Wu, Sandra Pinhui

This dissertation presents a qualitative study exploring pedagogical leadership in the early childhood context of Singapore. The preschool landscape comprises diverse operators running child care centres and kindergartens that offer varied care and educational services for children from birth to six. This has resulted in different levels of quality and standards in preschool education. Positive child outcomes are found to be strongly linked to high quality early childhood programmes (Ang, 2012), and effective leadership is one of the key drivers for programme quality. As such, the assumption of this study is that effective preschool leaders tend to establish high quality programmes for the children under their care. The philosophical underpinnings of this research come from the interpretivist tradition, also known as social constructivism. This worldview posits that social realities are constructed by humans who make sense of the world through their life experiences (Bishop, 2007). The interpretation of social realities translates into social constructs, which through shared experiences and interactions, a co-construction of multiple realities and common understanding is formed (Patton, 2002). This paradigm enables the researcher to reach a shared understanding of pedagogical leadership through the multiple perspectives of the participants – the principal, teacher, children and children’s parents sampled in the study. Using a case study approach, this research investigates how pedagogical leadership is enacted through the roles and practices of a child care centre principal. Based on the criterion of purposeful sampling, an exemplary child care centre with a government accreditation, SPARK Commendation award, was chosen for this study. Data collection includes artefacts, classroom observations, questionnaires, interviews and survey. Analytic induction, coding and qualitative content analysis were used for data analysis. Through detailed descriptions, the narrative account provides insights to how an effective pedagogical leader has advanced programme and centre quality. The findings illustrate the roles and practices of this leader and shed light on how she had led her centre to achieve a SPARK Commendation award, and provide a high quality programme. This case study also provides recommendations on leadership development and capability building in the early years, and hopes to inform policymaking.

In this article, we propose a neo-Confucian curriculum for preschool education based on the writings of the neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi. Against the contemporary backdrop of a narrow emphasis on the academic assessment of children, we argue for an alternative approach that revolves around jing: the inner mental attentiveness to be true to one’s good nature. We propose an adaption of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and Confucian hierarchy of cardinal relationships that progressively cultivate the good nature of children across the spheres of the self, family and community, country and the world. We further outline an integrated programme with corresponding developmental domains, types of relationships and Confucian virtues. The desired outcome is the manifestation of each child’s innate goodness through attentiveness to routines and the habituation of moral values. A neo-Confucian curriculum adds to the existing literature on preschool educational approaches that are experiential, values-centric, interpersonal and holistic.

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.

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.

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.