Wu, Sandra Pinhui

2022, Wu, Sandra Pinhui

This chapter examines the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on preschool education in Singapore. Since its outbreak in late 2019, COVID-19 has impacted all age groups across the globe, including children. Using Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory as the theoretical frame, this chapter interrogates how Singapore has responded to this crisis through policymaking towards the care and education of young children. Through a top-down approach, it critiques how the government had swiftly rolled out policies to enforce safety measures and provide support, funding and resources for families and children during this crisis. It discusses the effects and impact of the pandemic on young children and ends with a set of recommendations for intervention and support.

2021, Wu, Sandra Pinhui, Tan, Charlene

A prominent international trend is competency-based curriculum reforms across education jurisdictions that are based on or inspired by global frameworks such as OECD’s core competency definitions. The educational changes are generally oriented towards a behaviourist conception of competence that is task-based and focuses on direct observation of performance. This chapter discusses the curriculum reforms for pre-school education in Singapore by drawing upon Gonczi’s (Competency Based Assessment in the Professions in Australia, Assess. Educ., 1994) and Jones and Moore’s (Appropriating Competence: The competency movement, the New Right and the ‘culture change’ project, Br. J. Educ. & Work., 1995) holistic model of competence. This model contains three main features. First, it contains a strong communal dimension by emphasising the relationship between the inner (the person) and the outer (the social). Secondly, the model emphasises social practices where competence takes place within informal, routinised and contextually located activities. Finally, the model underlines personal mastery by interpreting competent performance as spontaneous, natural and non-reflexive. We further extend this model by offering a Confucian interpretation where holism revolves around person-making. Next, we examine how and the extent to which recent changes for pre-school curriculum in Singapore transcend the definition of competencies as discrete skills to promote a set of complex and integrated attributes (knowledge, attitudes, values and skills) in young children so that they could thrive as confident individuals and active members of the community. The chapter also explores how the interaction of top-down and ground-up forces and social actors work together to improve pre-school education in Singapore.

2020, Tan, Charlene, Wu, Sandra Pinhui

This chapter discusses the promotion of religious harmony in Singapore schools by highlighting the key issues and challenges. It is explained that the notion of religious harmony is situated within a communitarian framework and is part of ‘multiracialism’ in Singapore. Through religious harmony, students in Singapore learn to respect one another’s religions and co-exist in a multi-faith society. The chapter details the enactment of religious harmony in Singapore schools through a variety of school-based and school-community programmes, projects, events and inter-faith dialogues. The last section of the chapter evaluates the extent to which the advancement of religious harmony has been successful in schools. It is argued that the value of religious harmony has been effectively inculcated in Singaporeans as attested to in national surveys. However, an on-going challenge for schools is to go beyond basic tolerance toward a form of tolerance that fosters deeper inter-religious understanding and respect. A major implication from the example of Singapore is the importance of religious harmony that is premised on an appreciation of common human attributes and the reasons for religious differences.

2023, Wu, Sandra Pinhui, Tan, Charlene

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.