Education was the foundation of the civilised modern culture. Man developed from uncivilised barbarians moving into the outrageous, to civilised people residing in structured societies. It had been through education that interpersonal elements such as terms, culture, guidelines and morals were propagate. In our cities, we have systems of regulation to fight for justice and settle disputes. When we require works of products in one another, there are occupations, money and trade. Generally in most countries, Man already lives in civilised societies. Thus, education today is less about civilising Man but more about paving the road towards improvement, and the ongoing improvement in our lives.
So, when we think of education, what comes to head? Getting our 'O' Levels certificates? How about 'A' Levels certificates, or diplomas and degrees and other higher certification? Why do we go through all these many years of schooling to attain these? Education starts up doorways to occupational opportunity [5]. Flip through the job advertisements in the magazines, or those from online job portals: whether it be an accountant, a chef, a educator, a doctor, a technician, or perhaps a driver - they all need relevant skills as proof of education. Through education, we learn skills that be eligible us for an profession. Thus, the goal of education is to permit us to make a living, by firmly taking on occupational functions in the contemporary society.
As such, education is also associated with a society's current economic climate [5]. When a country's education system is not up to par, its economy will suffer because of computer. It was recently reported in the news headlines that "Poor Knowledge Education Impairs US Current economic climate" [10]. Statistics showed that the united states trails behind many other industrialized countries, located at the 48th position in the K-12 category worldwide position for mathematics and knowledge. The stagnating science education led to a scarcity of qualified personnel, thus employers had to look in other places for employees - thus contributing to other countries' economies instead [10]. Further statistics show that the speed of high school dropouts in the US is 1. 2 million per year, and 44% of these dropouts up to the age of 24 remain unemployed [16]. If these amounts were halved, the US economy would have gained again US$150 billion yearly in lost pay and taxes [16]. Thus, the goal of education is to attain economic wealth for the contemporary society.
Another reason for education is to instil the society's prices in to the individual's character. Regarding Japan, their Fundamental Legislations of Education says a purpose of education:
"Education shall purpose at the entire development of personality, striving for the rearing of individuals, sound in mind and body, who shall love fact and justice have a deep sense of responsibility builders of peaceful condition and world. " [15]
The Japanese university system achieves this through moral education not only as an unbiased subject, but emphasized throughout all other subject matter and activities in the school [12]. For instance, Japanese language classes aren't designed and then permit the pupil to develop an understanding of the words, but also to cultivate a value for it [12]. Japanese students also figure out how to appreciate responsibility and the worthiness of effort through their daily rotational responsibilities of cleaning the various facilities in the school [12]. Through education, Japan is designed to instil atlanta divorce attorneys pupil strong rules of social etiquette. Without interpersonal etiquette, Man would go back to its original days of barbaric lifestyles.
"Real education must acquire the best from the children to be educated. " [11]
Education also needs to seek to increase a person's potential. In SC, Forest Lake Elementary customizes lessons to match the diverse students through the use of differentiated instructions [17]. Studies are conducted to determine the students' interests. Assignments aren't set - for example, instead of article questions, students can make to submit poems, takes on, comic strips, or even record a training video [17]. Differentiated teaching gives each student ways to show off their own diverse abilities.
The above explained purposes of education are usually universal to most societies, though each may have different perspectives of computer. What is Singapore's undertake the purposes of education? For just a nation without the natural resources, our main learning resource is our people. Hence, much has been invested into our education system in order to boost this tool [8]. Education outfitted the workforce with the skills and skills they needed to make a living. Education also solved the racial disharmony issues in Singapore, which were caused by miscommunications and too little common understanding between the different races.
The government started out by implementing involved classes where students of different language streams can study jointly in the same school [8]. Schools marketed values of racial harmony while establishing a national identity through flag-raising and pledge-taking ceremonies [8]. Bilingualism was also unveiled in 1966 [8]. This provided students of different races a common English vocabulary to talk to, while they persisted to learn their Mother Tongue to maintain their cultural roots. Teachers also experienced a common terminology to teach their multiracial students with. Today, Singapore is world-renowned for her multicultural modern culture. Thus, education satisfied the goal of creating a cohesive population in Singapore.
However, regulations such as Bilingualism have their implications, which are becoming increasingly more noticeable today. Students are speaking far more English due to emphasis of English on a nationwide level. The standard of Mom Tongue overall was declining. For example, the 'O' level results of several students were greatly afflicted because of poor Chinese language levels. Eventually, CL 'B' was introduced, where students could take this simpler version of Chinese that could not count to their overall results. Students are gradually losing touch of the cultural root base. For Mom Tongue teachers, they can hardly keep their Mom Tongue lessons a one-language class, having to use English to explain words. It has further implications on the greater senior educators who graduated from one-language classes, as their proficiencies in English may well not be sufficient to explain what to the students.
Singapore's education system also needed to fulfil the purpose of instilling society's beliefs into the students, building their persona. Very much like Japan, Civics and Moral Education was part of the curriculum [13]. Students also proceed through a compulsory Community Engagement Program (CIP) where they are required to clock a minimum number of hours of community work per 12 months. CIP provides students the chance to participate in volunteer work that exemplify the worth trained in CME, and invite these to play active roles in bettering the lives of others in the modern culture [13].
