Karuppiah, Nirmala

Although preschool education for children aged six years and below is not compulsory in Singapore, about 99% of children attend at least one year of preschool in Singapore. Since their beginnings in the 1940s, preschools (kindergartens, child care centers, and infant care centers) have evolved and mushroomed all over Singapore, providing care and education services for young children and their families from different social and cultural backgrounds. Realizing that early childhood education (ECE) is essential and contributes to later development, learning and behavior, the government has introduced new policies, measures and initiatives to increase the number of preschools as well as improve the access, affordability and quality of ECE for all children in Singapore. The formation of the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) in 2013, and the setting up of the National Institute of Early Childhood Development (NIEC) in 2018 are two of the many important milestones in the development of ECE in Singapore. The ECE sector has undergone tremendous changes, especially in teacher education (teacher preparation and professional development). The ECDA has introduced several changes to enhance teacher education, including a training and career pathway to attract and retain good personnel in the ECE sector and improve teacher professionalism, work conditions and well-being.

"This research project aimed to develop baseline data about assessment practices in eight primary schools (one Primary One classroom and one Primary 2 Classroom in each of the primary schools) in Singapore in the areas of literacy and numeracy."-- [p. 2].

This exploratory study was aimed primarily at developing baseline data on the quality of teacher-child interactions in Singapore pre-school classrooms. Data were collected through observations of teacher-child interactions in 80 pre-schools, using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) in the three key domains which are 1) Emotional Support, 2) Classroom Organisation, and 3) Instructional Support (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008). It was found that the overall quality of teacher-child interactions in the Singapore pre-school classrooms was low to moderate, with Instruction Support being the lowest. This finding is similar to that found in studies conducted in many other countries including China and the U.S. (Slot, 2017). Possible reasons and explanations will be presented, and suggestions to improve or enhance the quality of teacher-child interactions will be proposed. This study has implications on pre-school teacher education and professional development as well as government policies and regulations for the Singapore pre-school sector.

Children attending pre-schools should acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and dispositions to develop holistically. Therefore, promoting thinking skills in children is necessary. One of the ways to develop and promote thinking skills in children is through “dialogue such as questioning and challenging” (Higham, Tönsing & Alant, 2010, p.393). This dialogue can take place during story-telling activities. This study looks into 6 Kindergarten 1 and Kindergarten 2 teachers’ interactions during story-telling activities. Results have shown that teachers have mostly asked factual and procedural questions. The questions asked also belonged to the lowest cognitive level of Bloom’s Taxomony of learning domain. These results show future implications for various stakeholders.

For multicultural education to be effective, it must be introduced in the early years and reinforced throughout the school years. It is important for teachers of young children to be equipped with the appropriate knowledge, skills and positive attitudes to promote multiculturalism in their classrooms. This paper reports on a survey involving preschool teachers in Singapore who were participating in an in-service training course. The teachers completed a questionnaire to indicate their understandings of multicultural education and their perceptions of its importance in early childhood education. The findings indicated that the teachers endorsed the need for multicultural education in preschools and the importance of children learning tolerance and understanding of other cultures in the Singaporean context. However, while preschool teachers held positive attitudes towards multicultural education, there was limited understanding of the challenges in implementing an anti-bias teaching and curriculum approach. The implications of these findings for preschool teacher education programs in Singapore and in other countries focus on supporting teachers in developing more critical and deeper understandings of multiculturalism.