There was an interesting news report yesterday in the Straits Times (22 July 2009), entitled “Retool for a world after the recession”. The report was essentially the result of an interview with the Education Solutions Executive for IBM’s Global Education and Industry, Ms Patricia Sullivan.

In the report, she argues for a need for a change in mind sets especially in education. With the increasing emphasis on KBEs and the need for workers with “21st century skills”, the education system has to change to meet these demands. The education system must produce students who are “flexible, adaptable and proficient with information technology”. She warned that:

If an education system is not aligned with economic objectives and strategies of a region, country or state, then it’s going to lose its validity and certainly its value.”

I have stated on numerous occasions in this blog about the need for Singapore to change its education system and move away from the traditional emphasis on written high stakes examinations because such an approach does not help Singapore to produce the workers that it needs. In fact, I have also suggested that this current emphasis on traditional written examinations and accompanying reliance on indicators like TIMSS, is misleading and can lead us to being lulled into a false sense of complacency about the prowess of our content-emphasized education system.

The emphasis in a new education system will be on the learning of skills rather than content. It will be on real world learning rather than on participating in a giant Trivial Pursuit or “guess what is on the teacher’s mind” game.

Ms Sullivan believes it will not be about grades and the teacher’s role will be one of intervening only when the students go off track. In the interview, she challenged Singapore by saying:

The world is truly going to become a global education market…you want to export your education services and import students, and the only way that’s going to be possible is by finding new ways of delivering education in non-traditional, non-classroom approaches.”

This ties in also with what I have been writing about the way Singapore pushes itself as an educational hub in the region. Singapore is still taking advantage of its reputation as an education hub based on an already outmoded approach to what education is all about. I have described how many “educational consultants” from Singapore have simply adopted a “cut-and-paste” approach in their dealings with schools in the region. Little thought is given about what kind of education is relevant for this day and age. A “simple” transfer of the examinations-oriented system is usually their solution and modus operandi, never mind its relevance. This mind set is not only found among private educational consultants but also in the people in the civil service who deal with educational matters.

I have written about how in Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE), the emphasis is still on written examinations as the focus of learning and assessment. While there are some schools doing away with the traditional GCE O levels, the assumption is that only the top schools should do that because the students will do well in them anyway. What they don’t stop to consider is whether the O levels is good indicator of learning for all students in the first place. Those students not normally regarded as bright in Singapore may simply have other types of intelligences and habits of mind that the MOE simply doesn’t want to focus on but which Ms Sullivan is saying may be even more important today and in the future.

The MOE also persists with streaming despite all criticism. According to the Straits Times report Ms Sullivan was reported to be of the view that:

…more change is needed as the standardisation and structure of society along with continued streaming at a relatively early age may not translate well into the future. She sees technology enabling students to individualise their learning and progress at their own pace instead of being part of a cohort who methodically go through the same learning process.”

What she is essentially criticizing is also the very basic approach of our school system which is no different from that of factory assembly line system.

We see also the old paradigm in the thinking of Singapore’s attempt to be the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) syndicate of the East. Singapore has set up the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) . The SEAB is part of Singapore’s plan to be an educational hub. However, what it promotes is nothing visionary in the area of assessment. It sells the iPSLE to neighboring countries.

This is definitely not as Ms Sullivan that is “delivering education in non-traditional, non-classroom approaches.”

In Indonesia, there is currently a deep interest in the “Sekolah Berstandar Internasional” or SBI concept. “Sekolah Berstandar Internasional” can be translated as “School of International Standard”. The idea of the SBI is being pushed by the Indonesian education ministry, DINAS, in an effort to upgrade the quality of Indonesia’s schools. It realizes the importance of Indonesia not falling behind internationally because of the poor quality of education offered in its schools.

