el aumento de la autoconciencia, la empatía y la regulación emocional como resultados positivos de estos programas. La derivada de estos hallazgos es que la flexibilidad, la adaptabilidad y la integración de modelos teóricos sólidos son fundamentales para el éxito de los programas de mindfulness en el nivel terciario de educación. Los programas deben ser diseñados de manera que puedan ajustarse a las necesidades y preferencias de los estudiantes, así como a las características específicas del entorno educativo.

Japanese higher education is faced with a crisis. Women's higher educationcannot escape its fate. Because of the age-old discrimination and of handicapsand hurdles attached to women's education in Japan the situation might be moreserious and complicated.Never in the history of Japanese education has the female population incolleges and universities including junior colleges been so great. In 1960 therewere 16, 448 girls graduating from 4-year colleges and 21, 041 graduating fromjunior colleges, while in 1970 48, 769 girls graduating from 4-year colleges and 99, 518 girls graduating from junior colleges. In 1970 one out of ten girls, interms of agegroup, attends college or university, while in case of boys nearlythree out of ten attend. Ten years ago 4 out of 100 girls attended colleges anduniversities and one out of 6 boys attended. It is quite ironical to meet with acrisis in the midst of prosperity. In spite of such phenomenal increase thegovernment has failed to meet the needs of the students. Junior colleges areoccupied by female students: almost 83% of the student population in juniorcolleges is women. On the other hand almost 82% of the student population in4-year colleges is men. At the same time 94% of female studnts are enrolled inprivately-supported junior colleges, because the government paid no attention towomen's higher education, leaving it almost entirely to private schools.There seems to be a stereo-typed social image of women in Japan. Collegewomen are expected to work for a short period on a stop-gap job; they areexpected to quit the job at the time of marriage. In ten or fifteen years theyare expected to work as part-timers, because industry demands labor force verybadly. Since we are inclined to behave as expected, most college graduatesfollow this track. It seems that women's higher education is geared to meet theneeds of industry. It is serious for higher education to be subjugated byindustry.As indicated in the statement issued by the Ministry of Education concerning the revision of high school curriculum, there is a resurgence of age-old education.peculiar to women. “Education for good-wife-and-wise-mother” has been emphasizedagain as a guideline for woman's education. In this post industrial societyin which women's roles become more complicated and varied, this kind of educationalpolicy formulated out of ignorance and negligence by the government willin all probability jeopadize not only women's higher education but the totalsociety.

Factors affecting secondary preservice teachers' computer knowledge