Reforms in the Singaporean Education System Report

Introduction

One of the countries in the world that could be viewed as an example of economic development is Singapore. In a span of fifty years, Singapore was able to lift itself from a poorly structured country with weak institutions to a country very close to the OECD countries. Among the sectors that witnessed tremendous improvement is the education sector.

During the early 60’s, the education standard of Singapore could be equated to that of Africa. It took the country approximately forty years of reform to attain a level of education that is quite similar to the OECD countries. What could be attributed to such great improvements? The discussion of this paper seek to illustrate the history of Singapore and the education reforms that took place in the country resulting into a great leap within the economy in relation to education. The paper will identify various reform agendas in various levels of education starting from primary level and the government priority that set the impetus for the increased economic development. Finally, the paper will conclude on the government’s prioritization of economics within the education sector contributed greatly in its economic improvement since the early sixties.

History of the development

Reign of the British and political unrest

The journey to success of Singapore could be traced well back in time since the pacific war of 1945 which had left the country and its people in a state of social and economic instability. While the Britons celebrated victory, the people of Singapore had discovered that the Britons were not invincible after all. A thirst for political freedom and for a chance to access the economic opportunities greatly increased amongst the people of Singapore. Accordingly, the country witnessed ever increasing cases of industrial strikes and political uprising. This resulted into closures of several British firms and evacuation of Britons from Singapore. In addition, there was an increase in population in Singapore during the 1950s. This affected Singapore’s economy in a number of ways. There was increased unemployment, a phenomenon that the British colonialists failed to control. This period also witnessed racial divergences in the country with several groups referring to themselves as Chinese, Indians or Malays and none of them considering terming themselves as Singaporeans. In addition to this, there were religious differences in the country which also ended up with riots- the Maria Hertogh riots (Boon & Gopinathan 2006).

Education system

According to Boon &Gopinathan (2006), there were more factors that contributed to the stiff growth in the economic development of Singapore. Among these include the education system that was introduced encouraged by the government. In this form of education, Chinese schools were stifled as more emphasis was laid on the English-stream schools. Those educated in these schools became unprivileged and could not have access to tertiary education neither could they gain employment in the civil service. To be precise, the Chinese education was completely unrecognized despite its dynamic nature. Such gaps led to more riots and social unrest organized by the Malayan communist party.

Independence and sovereignty

The uprisings were so intense that the British felt it was more reasonable to grant independence to the country. This is due to the fact that it was the only way of fighting against the Communist insurgency and the Chinese schools. By doing this; the British government knew that it would be denying the insurgents a reason to insight people against them and hence stop riots. The British organized an election which was won by Lee Kuan Yew of the People’s Action Party (PAP) becoming the first prime minister. In 1963, Singapore became a part of Malaysia. However, the political differences between the two countries could not allow the coalition to last longer than two years. In 1965, Island of Singapore gained its independence after separation with Malaysia and became a sovereign State (Gopinathan 1999).

Attaining sovereignty meant that the country had to be independent of its former colonialists. They had to fight on their own and cater for their citizens. This made them to identify ways in which they would quickly make themselves a stable industrial economy and build a reliable military capability. To attain this, the government had to do away with the British system that had made them completely reliant on entrepot trade. In addition, they had to include science and technology as a vital factor in the country’s effort to gain international competitiveness. Eventually, the government decided to develop an export oriented economy and do away with the long standing entrepot trade (Gopinathan 1999).

It did not take long before the government formulated strategies to enable the country cope up and hence able to survive. The government devised survival techniques which called for integration of political and economic systems. To attain this, there was need for readjustment of attitude amongst the Singaporean citizens. This was in terms of the beliefs relating to the economic and political systems of the country. The government hence stepped up a campaign to make the people focus mostly on the National interest by putting aside personal interests. What were the most efficient media for this campaign? It was the readjustment of the education system and manpower development. The government embarked on these two sectors a phenomenon that led to great reforms that were quickly implemented (Gopinathan 1999).

Before independence, education in Singapore was a weapon that was mostly used in the effort of meeting various interests within the political and ethnic arenas. This was an aspect within the ideological system that had to be changed within the survival tactics of Singapore.

Education and economic strategy

With the government aiming at integration of the economic and political development, it was vital that the primordial role of education be changed. It was time that the education system was developed to be a great weapon in the economic development agenda. Education was also viewed as the best way through which the country would achieve national integration. Not only was it a key to national integration but also, a weapon through which the government could facilitate its effort to gain economic survival. They had to integrate education and their economic development policies. The new economic strategies strongly called for new skills and attitudes that could only be achieved through reforms in the education sector. As a result, the government embarked on an effort to attain this through a decision aimed at providing every Singaporean child of age six and more irrespective of his race, language, status, sex etc with a six year education program (Dixon 1991).

