Sex, rankings and policy change: policy entrepreneurship in Singapore’s higher education system

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to understand policy change in the context of Singapore’s higher education system. It does so by applying Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach to two cases of policy entrepreneurship. In doing so, this article finds that while the efforts of the policy entrepreneur in one case had given rise to substantial policy change, the policy entrepreneur in the second case was not able to generate policy change due to an impartial coupling of streams. In highlighting impartial coupling, this article seeks to understand how policy change may sometimes not occur, despite the efforts of a policy entrepreneur.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy change
• multiple streams approach
• higher education policy
• Asia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

J.J. Woo

J.J. Woo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian & Policy Studies, Education University of Hong Kong. He received his PhD from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore and has previously held positions at the Harvard Kennedy School, Nanyang Technological University, and the Singapore University of Technology and Design.