Ng, Pak Tee

This book explores how Estonia, despite high levels of poverty, has transformed its education system to become Europe’s top performer on PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). The engaging narrative uncovers reforms, mistakes and lessons learnt that have been harnessed to create a high-performing, high-equity education system, which includes social and education policies fostering equity, inclusion, learner autonomy, as well as schoolteacher and principal professionalism, autonomy and responsibility. It unearths how easy access to a wide range of data such as perceptions of well-being, autonomy and connectedness, in addition to examination results, builds internal and external accountability, and contributes to collective stakeholder efficacy. Grounded in research from Estonia and beyond, this is an ideal read for educators, administrators, academics, university students, change agents and parents interested in school system improvement. As equity, equality and inclusion are core drivers of the Estonian education system, this book would also be of interest to those working in social justice, inclusion and diversity.

Purpose This paper seeks to analyse the Singapore government's recent attempt to make Singapore a “Global Schoolhouse” by transforming its tertiary education sector. It aims to examine the government's attempt to promote greater diversity and autonomy in the tertiary education landscape; it also aims to examine the government's systems of state funding and accountability for the tertiary education sector. Design/methodology/approach The paper utilises a policy analysis approach to examine the development of the “Global Schoolhouse” in Singapore. In particular, it examines a case study of the setting up and subsequent sudden pull‐out of the University of New South Wales Asia (UNSW Asia) to highlight the increasing challenge faced by the government in this undertaking. Findings Despite the government's promotion of greater diversity and autonomy in the tertiary education landscape, the government maintains centralised control through systems of accountability to, and funding from, the state. The case study of UNSW Asia shows that it is a paradoxical challenge for the government to engineer a tertiary education “market economy” with private foreign players while maintaining centralised control over the achievement of its strategic agenda within its stipulated time frame. Research limitations/implications The analysis of the Singapore “Global Schoolhouse” effort is limited to a general review of the higher education scene in Singapore and a case study. Practical implications The study of Singapore serves as a mirror to other developing countries in understanding the challenges in developing a “Global Schoolhouse” while trying to maintain centralised control. Originality/value This paper provides an analysis of the recent developments in the Singapore “Global Schoolhouse” effort.

This study examined the pedagogical practice of an initial teacher education course from the diploma programme in the National Institute of Education and how it contributed to student teachers’ professional growth in terms of pedagogical knowledge and skills, and professional identity as a teacher. This study made use of videographic data of 11 lessons of the course over an entire semester, and end-of-course focus group interviews with the student teachers and the lecturer who conducted the course. The findings have important implications for pedagogical practice in teacher education.

Since 2009, the PI and her team have been building an evidence-base to help inform policies on, and practices of initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in the National Institute of Education (NIE) and early career professional learning of local teachers in five research projects. Building on and extending the team's earlier work on ITE and early career teacher learning, this project intends to characterise the impact of experience—both cumulative and episodic—on career-long development and sustainability of Singaporean teachers. Understanding teacher career development and sustainability beyond the early career phase will become more important as the age of Singapore’s teaching force increases, in line with the nation’s demographic trends. This project aims to contribute to the chain of evidence linking ITE with subsequent within-career experience to understand whether and why teachers’ professional identity, competence, and commitment change over time.

Singapore is noted for its low teacher attrition rate, while teacher retention continues to be a pressing issue for many countries. Drawing on the experiences of student teachers in the sole institute for pre-service teacher education in Singapore, this paper argues for the importance of exposing teacher candidates to a lengthy period of school experience as part of the teacher selection process. Before they are officially enrolled into pre-service teacher education, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore requires all teacher candidates for the Postgraduate Diploma of Education programmes to go through compulsory school experiences. Our analysis shows that this lengthy exposure to the realities and complexities of teaching could be an important contributor to teacher retention in terms of testing and promoting teacher candidates’ ‘resilient qualities’ such as passion for teaching, self-efficacy beliefs, and positive emotion. In other words, the school experience can help teacher candidates develop their understanding of themselves as teachers and assess their suitability for teaching. This study sheds new light on the current practices of teacher retention and teacher recruitment strategies.

While collaborative learning among teachers is encouraged and practised in many schools today, the process of learning through 'communities of practice' may involve ‘sensemaking’ rather than critical reflective learning. This paper argues that sensemaking in a community of practice utilises a restricted form of reflective learning that is largely technical in nature and confined to immediate practice concerns. It is further argued that the quality of learning will be significantly enhanced by encouraging practitioners to engage in critical reflective learning where reflection is implicit and intuitive in nature, and general and contextual in scope and object.