Bi-lingualism

In line with this, the government also ensured that all the children learned two languages. Learning of a second language became a compulsory requirement in all Singaporean primary schools in 1960.

In 1966, the policy was introduced into the secondary schools. The primary objective of the introduction of English in the schools was not just for national integration and social cohesion but was also viewed as a tool through which the country would have a niche in the international market. To ensure that the children did not just concentrate on English and forget their mother tongues and hence their culture the government of Singapore did not take the Latin model of bilingualism that calls for learning of two Latin oriented languages like English and Spanish or German and Italian. Their system was to ensure that their culture remained intact while the children learnt English for their advantages in Internationalizing of their trade (Dixon 1991).

Free education and the education and school construction

In 1965, when Singapore gained sovereignty after separation with Malaysia, the government had drawn an education reform plan. The plan would kick start and propel their economy into a reliable science and technology based. This would make them competitive within the international platform. The primary education was made free for all.

The reform agenda contained three major features which included treating the four streams of education which included Malay, Tamil, Chinese and English equally. Secondly, the plan involved inaugurating Malay as the National Language and finally putting more emphasis on Mathematics, Science and other technical subjects (Chiang 1998).

In 1962, Singapore accounted for a population of more than 400,000 students amongst a population of 1.7 million people. This was attributed to the government’s decision to make primary education free. Although English schools during the colonial periods were well built, most rural schools which were owned by individuals and other private organizations were poorly constructed whereby some had wooden structures. This marked one of the Ministry of Education’s early assignments in the effort to ensure education sector reforms. This ministry was given the role of ensuring that all schools were constructed properly all over the country. This resulted into more than 83 new schools by 1965. The schools were built at the rate of one school a month.

The new schools resulted into an increase in the demand for primary education. By 1968, the number of enrollments increased to 522, 611 children compared to 315,000 in the year1958. Due to this increase in the number of students, the schools could not accommodate all the students which resulted to two sessions of studies with one lot coming in the morning while the other lot came in the afternoon. The ministry of education adjusted their free education to 10 years (Chiang 1998).

The attitudes of the Singaporeans had been changed greatly after the government campaign which involved the changing of the ideologies of the people. Parents started to understand the importance of education. The attitude towards secondary education was completely transformed. Parents started to take secondary education as a valuable investment. This was evidenced by a substantial growth of secondary education enrolment. The increase was mainly experienced during the period of 1959 to 1972. For instance; the enrolment increased from 48,723 in 1959 to 114,736 in 1965. The number increased further with a record of 161,371 in 1972. The following table from the department of education yearbook for various years illustrates the increase in the number of enrolment within the primary and secondary schools in Singapore after attaining independence (Gopinathan 1999).

Table 1. Pupil Enrolment in Primary and Secondary Schools

Budget allocation

Budget allocation was one of the steps that the government embarked on in order to attain their goals. After independence, the country put more emphasis on primary education. In line with this 59% of its budget was allocated to the primary school education. Secondary school education was allocated 27 percent while the higher education was allocated 14%.

The government’s devotion to the improvement of the country’s education was evident in its continuous increase in allocation that was made to the education sector. The table below from the ministry of education shows how the country increasingly allocated larger and larger sums of money to education (Gopinathan 1999).

Table 2. Annual Expenditure on Education from 1959-1967

Recruitment of teachers

With the increasing rate of enrolment resulted into a challenge in relation to the need for more teachers to accommodate the number of students. This was a challenge that the Singaporean government took seriously. Statistics point out that the number of teachers in the service commission increased significantly. In the first year of independence, the number of teachers was 10,590. This number increased to 16986 in 1965.According to You & Lim (1971), this trend continued over the years until 1968 where the number of years had increased to 19,216.

Attaining such a number of teachers also called for more training facilities. The government increased teachers’ training by the increase in the number of recruitment in teachers training colleges. To facilitate this in relation to the ever expanding number of enrolments, the teachers training program was effectively structured. This included part time training which enabled teachers to be in training colleges in the morning and teaching during the evening sessions. This was on rotational basis where others taught in the morning and went to the training college in the evening (You & Lim 1971).

