Singapore stuff

I checked back with the Singapore report. (pdf file)

Founded as a British trading colony in 1819, Singapore joined Malaysia in 1963 but withdrew two years later and became an independent city-state. Its resident population is about 4.1 million, slightly larger than Los Angeles or Chicago. Singapore is a multiracial, multireligious, multilingual urban society. The largest ethnic group is Chinese (77 percent), followed by Malay (14 percent) and Indian (8 percent). In 1970, Singapore’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was about $300. By 2000, its per capita income was about $25,000, one of the highest in the world. Singapore’s economic growth is described “as a modern miracle because it has built its success on only one resource, its people” (MariMari, 2003). Singapore’s emphasis on education is seen as a major reason for its economic success.

[snip]

Singapore has a highly centralized education system controlled and coordinated by its Ministry of Education. The Ministry has implemented a national curriculum, developed a syllabus that guides instruction in all required subjects in all schools, and instituted uniform high-stakes assessments at the critical end of both primary and secondary school. Singapore’s education system (see Exhibit 2–2) consists of six years of primary education and four or five years of secondary education (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2003). At the primary level, pupils undertake a fouryear foundation stage in primary grades 1–4, followed by a two-year orientation stage in primary grades 5 and 6. Singapore and the United States have a similar age-grade correspondence in the primary grades; fourth graders are typically nine years old. The emphasis during the foundation stage is on basic literacy and numeracy. Eighty percent of the curriculum time is used for instruction in English, the student’s mother tongue (Chinese, Malay, or Tamil), and mathematics. Science is not taught until primary grade 3.

[snip]

At the end of primary grade 6, pupils take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), which assesses their abilities for placement in a secondary school program that suits their “learning, pace, abilities, and inclinations” (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2000a). Pupils are then admitted to the special, express, or normal stream for four years of secondary education. Students in the express and special streams, which have a high-level language curriculum, complete a college preparatory course and take the rigorous Joint Cambridge University (England) and Singapore O level college entrance examination at the end of their fourth year. Students in the normal stream complete a less rigorous curriculum and take the Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Normal (N-level) examination. Somewhat more than three-quarters of all secondary students take the O-level exam and the remaining students take the N-level exam (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2003a).

Throughout primary and secondary school, student advancement is tied to performance. A Ministry of Education’s mission statement makes this clear:

Every child must be encouraged to progress through the education system as far as his ability allows. Advancement must always depend on performance and merit to ensure equal opportunity for all. (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2003b)

Singapore also recognizes that not all children proceed at a rapid academic pace and that some children require special assistance:

Every child should be taught at a pace he can cope with. Each should be stimulated to excel according to his individual aptitudes. The system must be flexible, to cope with pupils who mature mentally, physically, emotionally and socially at different rates. (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2003b)

In practice, this approach means that Singapore relies on early high-stakes testing, but it also holds teachers responsible for the success of all children and ensures that teachers devote more attention, rather than less, to students with greater academic needs.

[snip]


ethnic groups in Singapore

Some believe that Singapore is successful because it educates a comparatively homogeneous population that is unlike the multiethnic U.S. population. It is true that Singapore’s student population is not as diverse as the U.S. student population, but to characterize Singapore as homogeneous is misleading. Singapore has three major ethnic groups. About three-fourths of Singapore’s population is Chinese, but almost a quarter is Malay or Indian. Like the United States, Singapore experienced serious ethnic strife in the 1960s. Singapore accommodates its heterogeneous population by practicing principles of multiracialism and meritocracy. It practices true bilingualism in grades 1 through 3 when, although English is the primary language of instruction, children from each major ethnic group also study their home languages. Singapore does remarkably well academically even though many students are receiving instruction primarily in a language other than what they speak at home, something at which the United States has been less successful.

Singapore’s 1999 TIMSS scores confirm that its minority students do well. Singapore broke out the 1999 TIMSS scores for its Malay and Chinese populations (Ministry of Education Singapore, 2000b). Although 96 percent of Chinese students performed better than the international eighth-grade mathematics average, Malaysian Singaporeans also did very well, with 83 percent scoring above the international average. Scores for Singapore’s Indian minority population were not available, but typically, students of Indian background outperform their Malaysian peers by a small margin. By comparison, in the United States, half of black eighth-grade students achieved no better than the bottom quarter of all international test takers (NCES, 2000).


tracking in Singapore

Beginning in grades 5 and 6, Singapore identifies its weaker students on the basis of a general examination of mathematics and language competency. These students receive special assistance and are taught according to a special fifth- and sixth-grade mathematics framework. This special framework mandates that students in the slower track

• receive approximately 30 percent more mathematics instruction than students in the regular track, and

• be exposed to the same mathematical content as students in the regular track, although at a slower pace.

The mathematics framework for students needing compensatory assistance adds review material to strengthen students’ understanding of previously taught content. For example, topics on numbers and geometry taught in grade 4 are repeated at a faster pace in grade 5. The introduction of some new concepts such as ratios, rates, and averages, which are normally introduced in grade 5, are delayed until grade 6 for the weaker students (Ministry of Education, 2001a). What is important, however, is that because slower students spend extra time studying mathematics, topics usually taught in grades 5 and 6 do not have to be completely sacrificed to make room for repetition.6

To support the framework for slower students, Singapore has developed a Learning Support Program to help educators identify these students and provide them with extra help (Ministry of Education 2003c). Mathematics Support Teachers (MST), who receive on-the-job supervision and specialized training to ensure that they are professionally competent, deliver compensatory assistance.

In the United States, we expect all students to meet the standards in state frameworks, but the standards do not help teachers address the needs of slower students. In fact, U.S. standards do not acknowledge that students learn at different rates. No Child Left Behind addresses the needs of failing schools, but it does not directly require that failing students receive help. Although some research evidence supports the belief that students benefit when the curriculum is adjusted to match their ability levels (Loveless, 1999), a distinct alternative curriculum would raise concerns in the United States about potential harm to students from ability grouping. Singapore’s approach differs from traditional ability grouping in that Singapore establishes a framework that requires students to master the same content as other students, not a watered-down curriculum as often happens in U.S. ability-grouped classrooms. Singapore also provides extra assistance from an expert teacher.

Singapore in a nutshell

• 3 ethnic groups complete with ethnic strife in the 60s: Chinese (77 percent), followed by Malay (14 percent) and Indian (8 percent)

• during grades 1-3 children are taught school subjects in English and also study their native language

• minority students there do far better than minority students here (96% of Chinese students perform better than 8th grade international average compared to 83% of Malay students)
  

• highly centralized education [ed.: which works everywhere in the universe and would no doubt be a horror here once Columbia Teachers College got hold of it]

• 10 or 11 years of schooling all told, compared to our 13 in K-12

• 3 tracks in secondary school, which begins at the end of grade 6 (special, express, or normal)
  

• slower students in secondary school receive 30% more math instruction from specially trained teachers & learn the same curriculum fast students learn but at a slower pace

update

from Independent George:

Actually, the language difficulties go far beyond that.

About 80% of the population is ethnically Chinese, but are split between native speakers of Mandarin, Hokkein, and Cantonese. Another 15% are Malay, and the rest are mostly Indian. Furthermore, the Malay population has been historically poorer and less educated than the Chinese population, and the Indians were largely an immigrant laboring class.

Essentially, Singapore is a big, ethnically mixed city with a long, often bloody history of class & ethnic divisions. So, of course, it's completely unfair to make a comparison to, say, New York or Los Angeles.