Idealism

Singapore's education system consistently ranks highly among the world's best. (Roman Emin)

Students and teachers alike value lists and rankings, graphics and charts, more than any long, arduous, in-depth analysis of a paper.  Look at sources like U.S. News & World Report rankings and lists and you will see how the simple attributing of a number to a school can change the perspective on the school entirely.  Sayings like, "this school is so much better than this school—it's rated number one!" or, "I'm applying here because it's ranked so high on the list, so it must be a good school," are frequently used to justify one's decisions.  Nowadays, we put lots of faith in the simple and succinct, the quick-and-easy to comprehend.  Numbers are nice, but they don't tell the whole story.

Today, I will be focusing on the education system of Singapore, the leader of the world in terms of cognitive skills and recently ranked among the top three education systems in the world.  Something, obviously, is working, and working well.

As a basis for comparison, I asked a few students to summarize the U.S. school system in a few words and this is what some of them responded with:

• States and legislations have lots of freedom
• There is not enough government funding
• Government intervention is frowned upon (by at least some groups)
• Teachers and their teaching styles are inconsistent and sometimes inept
• Standardized testing
• Individuality is important
• Discussion is encouraged

The input focused on both the frequently perceived negatives of our school system and some aspects that may be more positive, like the importance of individuality and discussion.

In Singapore, many of these detriments are addressed.  The national government of Singapore has a huge say in how educational institutions run their curriculum.  Largely homogenized, the curriculum of Singaporean schools focus on tackling standardized tests with efficiency and accuracy.  With this, comes lots of drilling and practice, and of course, discipline.

Government funding is abundant in Singapore, with a commitments of £109m between 2003-2017 issued for the country.   On top of that, significant effort is put in educating, training, and selecting the best of the best candidates to become teachers in the Singaporean education system.  The uniform curriculum, however, calls for similar teaching styles among the teachers, which seems efficient, but lacks the variety that may be beneficial for different types of students.  The students themselves also have a collectively disciplined mindset, which makes and keeps the classroom a organized and efficient area for learning.  

Photo Courtesy of Osamu Kaneko

The prescribed learning process differs in Singapore, with lots of emphasis on drilling and practice.  Learning new concepts is generally taught in a concise manner—a manner in which the answer is emphasized more than the specific procedures involved.  This test-biased structure obviously has its advantages, but discussion in classrooms is often limited, if allowed at all.  Where in America, opinions and debate would stir a class into discussion, potentially using time that could be used to practice a newly-learned concept.  While this discussion can be an integral part in the learning process, structure and efficiency comes before all in Singapore.  

So, what would happen if we tried to incorporate some of Singapore's core educational pillars into our own systems?  I believe it would be a long, arduous process that would lead to little progress.  Why?  Singapore's education system arose and works because of their complex history and specific cultural mindsets.  Implementing an "exam learning" system across the U.S. would likely enrage many and please few; the lack of individual attention and discussion would deter from our current system to the point that the changes would do more harm than good.  Deeply-rooted values play a large role in how we change educational policy, something that is especially difficult when we have 50 separate states.  (We can't even homogenize "standardized" testing between statewide exams!)

This being said, Singapore has been slowly changing its approach toward education in recent years.  Implementing more "Western" teaching methods within their schools to move away from a test-focused curriculum to one that stresses the quality of learning, rather than quantity.

No school system may ever be perfect, but will Singapore's get close?  Only time will tell.  Meanwhile, I believe we could take a page out of Singapore's book to improve our schools for the better.

What do you think?