Cheng Yong Tan

Educational Leadership in Singapore: Tight Coupling, Sustainability, Scalability, and Succession.

Purpose – While Singapores outstanding educational achievements are well known worldwide, there is a disproportionate paucity of literature on school leadership practices that contribute to and support pedagogical initiatives that – along with socio‐cultural factors – are normally considered responsible for its educational success. The aim of this paper is to explicate system‐wide school leadership factors that contribute to Singapores educational success.Design/methodology/approach – The paper includes critical discussion, review of literature and conceptualization.Findings – It is argued that three unique features of Singapore school leadership, namely – logistics of a small tightly‐coupled school system, human resource policies that reinforce alignment, and a distinctive “leader‐teacher compact” reflecting the predominant Chinese culture – account for the extraordinary level of tight coupling and alignment of leadership across the school system. In turn, these unique features bring synergies of susta...

How a ‘top-performing’ Asian school system formulates and implements policy: The case of Singapore

This article analyses the paradox inherent in the ‘top-performing’ yet tightly controlled Singapore education system. As government controls have increased in complexity, existing policymaking conceptual heuristics in accounting for centre-periphery relationships appear inadequate. It argues that more direct government control is being replaced by ‘steering through paternalism from close proximity’, reflecting a more subtle centre-periphery relationship in an Asian context.

Influence of contextual challenges and constraints on learning-centered leadership

The present study examines from the contingency opportunities perspective the influence of contextual factors on principals’ learning-centered leadership using HLM. Participants were 18,641 school principals from 73 jurisdictions who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009. Results showed that principals were able to differentiate strategic (academic focus) from operational (involvement) leadership. The second finding pertained to principals shifting their leadership priorities when confronted with student academic failure and when leading larger schools. The third finding was the increase in both aspects of principals’ leadership in the face of parental academic pressure. The fourth finding was the negative impact of shortage of information technology resources on involvement. The last finding was that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) variable moderated the influence of parental academic pressure on academic focus, and that principals in OECD jurisdictions reported more involvement than those in non-OECD jurisdictions. The present study affirms principals’ behaviors as agentic responses to environmental contingencies.

Information technology, mathematics achievement, and educational equity in developed economies

Abstract The present study examined how access to home and school IT resources impacted student mathematics achievement. Data comprised 144,395 secondary school students from 7,308 schools in 22 developed economies who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. Results of hierarchical linear modelling showed that after controlling for student and school covariates, student achievement benefited from their access to home IT resources (main effect), and from the access to both home IT resources and highly educated mothers (interactive effect). Furthermore, IT resource shortages in school had a detrimental impact on student achievement (main effect), and the shortage accentuated the negative effects of school shortage in qualified teachers on achievement (interactive effect). Lastly, the results showed that students with less home academic and cultural resources were more impacted by IT resource access when compared to peers from advantaged families.

Explaining the Success of the World’s Leading Education Systems: The Case of Singapore

ABSTRACT International comparative data on student performance has led McKinsey&Company, among others, to suggest that education systems will inexorably converge in their developmental trajectories with principals and schools enjoying more autonomy. This article challenges these assumptions through referencing Singapore where schools and professionals are still tightly controlled in key resources, curricula and assessment, and where other key factors contribute to its success – thereby evidencing multiple pathways to success.

Conceptual diversity, moderators, and theoretical issues in quantitative studies of cultural capital theory

Abstract The present study reviewed quantitative empirical studies examining the relationship between cultural capital and student achievement. Results showed that researchers had conceptualized and measured cultural capital in different ways. It is argued that the more holistic understanding of the construct beyond highbrow cultural consumption must be balanced against the threat to conceptual clarity. The review also showed that cultural capital effects on student achievement were not a singular phenomenon. Rather, they were moderated by student, family, school, and country-level sociocultural factors with significant theoretical implications. The nexus of relationships among cultural capital indicators, moderators, and student achievement, and the theoretical issues involved can be used to inform future research in the testing of a more complete theory of Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory. Video abstract Read the transcript Watch the video on Vimeo

Curriculum, Leadership and Religion in Singapore Schools: How a Secular Government Engineers Social Harmony and the ‘State Interest’

