ABSTRACT
The uncertain future that the world faces has forced us to rethink our fundamental paradigms of teaching and learning. To meet new demands, students need to possess adaptability and resilience to thrive lifelong. In tandem, teacher educators need new dispositions, competencies, skills and knowledge to prepare pre-service teachers for such demands. This paper articulates key issues that international and Singapore teacher education faced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and what priorities were taken. It presents interview findings conducted on pre-service teachers and highlights some dilemmas faced, allowing for a critical evaluation of a Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme. The research aimed to gather insights on the aspects of the programme that participants found most relevant to their teaching role. Challenges posed by the pandemic on education in Singapore naturally surfaced. It will then discuss insights learnt and how Singapore and other countries may seize the opportunity to reimagine teacher education.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Ee Ling Low
Professor LOW Ee Ling is Dean, Academic and Faculty Affairs and the immediate past Dean, Teacher Education. She is a Professor of Education (Applied Linguistics and Teacher Education) at the English Language & Literature Academic Group at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She obtained her in Linguistics (Acoustic Phonetics) from the University of Cambridge, UK under the NTU-NIE Overseas Graduate Scholarship. She won the Fulbright Advanced Research Scholarship which she spent at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Professor Low is an internationally renowned expert in Teacher Education and World Englishes. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the AILA Review, series editor of the Routledge Studies in World Englishes, a co-series editor of Springer’s Empowering Teaching and Learning through Policies and Practice: Singapore and International Perspectives (ETLP) and Walter de Gruyter’s Handbooks of Applied Linguistics. She is a member of the OECD Education 2030 Scientific Committee and the Forum for World Education (FWE) Steering Committee. In 2021, she was recognised for her exemplary scholarship by the Academy for Leadership in Teacher Education (ALiTE), University of Hong Kong and appointed as a member of the Board of Governors for the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). In 2022, she was elected as a Fellow of the prestigious International Academy of Education based in Belgium.