Textbook for all policy

In addition to this, the government started the “textbook for all” policy. This was aimed at ensuring that all children had reliable access to learning materials. This eliminated the chances of the students from the less fortune families from getting inadequate education. This is due to the fact that they would not be in position of buying text books. This policy was facilitated by the government’s effort to come up with a publishing house that printed common text books that were affordable for all. The Publishing Bureau was given the mandate of ensuring that all primary schools were accessible to equal and affordable textbooks (Gopinathan 1999).

Emphasis on vocational and technical training

Technical and vocational training institutes cropped during this period. This was in line with the government’s commitment of ensuring that the education system led to the improvement of the national economy. The establishment of the vocational institutes in 1964 witnessed an enrolment of 4,910. The students who enrolled in these institutes were those who failed to proceed to secondary schools for various reasons. The students were to be equipped with skills that would enable them venture into various sectors of the economy that require vocational training.

The studies in these schools included woodwork, art and craft, domestic science, technical drawing, amongst others. With the secondary education accounting for more than 144,000 enrolments in 1968, the technical institutions accounted for 18,000 students.

The rapidly increasing number of industries in the country could not be sufficiently served by such a small number of technical school grandaunts. The government had to increase the number of enrolment in technical institutes. This was a strategy to enable the industries have adequate access to the needed work force.

In order to enhance technical education the department of Technical Education was instituted within the Ministry of Education. The department made it compulsory that all male students from lower secondary were to study a technical subject. On the other hand, their female counterparts were to choose from either a technical subject or home economics. The products of these technical institutes were very instrumental in the government’s effort to attain an industrialized economy (Chiang 1998).

. From the four institutes that were built in that year, the economy was able to stabilize in terms of manpower as more and more skilled employees graduated from the institutes. Among the skilled workers included welders and mechanics whose roles in the industries like precision engineering, oil refinery, shipbuilding, woodworking industries amongst others were very indispensable. The industrialization effort by Singapore was elevated by their attraction of investors and also from the support of the United Nations and other foreign countries. External support resulted into construction of more vocational training centers where countries like Japan, France, and Britain etc contributed with relevant machinery and expertise (Chiang 1998).

The strategies had flaws of their own. These flaws were felt in the seventies when the level of teacher dropout increased. Most teachers were demoralized because of their career’s status in the society. In addition, the secondary education experienced a low growth rate as compared to the vocational training institutes. As a result, the literacy level of the country was completely low. This was a result of low English proficiency level. Most of the students failed due to their difficulties in understanding English language. This caused a high dropout rate at 440 of the 1000 enrolled in primary one reaching the secondary four which was ten years period. Despite this, the general literacy level in the country increased by about five percent in the period from 1970 to 1978. The rate in 1970 was 72.7% while 1978 accounted for a literacy level of 77.6% (Chiang 1998).

Shortage of scientists due to time gap

In the mid seventies, the government of Singapore witnessed a shortage of engineers and management personnel due to time gap. Although the government tried its best to increase the number of trained engineers by increasing them from 80 to 210 from the University of Singapore, the number could not cater for the shortage. This called for the importation of expatriates to cope with the increase in the rate of industrialization within the economy. Eventually, this resulted into brain drain (Chiang 1998).

The government had to formulate measures that would assist in the maintenance of its scientific string. This led to the formation of the Ministry of Science and technology in 1968. The mandate of this ministry was to develop all national policies related to science. It was also supposed to ensure that manpower related to science and technology was deployed effectively. It was also the role of this ministry to ensure that the education system included the training of manpower to the related technical fields. This was necessary in ensuring that there was effective sealing of this gap after the evacuation of the skilled British manpower. The department was perceived being very important amongst the parents. This is evident from the fact that most of the parents recommended their children to go for other forms of education other than vocational institutes. As a result, the ratio of academicians to technicians was 7:1 as compared to Japan that had a ration of 3:2. In addition, the ratio of engineers to technicians was at a staggering 1:23. It was therefore the role of the department to ensure that such big gaps were reduced (Goh 1972).

Change of strategies

The eighties came with new developmental needs compared to the seventies. The region of East Asia came up with new challenges. This called for a new revolution in Singapore. The East Asian countries saw a new beginning in fight for dominion of industries that were low skilled and labor intensive. With the increase in the rate of competition, the Singapore government perceived the need for change in its industrialization strategy. The change would enable economy shift from being labor intensive to capital intensive. The strategy involved attraction of multinational corporations (MNCs) that invest in high technology operations and intensive investments in Research and Development.