This chapter analyses the place of religion across the landscape of Singapore school curricula, leadership and policy making. In so doing, it first provides a social, political, economic and demographic context to Singapore as a small multi-ethnic, multi-faith island republic. Its strongly authoritarian and secular government prioritizes the twin goals of social harmony and a workforce equipped with the skills to be a leading global twenty-first century, knowledge-based economy. Education is seen instrumentally by the government as a crucial vehicle to meeting both goals. Thus, the central argument is that for a large majority of the 360 schools in the system, there is no place for religion in the curriculum, since it is regarded as potentially divisive to social harmony; rather, social, moral and citizenship (National) education are emphasized for their apparent greater congruence with the government’s twin goals. However, such government policy creates tensions for the Malay-Muslim minority, some of whom prefer their children to be educated in madrasahs, of which there are currently six. A dichotomy thus exists for such schools between the desire for an Islamic religious education and the government’s priority for a modern academic curriculum. The chapter identifies the various ways in which the government manages such tensions to engineer the ‘state interest’, and the premium placed on skilful leadership at all levels to navigate and finesse the sensitive boundaries between faith and state.

Examining school leadership effects on student achievement: the role of contextual challenges and constraints

Abstract The present study examined indirect effects of principal leadership on the mathematics achievement of 254,475 15-year-old students from 10,313 schools in 32 OECD economies. Results showed that the students could be divided into three categories (Disadvantaged, Average, and Privileged) differing in levels of student SES and prior achievement, parental academic expectations, and access to school resources. Results also showed that principal leadership effects accounted for a greater proportion of between-school achievement variance for Disadvantaged vis-à-vis Privileged or Average students. In particular, instructional leadership had the largest positive effect on Disadvantaged vis-à-vis other students’ achievement via the mediating variables of teacher autonomy and morale. Distributed leadership negatively affected the achievement of Disadvantaged but not other students. The negative effects of principal goal-setting were the largest while those of principal problem-solving were the smallest for Disadvantaged students. The study contributes to the literature by examining contextual influences on the leadership–achievement relationship.

Predictors of Information Technology Integration in Secondary Schools: Evidence from a Large Scale Study of More than 30,000 Students

The present study examined the predictors of information technology (IT) integration in secondary school mathematics lessons. The predictors pertained to IT resource availability in schools, school contextual/institutional variables, accountability pressure faced by schools, subject culture in mathematics, and mathematics teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices. Data from 32,256 secondary school students from 2,519 schools in 16 developed economies who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Results showed that after controlling for student-level (gender, prior academic achievement and socioeconomic status) and school-level (class size, number of mathematics teachers) variables, students in schools with more computers per student, with more IT resources, with higher levels of IT curricular expectations, with an explicit policy on the use of IT in mathematics, whose teachers believed in student-centered teaching-learning, and whose teachers provided more problem-solving activities in class reported higher levels of IT integration. On the other hand, students who studied in schools with more positive teacher-related school learning climate, and with more academically demanding parents reported lower levels of IT integration. Student-related school learning climate, principal leadership behaviors, schools’ public posting of achievement data, tracking of school’s achievement data by administrative authorities, and pedagogical and curricular differentiation in mathematics lessons were not related to levels of IT integration. Put together, the predictors explained a total of 15.90% of the school-level variance in levels of IT integration. In particular, school IT resource availability, and mathematics teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices stood out as the most important determinants of IT integration in mathematics lessons.

What is the influence of cultural capital on student reading achievement in Confucian as compared to non-Confucian heritage societies?

Abstract The present study compared the contribution of familial cultural capital to the reading achievement of 116,508 15-year-old students who participated in PISA 2012 in six Confucian heritage cultures (CHCs) and nine non-CHCs with comparable educational and economic development. The different states of cultural capital examined comprised institutionalised (maternal, paternal education) and objectified (educational, cultural resources) indicators. Results showed that: (1) cultural capital levels were lower in CHCs (vis-à-vis non-CHCs); (2) cultural capital was generally positively related to student achievement in CHCs and non-CHCs; (3) the relationships between all cultural capital indicators, except educational resources, and achievement were weaker in CHCs than non-CHCs; and (4) objectified (vis-à-vis institutionalised) cultural capital was more strongly associated with achievement in CHCs. These results suggest that the stronger sociocultural emphasis on education in CHCs may have moderated cultural capital effects on student achievement and enabled more students to succeed academically.