This paper examines the effects of English Childhood home language (CHL) on teacher risk taking and identity in a Chinese context where Chinese and English bilingualism is prioritized in its national school curriculum. Data were collected from 3388 Chinese Singaporean teachers. We used structural equation modeling to examine the relationships…

Digital literacy is viewed by many governments as an educational priority area, resulting in policies and curricula aimed at developing students' digital literacy skills. This can present many challenges, including lacking teacher professional development, uneven digital infrastructure across school districts or unequal access to digital media…

In this paper, the Singapore school calculus curriculum at the upper secondary and the pre-university levels is examined in the light of the Singapore mathematics curriculum framework. Three key features of the calculus content are discerned: (1) an intuitive approach to calculus supported by the use of technology; (2) an emphasis on techniques;…

Internationally, there is a clear turn towards inquiry as a core approach to learning secondary school geography. This research critically compares how inquiry learning is expressed and justified in six jurisdictions (Australia, China, England, Hong Kong, Singapore, USA). Through content analysis of national curriculum documents, we found that…

Countries consider curriculum reform as an important and necessary measure to make schools enter the 21st century and respond to a fast-changing world. In recent years, many OECD countries have engaged in curriculum reform as a way to equip children with the knowledge, skills and competences needed for tomorrow. However, how to initiate such…

The paper reports a study that used a Bernsteinian analysis in order to investigate the association between higher primary science curriculum and social equity in four contrasting socioeconomic contexts: British Columbia (Canada), Singapore, South Africa and Kenya. The official science curriculum of each jurisdiction was analysed in terms of…

Internationally, schools with small numbers of children and constrained funding are not able to group the children in classes based on their age. Rather, the children are combined into larger 'mixed-age' classes. Schools and teachers manage this situation in different ways, for example by teaching the class as two or more separate age-based groups…

The results of international comparative studies like PISA and TIMSS attract researchers to conduct studies comparing math contents of curricula directly to each other. Unlike those studies, we compared math contents of Indonesian and Singaporean curricula based on math contents tested in PISA 2012 items. We also enrich the comparison with the…

Background: To help equip students with 21st century competencies, one popular strategy adopted by governments and schools worldwide is to move from less formal to more engaging school environments through School-Based Curriculum Development (SBCD). In Singapore, the governmental call to "Teach Less and Learn More" has galvanised SBCD in…

This article explores the correspondence between the vision of play articulated in Singapore's national kindergarten curriculum framework and the play-related pedagogies enacted by teachers on the ground, particularly during Learning Centre Time (LCT). Influenced by neo-liberal ways of thinking, the curriculum states that "purposeful…

In Singapore, early childhood care and education has evolved according to the nation's needs since its independence in 1965. From a welfare scheme to custodial care, early childhood care and education is now recognised as a critical part of children's learning and development. Over the years, the government has progressively implemented policies…

Much of the scholarship around the workings of education policy has focused on the global West and has taken for granted the state's limited abilities in the control of policies as both text and discourse. Drawing upon policy texts from the Singapore Ministry of Education and ethnographic data collected in a Singapore school, this paper explores…

In this paper, Chinese curricula in the contexts of China and Singapore on primary level are compared and contrasted by both quantitative (Word Segmenter and Text Analyzer) and qualitative methods (in-depth thematic analysis). The research shows challenges for educational administrators, teachers and other professional staff in Chinese education…

This book describes how different nations have defined the core competencies and skills that young people will need in order to thrive in the twenty-first-century, and how those nations have fashioned educational policies and curricula meant to promote those skills. The book examines six countries--Chile, China, India, Mexico, Singapore, and the…

Purpose is an intention over the long-term to have an effect on the world that is both meaningful to oneself and to others. What are schools doing to help students use the knowledge and skills they learn in school in their own lives and aspirations? This is the first study that compares adolescent purposes and life satisfaction in Singaporean and…