Choo, Suzanne S.

English education has played a key role in the modernization and globalization of Singapore. Following the institution of the Bilingual policy in the year following the nation’s independence in 1965, the English Language attained a privileged status among other languages taught in Singapore schools. To this day, it is viewed as a vital catalyst to securing Singapore’s continued economic growth and to maintaining its image as a cosmopolitan hub conducive to foreign businesses and investments. In this chapter, we chart developments in English education in Singapore from the country’s independence in 1965 to the present. We focus on key changes to English Language syllabuses across Singapore’s history which we contextualize alongside four major phases of education in Singapore: Survival-driven education (1950s to 1960s), Efficiency-driven education (1970s to 1980s), Ability-driven education (1990s to 2000s), and Student-centric, Values-driven education (2010 to the present). The chapter concludes with observations about future developments of English education in Singapore.

Two concepts characterize the zeitgeist of the 21st century. The first is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which provides a positivistic vision of societal transformation caused by the explosion and fusion of technologies. The second is post-truth, in which objective facts have become less influential than appeals to emotion or personal belief. The concurrent visibility of both concepts suggests their interconnection. Indeed, digital porosity, exacerbated by technological advancements, is a catalyst for post-truth. Given this climate, cosmopolitan literacies are fundamental to promoting ethical ways of living and relating to diverse others. In this paper, I argue that what is foundational to cosmopolitan literacies is hermeneutical justice. Without hermeneutical justice, all communicative practices are liable to post-truths and misinformed acts of justice. I begin by explaining the concept of hermeneutical justice and proceed to discuss its implications for cosmopolitan literacy practices.

Contemporary forces of deglobalisation and neo-tribalism have renewed questions about the public role of the humanities. In this essay, I draw on Edward Said’s reflections of secular criticism and observe how his problematisations of traditional practices of criticism provide a foundational basis for post-critical criticism. Specifically, post-critical criticism is undergirded by an open meta-narrative of cosmopolitan humanism, an inherently porous concept that Said envisioned could counter the closed meta-narratives of religion and nationalism. In practice, post-critical criticism disrupts traditional, authoritative criticism that masks inherited methodologies and conveys the critic as a prophet of enlightenment. More importantly, it pushes beyond the limits of hermeneutical interpretation towards an ethics of visioning and vision-making thus becoming a more productive force for humanity.

This chapter surveys three models of global education in teacher education paying attention to their philosophical underpinnings as informed by Human Capital Theory, Human Capabilities Approach, and Cosmopolitan Ethical Approach. The first part of the chapter examines the teleological end underlying the popularity of global competencies frameworks such as that propagated by OECD as grounded on Human Capital Theory. The second and third parts of the chapter focus on alternative and complementary paradigms informed by the Human Capabilities Approach and Cosmopolitan Ethical Approach. The chapter explores how they both center on a vision of human well-being and flourishing using examples from UNESCO’s humanistic approach to global education. The chapter then demonstrates how human capabilities and cosmopolitan ethics can translate into reframing global education in relation to the dispositional, pedagogical, and intercultural aspects of teacher education.

All over the world, governments and policymakers continue to proclaim the need to educate students for the 21st century. In this study, we argue that the impetus for 21st century education should be more accurately termed, 21st century global education which refers to education that seeks to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and sensitivities to compete and navigate the challenges caused by globalization in the 21st century. Based on this initial definition, we examine three theoretical models that may inform the conceptualization and enactment of 21st century global education in schools.
The first model is Human Capital Theory (HCT) which focuses on economic globalization resulting in economic reasoning used to justify policy initiatives and reform. HCT reinforces economic utilitarianism resulting in educational goals prioritizing the teaching of competencies. The second model is the Human Capabilities Approach (HCA) that emphasizes the importance of the intrinsic goods of education (as opposed to its mere instrumental utility). HCA argues that the development of human well-being is deemed the highest end which individuals should seek to attain and which government and public policies should be directed towards. HCA draws attention to the ends of education centred on the development of capabilities to support human flourishing, which involve opportunities for individuals to pursue what they value, freedom to choose among the opportunities given, and agency to construct one’s goals and values. The third model the Cosmopolitan Capacities Approach (CCA) is an extension of HCA. CCA is premised on the philosophy of ethical cosmopolitanism entailing questions about what it means to equip students as cosmopolitans or citizens of the world. CCA perceives that capabilities should not merely foster an individual’s well-being but that in doing so, the individual is then empowered to use his knowledge and skills to empower others. Thus, CCA focuses on the ends of cultivating capacities which denotes the ability or power to perceive, understand, empathize with and defend or find solutions to addressing the concerns of others.

