Jonathan Wee Pin Goh

Transformative pedagogy, leadership and school organisation for the twenty-first-century knowledge-based economy: the case of Singapore

Singapore has a high performing school system; its students top international tests in maths and science. Yet while the Singapore government cherishes its world class ‘brand’, it realises that in a globally competitive world, its schools need to prepare students for the twenty-first-century knowledge-based economy (KBE). Accordingly, over the past 13 years, the government has been laying a policy platform conducive to innovative curricula and pedagogy. Despite the governments command and control ethos, and a history of school responsiveness to economic needs, schools have yet to undertake serious transformation in preparing students for the KBE. This article argues that the present focus on innovation in the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment needs to be accompanied by a simultaneous re-configuration in leadership and school organisation, thus generating school-wide transformation. It comprises three parts: the first maps the connectivity between the economic and education development of Singapore since 1965 to the present; the second outlines the human resource implications of KBEs for a twenty-first-century curriculum; and the third maps the transformation of school leadership and organisation that is needed if curricular and pedagogic innovations are to be successful.

Parallel Leadership in an Unparallel" World"--Cultural Constraints on the Transferability of Western Educational Leadership Theories across Cultures.

With the global economy becoming more integrated, the issues of cross‐cultural relevance and transferability of leadership theories and practices have become increasingly urgent. Drawing upon the concept of parallel leadership in schools proposed by Crowther, Kaagan, Ferguson, and Hann as an example, the purpose of this paper is to examine the notion that Western educational leadership theories are universal in applicability in a Singapore school context. According to Crowther et al., parallel leadership is a process where school principals and teacher leaders engage in collective action to enhance school capacity through mutual respect, a shared sense of purpose and celebrating individual variations and differences. This interaction involves deep cognitive learning as well as social, moral, aesthetic and spiritual aspects of learning and development. By way of understanding of cultural values, it is not surprising to note that educational leadership theories are in fact ‘culture‐bound’. Culture is essentially related to environmental factors, assumptions and constraints. In other words, the cross‐cultural transferability of educational leadership theories and practices is subject to the degree of similarities between the cultures. It is paramount to be cautious of the adoption of Western ‘cultural bound’ theories in the local school contexts.

Pursuing the elusive construct of distributed leadership Is the search over

Distributed leadership is one of the most prominent contemporary leadership theories in education. Its attraction in education is perhaps due to its potential to bring about school improvement. A review of the literature, however, reveals broadness in the way the construct is being conceptualized and operationalized; thus making it elusive. The elusive nature of distributed leadership could be down to the lack of attempts to unpack and measure this construct, and/or because of the contested definition of the term ‘leadership’ itself. The purpose of this article is to elucidate this construct by addressing possible dimensionality issues. To do this, exploratory factor analysis was performed using Rasch (linearized) standardized residuals to examine the factor structure of distributed leadership. The analysis provided a lucid interpretation of the data to build a theoretical (measurement) model of distributed leadership. The distributed leadership instrument consists of 25 items, and the sample involved 1,232 schools leaders from Singapore. The findings indicated the presence of four possible factors of distributed leadership which include bounded empowerment, developing leadership, shared decision and collective engagement.

Teacher Leadership Enactment in Professional Learning Community Contexts: Towards a Better Understanding of the Phenomenon.

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have gained considerable attention in education. However, PLCs are dependent on how group members collectively work and learn towards shared goals on improving teaching and learning. This would require leadership to support meaningful and productive interactions within PLC contexts, and hence, the importance of teacher leaders. In this article, we report on an ethnographic case study involving three PLCs investigating how teacher leadership supports PLC conversations using an intervention framework provided by the research team. The findings showed that teacher leadership has potential in supporting PLC conversations along three dimensions of its construct.

A research agenda for professional learning communities: moving forward

Professional learning communities (PLCs) as a means of raising the teaching profession are becoming more attractive in education systems seeking to improve school improvement processes and outcomes. The main intention is to increase the individual and collective capacity of teachers so as to support school-wide capacity for teaching and learning. Although international research on PLCs is relatively extensive, covering about three decades, there are still gaps in its research base; specifically on the concept of community and the effects of PLCs. In this article, we propose a research agenda for PLC research that will afford substantive theorization on PLCs which will need to be drawn from robust empirical evidence. In the proposed research agenda for PLCs, we first argue that a PLC is a multi-dimensional construct comprising three inter-dependent dimensions of ‘community’, ‘learning’ and ‘professional’. This precedential task is necessary before investigations on effects or impact (direct or indirect) of PLCs can be meaningfully and reliably carried out. We then propose a research framework for PLCs constituting three aspects: construct of PLCs; conditions–contexts of PLCs; and causalities of PLCs. Finally, we propose six aspects pertaining to methodological rigor to support PLC research.