However, because CIP was made compulsory, there are several implications to its performance on students. Most the students only feel the motions of doing CIP just to clock the least number of hours. This reduces its effectiveness because the pushing factor to do CIP should result from the heart. Furthermore, CIP activities are usually things such as beach cleaning and collecting donations. These mundane and repeated activities cause the students to find even less meaning in CIP.
Like South Carolina, education in Singapore also complies with the purpose of developing every university student to the maximum of his potential [7].
" to educate a kid to bring out his biggest potential " [3]
Hence, the ability-based loading system was launched. Students were banded into different classes based on their diverse skills, where brighter students made a category to learn at a faster rate and less suitable students made another course to learn at a slower rate. The rationale of this was to "allow a child every chance to go so far as they can" [2]. Reports confirmed that after loading was implemented, there is a rise from 71% to 98. 4% of primary institution students who advanced onto secondary education [13].
However, there are implications to the system. While the brighter students get recognition for his or her excellent performance, a few of them also suffer from a high degree of stress. This stress is triggered by the pressure from parents and classes who expect them to maintain their excellent performance. For the less competent students, they could lose self-esteem due to the stereotypical labels positioned on them because they are in the "weaker" or "slower" group. For the instructors, addititionally there is additional stress at the two extremes. In the higher band classes, professors would need to meet up with the higher expectations of the brighter students, as they are children whose functions usually go beyond the textbook syllabuses. In the low band classes, professors would have to inspire and work harder to help the students achieve their aim for grades.
As an expansion of this streaming system, the Ability-Driven Education (ADE) was integrated in 1999, as one of the key aspects of the Thinking Classes, Learning Land (TSLN) platform that was unveiled in 1997 [4]. The aim of TSLN was to inculcate inside our students a lifelong learning passion, at exactly the same time encouraging innovation and imagination [4]. Beneath the ADE, students is now able to choose to build up their talents, whether it is in arts or other areas [4]. New universities like the Singapore Sports College were created to provide an choice extra education to students with talents in activities. Another key facet of TSLN is the Integrated Program (IP) that allows top percentile students to skip the 'O' Levels examinations and go right to Junior School or other professional institutes, providing students more options to customise their education and develop their skills [4].
MOE also launched the ICT Masterplans to support the TSLN framework [14]. It had been integrated into institutions and professors were prompted to use IT in their classrooms. There was a dependence on this because the move from the Industrial Get older to the Knowledge Age made the use than it in society visible.
The Knowledge Age also brings with it globalisation and fierce economic competition. Maintaining changes is no longer sufficient; Singapore needs individuals who are impressive and creative to be at the frontline launching new changes to the world. However, Singapore is lacking in such individuals when compared with countries like Japan, where technologies are a normal affair because of this with their strong concentrate on technology in their education. As a result, TSLN was put in place to educate Singapore's students to be continuously versatile to changes, and produce abilities to lead our frontline contrary to the global economy. Here, the goal of education is aimed at achieving economic success for the country.
TSLN happens to be at its third period: Teach Less, Learn More (TLLM) [4]. Classrooms are becoming more student-centred, with educators performing as facilitators to the students' self-employed learning, instead of the traditional "spoon-feeding" of textbook knowledge. Additionally, the utilization of IT is emphasized more heavily in TLLM [4]. For example, e-learning assignments encourage students to conduct research separately and present their findings to one another in course.
However, there are some implications to the execution of the TSLN construction.
Firstly, the ADE and IP require the students to make a lifelong decision at a young age [4]. For example, by opting to join the IP, the pupil will go straight to JC without taking the 'O' Levels examinations. When the student performs improperly in his 'A' Levels exam, he'd be kept in a spot without having an 'O' level certificate to fall again on.
Secondly, the ICT Masterplans promote the increased use of IT which can become a hassle for teachers who are less IT-inclined as they would have to wait additional trainings together with their heavy workload [14]. Furthermore, lessons can be hindered when problems appear with the IT systems.
Thirdly, when MOE released TLLM, only the concept was explained, with little instructions and good examples to check out [6]. The implementation and accountability of the policy is remaining to the school, meaning that if the school is unable to perform up to standard, the responsibility remains with the school [6]. For educators, coming to the frontline of the school room, they experience the most pressure out of this responsibility. When one hears the word "Teach Less", you might suppose that the teacher's workload is lessened. However, this isn't true. Even as a facilitator, the tutor has even more to plan for the lessons. How will she complete the syllabus promptly, what with having to spend extra time planning TLLM and applying it in her already-tight lessons? How would the students react, in case their solutions are inadequate, how would she hint them to the right direction, while maintaining their self-employed learning? Furthermore, the current textbooks were created more for the traditional methods of teaching and assessing. How would she apply TLLM to it? Also, if students is not determined to learn independently, or if he's not pro-active enough in the class room, he would obtain little benefit from the TLLM approach. It is again on the teacher's onus to find more ways to activate the scholar and encourage them to participate positively.
In bottom line, Singapore stocks the same purposes of education that a lot of other countries do, although our ways of implementation may cause different results and implications. In the long run, our goal for education is for our people to become keen lifelong learners, while being ground breaking and creative enough to present new changes in the world; at the same time instilling in them good public prices. As our education system progresses, so will the lives of Singaporeans.