While English literature once occupied a central position in national curricula, enrollment in the subject has undergone a continuing decline in English-speaking countries such as the United States and United Kingdom. Its marginal position may also be observed in formerly colonized countries such as Singapore, where the subject was introduced, appropriated, and reconstructed. My aim, in this paper, is to propose a re-envisioning of literature education premised on the principles of ethical cosmopolitanism. In the first part of the paper, I describe ethical cosmopolitanism by distinguishing it from strategic cosmopolitanism, which has more recently emerged in response to the pressures of economic globalization, leading to the economization of education. In the second part of the paper, I show how the principles of strategic cosmopolitanism have directed the national literature curriculum in Singapore through my analysis of the national syllabus and high-stakes examination papers from 1990 to the present. This leads to the third part of the paper, in which I use a case study of four literature teachers in Singapore secondary schools to characterize the ethical cosmopolitan pedagogies they employ to circumvent nation-centric, economic pressures of strategic cosmopolitanism operating at the national level. More importantly, I discuss how such pedagogies have the potential to foster a hospitable imagination, which constitutes the strongest defense one can give to literature education in the context of an increasingly culturally complex, connected, and contested global sphere.

Throughout the world today, governments and policymakers stress the urgent need to educate students for the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous conditions of the twenty-first century. The quest to prepare students for the twenty-first century has raised the question of the role of Literature education in cultivating key skills and dispositions necessary to address the ethical impetus of globalization.

In an age of hyper-globalization, global literacies education plays a fundamental role in cultivating critical-ethical dispositions where critical thinking is integrated with ethical ways of seeing, feeling, and relating to diverse others in the world. In the first part of the chapter, the author makes a case for strengthening critical-ethical engagements in global literacies learning as opposed to a decontextualized, instrumental approach to critical thinking observed in many global education frameworks. In the second part, the author distills key pedagogical principles and practices of critical-ethical engagements in literacies learning. Based on three influential philosophers, the author uses their concepts to distill key pedagogical principles. Broadly, these pedagogies encompass Aristotelian phronesis, Confucian remonstrance, and Levinasian interruption. The chapter provides examples of how these may be practiced in global literacies education and discusses how they contribute to the development of cosmopolitan dispositions crucial to supporting hospitable and just societies.

Once regarded as the most essential subject in the national curriculum vital for civilizing the public, English Literature has now lost its place of prominence. In this paper, I focus on Singapore where the subject was a core aspect of the colonial curriculum and where it is currently facing declining enrolment at the national examinations. In the first part of the paper, I discuss how Literature initially functioned to propagate colonial values education in Singapore and how, following Singapore's independence, its goals were overtaken by a nation-state model of values education. Limitations of this model provide the grounds for a transnational model of critical values education that, as I argue in the second part, may be powerfully conveyed through Literature. It is Literature’s capacity to facilitate transnational critical engagements with values and explorations of identity especially involving highly sensitive aspects related to gender, race, and religion that represents the strongest justification in the light of its present demise. What Literature offers is the possibility of engaging with values beyond the confines of Empire or nation by grappling with essential questions about what it means to be a cosmopolitan as opposed to a nationalistic citizen inhabiting the world.