Helping Prospective Principals Understand the Mathematics Curriculum: a Singapore experience

Abstract

Principals should play an important role as curriculum leaders in their schools. To discharge this role effectively, the principals must understand the nature of curriculum not only of the disciplines in which they have been trained, but also of other key disciplines commonly included in the school programme. A way must be found to train the principals to acquire up‐to‐date knowledge of the practices and trends in various subject curricula, so that they can carry out informed discussions with the heads of subject departments to set goals and directions for these programmes. This article focuses on such a programme, called the Diploma in Educational Administration (DEA), which has been developed at the Institute of Education, Singapore to train prospective principals. In particular, the paper shows how local research has been integrated into the training programme to help participants understand the mathematics curriculum.