PISA and high-performing education systems: explaining Singapore’s education success

ABSTRACT

Singapore’s remarkable performance in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has placed it among the world’s high-performing education systems (HPES). In the literature on HPES, its ‘secret formula’ for education success is explained in terms of teacher quality, school leadership, system characteristics and educational reform. This article offers an alternative explanation for the education success of Singapore and, in so doing, questions the basic assertions of the HPES literature and, in particularly, the use of PISA results as the prime indicator of the educational performance of a school system. The explanation is informed by a historical perspective on the development of the Singapore education system and based upon a body of empirical findings on the nature of pedagogical practice in classrooms, both of which are vital for understanding the educational performance of Singapore’s education system. The article concludes by addressing the implications of this analysis for educational policy borrowing.

KEYWORDS:

• PISA
• pedagogy
• educational reform
• educational purposes
• Singapore
• high-performing education system
• Asian education
• policy borrowing

Acknowledgements

This paper stems from a keynote presentation delivered at the first annual public conference and annual general meeting ‘Envisioning Reciprocal Learning between Canada and China’, University of Windsor, Canada, 7–10 April 2014. We are very grateful to the organisers, Shijing Xu and Michael Connelly, of that conference for the invitation – and, in particular, to Michael Connelly for his encouragement and support of our work. An earlier version of the paper was also presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Curriculum History, Chicago, United States, 14–15 April 2015. We want to thank Keita Takayama for his very useful comments on the earlier draft of the paper as well.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Zongyi Deng is an associate professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. His interest areas include curriculum making, curriculum content or subject matter, didactics (Didaktik), educational policy, Chinese education and international and comparative education. He has published in Curriculum Inquiry, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Pedagogy, Culture & Society and other journals. Latest edited books are Re-envisioning Chinese education (with Guoping Zhao; Rouledge, 2015) and Globalization and the Singapore curriculum (with S. Gopinathan and Christine Lee; Springer, 2013).

S. Gopinathan is an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He has written and lectured extensively on education reform, language in education issues and teacher education. His papers and edited volumes are key references for students of education in Singapore and comparative education internationally.

Notes

1. Note that PISA has become ‘the world’s premier yardstick for evaluating the quality, equity and efficiency of school systems’ (OECD 2012b, 2). In this article, we focus primarily on issues concerning the evaluating the quality of an education system.

2. In some HPES literatures (e.g., OECD 2010a; Tucker 2011), the history and culture of a high-performing education system are briefly described to provide a background for introducing the factors that presumably contribute the top ranking in PISA. Lacking is a careful examination of how the social, cultural and institutional context has shaped the educational policies and practices pertaining to the PISA performance of a system.

3. Some writers such as Tan (2012) and Tucker (2011) did look at practice. However, information on practice was gathered primarily through published reports, websites and interviews with various stakeholders (e.g. policy-makers, ministry officials, university professors and classroom teachers).

4. In 12 September 1963, Singapore officially became part of Malaysia following its merger with the Federation of Malaya, Sarawak and North Borneo (Sabah) to form the Federation of Malaysia. However, it was short-lived.

5. In Normal Bilingual stream, students take English and one mother tongue, and take Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) at the end of Primary 6. In Extended Bilingual stream, students also take English and one mother tongue but sit for PSLE at the end of primary 8. In Monolingual stream, Students focus on learning English and basic numeracy; they are prepared for vocational training (Gopinathan and Mardiana 2013; Tan, Chow, and Goh 2008).

6. In Special stream, students learn English and Chinese at the first language level, and take ‘O’ level exams at the end of secondary 4. In Express stream, students learn English at the first language level and mother tongue at the second language level, and take ‘O’ level exams at the end of secondary 4. In Normal stream, students take a reduced curriculum and site for GCE ‘N’ level exams at the end of secondary 4 (Gopinathan and Mardiana 2013; Tan, Chow, and Goh 2008)

7. Between 2004 and 2005, researchers conducted detailed classroom observations of 920 primary 5 and secondary 3 lessons in mathematics and English from a nationally representative sample of 56 schools. In 2010, they conducted similar detailed classroom observation of 625 primary 5 and secondary 3 lessons in mathematics and English from a nationally representative sample of 31 schools. In addition, they conducted a survey of a nationally representative stratified sample of 62 primary and secondary schools in which 16895 students and 2100 teachers reported instructional practices in mathematics and English at the primary 5 and secondary 3 levels. By collecting massive classroom data at two time points, researchers were able to not only investigate the overall impact of TSLN’s initiatives on traditional pedagogical practice, but also ascertain whether significant change has occurred in classroom practice over the past six years (2004–2010) after the implementation of certain initiatives like TLLM.

8. To characterise the Asian education model in terms of a state control of education, a standardised curriculum, and a meritocratic national examination system is not to say that schools in Asia encourage memorisation and rote learning but stifle independent thinking and creativity (cf. Chun 2003; Hanushek 2002; Lam 2008; Lim 2010; Stevenson 1991). There is a body of literature testifying that high-quality teaching and learning (characterised by purposeful activities, high enthusiasm and enjoyment in both teachers and students, and a high level of challenge to student thinking) indeed exist in Asian classrooms (e.g. Chan and Nirmala 2010; Takayama 2011; Watkins and Biggs 2001). Asian school systems like Japan and Korean are capable of nurturing students’ conceptual understanding, independent thinking and creativity (Park 2013).