The Importance Of Education In Singapore

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Education is the development of learners’ general knowledge, skills and attitudes, as well as literacy and numeracy skills and to lay the foundation for lifelong learning (UNESCO, 2013). It is more emphasized in the 21st century due to the increasing competition in the workforce. We will be focusing on education in the years after 2010, which is in the third phase of education “Ability-driven Education”, from 1997 to the present. (MOE, 1997)
The 21st century competencies include communication, collaboration and information skills, civic literacy, global awareness and cross-cultural skills, literacy skills like media and technology literacy, life skills such as social and leadership skills and lastly, critical and inventive thinking skills. …show more content…

Singapore has meritocracy as a core principle of governance and according to Appold (2013), “meritocracy would discourage creativity”. Therefore, with meritocracy as the governing principle of Singapore, it is inevitable that students under the Singapore's education system will then lack creativity and innovation, which are one of the crucial 21st skills needed for the workforce. There is a narrow emphasis on academics and paper qualifications (Ng Chee Meng, 2016). In Singapore, national examinations such as the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), the GCE ‘O’ Level and the GCE ‘A’ Level examinations determine the institution that a student will attend in the next phase of his education and assess a student’s ability on the particular subjects that he …show more content…

These group discussions allow the students to develop their communication skills and also critical-thinking skills. With group discussions as a form of assessment, students are not only assessed based entirely on pure academic content but also on whether they are equipped with these crucial skills. Singapore utilises other ways of assessment to show not only is academic knowledge is important, the skills that are developed along with the other forms of assessment are equally important. With this, students will then pay more attention in developing these skills that are crucial in the 21st century

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