Transforming Singapore Schools: The Economic Imperative, Government Policy and School Principalship

This chapter argues that the command and control system operated by the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) – far from being a conservative block to reform and change which might normally be associated with a centralized bureaucracy – has in fact been the main change agent instigating and promulgating it since Singapore’s independence in 1965. The profundity of the reforms and their acceleration in the last 15 years show them to be generally carefully planned, coherent and well articulated in contrast to those of many Western governments during the same period. Given the politico-economic and social conditions of Singapore and the fact that there has been only one ruling Political Party since the nation’s foundation, the government has been able to orchestrate and align changes in the education system to support and reinforce evolving economic policies and priorities. By orchestrating the political, economic, and social condition of Singapore during this time, the government has effectively determined the role, functions, and contribution of principals as school leaders. The MOE ensures Principals as senior educational officers have clear expectations on them to implement policy in their schools. Notwithstanding centralized control, two caveats to this thesis are first, the extent to which principals and schools implement policy is variable, and second, the MOE is increasingly and cautiously encouraging more school-based leadership initiatives. This chapter traces the evolution of the principal’s role over the past 50 years, provides examples of innovative curricular innovations in Singapore schools, and hints at future directions for the principalship.

Distributed leadership to support PLCs in Asian pragmatic Singapore schools

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have gained considerable attention in many countries, including Singapore. The central motivation behind PLCs is school-based curriculum development for twenty-first-century outcomes. However, the functioning of PLCs requires a transformation in the way school leaders work and relate to teachers in order to sustain teachers’ willingness to participate in teacher-initiated collaborative learning leading to improvements in classroom practices and student learning outcomes. It is postulated that a more distributed nature of leadership is necessary to bring about this transformation. However, the looseness and broadness of the concept on distributed leadership pose a threat to this transformative potential. Hence, the need to tease out its conceptual dimensions. From key literature, three dimensions emerged: empowerment, interactive relations for shared decisions and developing leadership. Nevertheless, these dimensions need to be sensitive to the Asian Singapore context, namely the value for hierarchy and economic pragmatism. Nation states around the world, including Singapore, are endeavouring to reform their education systems in order to successfully compete in the global economy (Carnoy, 1999). With human capital as Singapore’s primary resource, it is unsurprising that the state has placed great emphasis on strengthening the economic–education nexus. This tight nexus along with its instrumentalist view of the purpose of education underpins both the social and economic development that has taken Singapore from a Third to First World state in a little more than 40 years

Rethinking teaching and learning of science inference competencies of lower track students in Singapore: a Rasch investigation

ABSTRACT Competency in making inferences is an important aspect of student learning in the twenty-first century, for making better-informed decisions. The purpose of our study is to investigate the type of science capital that can predict the science inference competencies of lower track students. Science capital comprises diverse social capital, cultural capital, and mental schema. A total of 1,397 Normal Academic (NA) and 637 Normal Technical (NT) Grade 7 students from 37 public secondary schools in Singapore participated in the study. Three separate science inference tests were administered to the students over one academic year, and test scores were calibrated and equated using Rasch analysis. The relationship between students’ perceptions of science capital and their development in science inference competencies was investigated using Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis. The results indicated that NA students’ self-views in science learning and their views about the nature of science were significant predictors of their scientific inference competencies. For NT students, their views about science teachers was the only significant predictors of their performance on making scientific inferences. Based on the research design and findings, we draw implications for local and international science curriculum policy. Additionally, we demonstrate the usefulness of Rasch analysis.

Assessing Students’ Growth in Mathematics and English Language in Singapore: The Practice, the Evidence and the Perceptions

This chapter provides a discussion on how the Singapore education system uses evidence from educational research conducted both locally and internationally, to shape policies and initiatives that can effectuate the “common good”. In addition to research outcomes, the Singapore Ministry of Education also takes into consideration the various theories in the various aspects of education, specifically in teaching and learning (which includes curriculum matters, pedagogical issues and assessment practices). The common good referred to here are better positive outcomes to the relevant stakeholders (i.e., the students, parents, teachers and the school leadership) in the teaching and learning processes. Examples of earlier policy decisions that befit the conditions and situations of the education scenario of that time, are described. Focus for the current situation where policy decisions may be made that will impact on teachers’ practices is research on assessment practices in schools. The common good with better assessment practices is the more accurate measures of student learning and growth, resulting in students knowing better where they stand, and teachers knowing better the areas and concepts where students lack clarity in, and what they are already clear about and have learnt well. With greater autonomy given to schools by the Singapore Ministry of Education, schools are encouraged to be innovative in their teaching and learning approaches and as such, schools may also decide on their own policies in teaching practices.