The government had to develop strategies aimed at encouraging the new trend of development. It also had to ensure that manpower development needs were well calculated. The government had to ensure that it actively participate in the economic development. This made the government assume the position of managing the demand and supply of education and skill. This gave the country a competitive edge that still puts them above most of the countries (Goh 1972).

New education system

This new development demanded for new strategies that were different from survival strategies implemented earlier. The survival technique was average and thus proved some how inadequate for intelligent students. It also became difficult and too fast for slow learners. The education department came up with strategies that would reduce education wastage through the formation of an education system that would place the pupils in a comfortable position depending on their learning abilities. This led to the development of the New Education System (NES). This program provided for three streams that catered for slow learners, average learners and fast learners. This system was meant to ensure that all students proceed further with their education. The effect is the creation of an environment that was conducive for job training (Goh 1972).

All along, the attitude towards technical and blue collar jobs remained different amongst the young citizens in Singapore with most of them preferring the blue collar jobs. This resulted into a total overhaul of the vocational training board which was renamed the Institute of Technical Education (ITE). These new developments were accompanied by the construction of new campuses that were technologically supported and had excellent infrastructure including sports and educational. The ITE also provided room for slow students as they were enrolled in a technical secondary stream that led to ITE’s post secondary institutes. The ITEs also facilitated for scholarship schemes for the outstanding ITE graduates. In addition to this, the department liaised with about 650 companies so that they could work towards restructuring the attitudes of the students towards the technical jobs. As a joint venture, the ITE students were exposed to state of the art machinery and also the salaries of the technical jobs were increased from S$700 in the early 90s to S$1200 in the year 2005 (Gopinathan 1999).

Recently, the country changed its focus from efficiency driven education to ability driven education. They achieved this through the formation of the “think schools, learning nation” policy that emphasized on learning as the only weapon of survival of this small state that has limited natural resources. The policy further emphasized on the quality of education as the main factor that could ensure sustainable economic development. Quality education is without doubt the only weapon that can help a country survive in the 21^st Century (Gopinathan 1999).

The current system

Currently, the government of Singapore has ensured the maintenance of high quality education as amongst the most effective means towards economic development. The education structure of Singapore gives the children general education for ten years. This includes different programs that cater for the different needs of the children. Unlike the other structures, the ability driven system as used by Singapore allows a student to choose from a range of options after his primary education. These different views allow the students to continue with education basing on his abilities and interests. This allows for the students to learn and end up in the different sectors of labor market as portrayed by the needs of the government (Boon & Gopinathan 2006).

The new ability driven education as portrayed by the Singaporean education system emphasizes on two major issues. It seeks to develop talents and abilities to the maximum. In this approach, the core belief is that every child has his strong point. However the talents and abilities of one child may differ from another and it calls for different approaches to cater for the different needs of the students. Secondly, the new educational system in Singapore seeks to harness the developed talents and abilities. This second aspect is aimed at infusing national values within the young Singaporeans so that they use their education to build their nation (Boon & Gopinathan 2006).

The new system has also witnessed increased funding within the education sector. The government has provided new opportunities for funding including increasing of the budget allocation to education. The increased funding resulted to such schemes as Edusave that acts as a grant for student needs such as educational tours to other countries and other extra curricula activities. The scheme has also been boosted by a 1 billion Singaporean dollar endowment fund. The government also increased its expenditure on students. This is applicable to both the primary and the secondary schools. For instance; in 1991 to 2005, the funding in primary schools increased from S$2,013 to S$3541 while that of secondary school increased from S$ 2843 to S$5,390 within the same time period (Boon & Gopinathan 2006).

The government also introduced the Information Communication Technology (ICT) within the education system. ICT was perceived as a means through which innovation and creativity would be enhanced. During the education period of 1997 to 2002, the government injected S$2 billion in the education sector to facilitate the launching of the ICT within the various levels of the education system which include the primary, secondary and post secondary levels (Boon & Gopinathan 2006).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Singaporean government has been devoted in its education sector. This is due to its perception that education was the key to a more powerful manpower that could propel a country’s economy. With the changing of environmental needs, the country also changed its education sector to match with the manpower needs of the nation. In addition to curricula formation, the government has increasingly funded the education sector in terms of grants and scholarships and facilitation of learning tools like the ICT. The government also formulated a policy aimed at ensuring effective remuneration within the various sectors of the economy. This led to increase in the number of students undertake the various educational courses offered. These include the technical jobs and teaching where most teachers were resigning. This depicts that the great economic leap experienced by Singapore was not an accidental phenomenon but a well calculated affair that merged the manpower needs of the country and the education sector.

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