DINAS itself is conscious of the rising popularity of schools in Indonesia that exist so that students can take international examinations like the IGCSE and the IB. However, it is concerned that such schools may orient Indonesians to look out of Indonesia and this may have an effect on its national development goals. Furthermore, it can be argued that such schools tend to cater to an elite minority belonging to the upper middle class and middle class. Such schools tend to be beyond the means of the average Indonesian who sent their children to the government schools. It is perhaps to cater to this lower income group, and to allay fears of the creation of an elite group of Indonesians with one foot out of Indonesia,  that DINAS has proposed the creation of SBIs. In official DINAS documents, the SBIs are supposed to be staffed by local teachers with a local curriculum that emphasized quality  teaching and learning that is on par with the rest of the world yet rooted in Indonesia.

However, private schools in Indonesia have been looking elsewhere for their model. In this search many schools have looked at the Singapore model as the example to be copied. Singapore-style schools have sprouted up with the typical Singapore emphasis on high stakes written examinations. “Educational consultants” from Singapore have pushed for a transplanting of the Singapore school system upon Indonesia without a thought or understanding of the real needs of Indonesia because little thinking is required by such an approach. There is also an almost arrogant assumption by some of these educational consultants that what works in Singapore, will work just as well with minor only minor tweaking.

As an example, Singapore school textbooks which are in English, are being used for lessons in such Singapore-style schools in Indonesia, never mind if the level of English language competency is not at the same level as Singapore. Not quite a few of these educational consultants have of course ingeniously argued that Indonesian students need to learn English like Singapore students because English is needed to be on par with the rest of the world.

Some even argue that Indonesian students need English to enroll in foreign educational institutions, which is far from true. They, of course, notably forget to mention that countries like Japan, Germany have done well enough without English at the earlier stages of school. Not too mention also that in Singapore you do have the environment that you need to learn English unlike in Indonesia where it is hard to come by, even through TV!

In addition, if the goal of DINAS is to produce good quality education, written examinations do not guarantee this. Singapore-style high stakes written examinations only turn schools into examination preparation centers, which are what Singapore schools really are in general. Students can still do well in such examinations even without deep understanding of the subject matter because much of such examinations require only rote-learning of facts and mechanical operations.

Indonesians would also do well to remember that even in Singapore there is already an acknowledgment to move away from this “examination-centeredness” in its schools. Yet, Indonesians are being peddled with the same outmoded Singapore approach. If Indonesians keep following these outdated approaches to education, they will always be playing catch up when they have every opportunity to jump to a higher level and a better approach to education more suited to the needs of their country.

The IGCSE is a popular internationally recognized examination that more schools in Southeast Asia are opting to participate in. There is nothing wrong with this because there are some real advantages of taking the examinations. The most important perhaps is that it is universally-recognized as an entrance examinations for furthering one’s education especially in the English-speaking world. This is in large part due to its parent examination syndicate, the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) syndicate, having been around for a long time in this area. It is also due to the relative security and impartiality of the examinations as compared to local examinations in some Southeast Asia where “irregularities” during and after examinations is far from irregular. Participating in the IGCSE also means that the schools concerned would have to put a greater emphasis on the English Language. This would force the students in the school to pick up what is often regarded as the international language for commerce and science.

However, it would be a mistake for schools in countries in Southeast Asia, like Indonesia and Vietnam, and even in China, to believe that taking such an examination will make them a good school with an international curriculum. Overseas educational consultants from elsewhere have been selling the idea that the IGCSE will change them into good schools plus they also pander to the gullibility of parents in those countries about what is a good education.

All examinations, not only the IGCSE, that have the nett effect of schools getting teachers to only teach to the examinations is bad. Such an approach to school will not result in schools becoming good schools but only good examination preparation centers. While this may secure for the students placings in higher educational institutions, what is left behind through under-emphasis is the other skills which are deemed to be more important for anyone to succeed in the 21st century. The dictum, “what is not tested will not learned”, will come true. Therefore schools who still do want to take advantage of the IGCSE must also be aware of this pitfall of becoming nothing more than just examination prepartion centers. They must also be wary of educational consultants who only peddle international examinations and little else.