Too often, when we talk about the kind of curriculum we want, we tend to think in terms of the high stakes examinations that the students will be sitting for. This is perhaps quite natural because, high stakes examinations, like the GCE, IGCSE and IB, are usually well-known and perhaps give academic credibility to the students and schools concerned. They also come with fixed curricula which means that the schools would not have to design a curriculum from scratch. That alone is a major factor perhaps because schools choose the road to high stakes examinations because it is a relatively quick way to “excellence”.

Schools in Indonesia have been heading in this direction. As a Jakarta Post report said, the sharp decline in the value of the rupiah have meant that Indonesian parents, who would have otherwise sent their young charges overseas, now prefer sending them to the mushrooming number of international schools in Indonesia. Many of these schools rely on high stakes examinations to give them academic credibility.

However, whether high stakes examinations can actually lead to excellence is open to debate (see here, here and here for examples of the debate over high stakes examinations). I will not be debating the merits or otherwise of high stakes examinations. What is more important perhaps is too see what kind of students our schools today have to produce. I will therefore refer again to the same RAND report that I had quoted in an earlier post. In this same report it said:

“…the skills of the workforce will increasingly be the defining characteristic that determines the extent to which an economy can develop and exploit new technologies and compete in the global marketplace. A highly skilled workforce will be needed to realize and take advantage of change in IT, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. The shift in organizational forms and the nature of employment relationships also favor strong cognitive and entrepreneurial skills. For example, … knowledge workers require high-level cognitive skills for managing, interpreting, validating, transforming, communicating, and acting on information. Valued skills include such non-routine analytic skills as abstract reasoning, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration. Workers with these skills can perform tasks that require higher-skill human action not easily codified into computer software.”

The skills indicated above surely demands that school seriously think (or re-think as the case may be) how the teaching and learning is to take place in the school. The typical high stakes examination curricula that has been adopted by many schools may have worked for an industrial system of the late 19th and 20th century. The 21st century demands a very set of workers and therefore different teaching and learning goals and approaches.

A school that intends to produce the workforce of the 21st century should place a heavy emphasis on understanding. The passing or even the acing of high stakes examinations does not mean that a student has understood what he has learned in school. David Perkins argued that teaching of understanding should be pursued. He said:

“Knowledge and skill in themselves do not guarantee understanding. People can acquire knowledge and routine skills without understanding their basis or when to use them. And, by and large, knowledge and skills that are not understood do students little good! What use can students make of the history or mathematics they have learned unless they have understood it?”

- “Teaching for Understanding” by David Perkins

Perkins has written about the Smart School, his conception of a school that would pursue the need for understanding. The Smart School is guided by seven key principles. These principles are guided or underpinned by two beliefs. The first is that, learning is a consequence of thinking, and good thinking is learnable by all students. Secondly, learning should include deep understanding, which involves the flexible, active use of knowledge. It is because deep understanding “involves the flexible, active use of knowledge” that it becomes vital for school to seriously consider Perkins’ proposal. To be flexible and use knowledge actively is to dive into the unknown as opposed to going back to what is already known. This understanding is so important because it allows for real application and re-assessment of concepts already learned.  It is this flexible and active use of knowledge which is the hallmark of the worker of the 21st century.

The rapid pace of technological change is expected to continue to propel demand for highly skilled workers who can develop the new technologies and bring them to market and who can exploit the new technologies in the production of goods and services. Moreover, the transition to a knowledge-based economy continues to fuel demand for well-educated workers. Maintaining a high-skilled workforce is also a key component of U.S. comparative advantage in the world economy. Shifts in organizational forms and the nature of employment relationships, brought about by new technologies and global competition, also favor such high-level cognitive skills as abstract reasoning, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration, attributes associated with so-called “knowledge work.”

- “21st Century at Work: Forces Shaping the Future Workforce and Workplace in the United States”, RAND Report
by Lynn A. Karoly and Constantijn W. A. Panis”

Schools often claim that their main function is to prepare students for the work place. This belief has become so entrenched today that to have had an education is almost synonymous to have been prepared for work. I will not discuss here the concerns that I have with such an a belief. I am willing to assume, for the purpose of focusing this discussion, that this view that schools will prepare students for work, is valid.

However, assuming that the goal is valid is one thing but doing it is another. I started off this article with a quote from a RAND report on the future workforce and workplace in the US. I am also making the assumption that the conclusion made above is going to be relevant also for Asian countries like Singapore and Indonesia too.

The report claims that technology is going to continue to be a major driving force in shaping the kind of workplace and workforce of the future. Most school administrators and owners I think are able to accept the idea that technology is important today and for the future. But I believe many of them do not realize exactly how ICT is going to be used in the future workplace. For many of them, the extent of their readiness to prepare their students for such a workplace is to provide the computer hardware in the schools and to teach the students the “how-tos” of software (see my other postings on this blog).

What they neglected are the competencies or skills of such a workforce. If schools seriously claim that they prepare students for the future workplace, then they must take a serious look at the skills or competencies required by it. According to that conclusion made above by RAND, workers of the future need to be able to “who can develop the new technologies and bring them to market and who can exploit the new technologies in the production of goods and services.” Here, it is not only about inventing new technologies but also about using them so that they become part of a productive work environment that can bring about more wealth.

Furthermore, because of the new technologies and globalisation, the workers of the future workplace need “high-level cognitive skills as abstract reasoning, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration, attributes associated with so-called “knowledge work.” Government leaders in Singapore have repeatedly acknowledge this need for change. However, how often are these skills consciously taught or encouraged by teachers? Is the normal behavior seen in a classroom one where collaboration and communication is regarded as a highly-prized asset? Is abstract reasoning or rote-learning the norm in the classrooms? I believe that this is far from the case in most schools all over the world, including those in Singapore.

I suspect that teachers in the US are even more keenly facing this issue of what and how to teach. The “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) policy introduced by the Bush Administration, is forcing US schools to face high stakes examinations. As the US turns to high stakes examinations, we hear great unhappiness from the ground, and also from education experts about what is being sacrificed at the altar of examinations.

This has been the case for many years in Singapore. In recent years, there has been a surge Indonesia in the number of new schools offering high stakes international examinations. Many of these new schools in Indonesia try to emulate the school model that exists in SIngapore. Recently also Indonesia has made the sitting of the UASBN compulsory for the Sekolah Dasar or SD (Primary) level schools. While I can understand the reasons for the move towards high stakes examinations in Indonesia, it is important that it be proceeded with caution. The “Singapore model” with its heavy emphasis on high stakes examinations is often touted as the model to follow for Indonesia and is gaining in popularity with “Singapore-style” schools sprouting like mushrooms.

However, it is important for Indonesians to remember that in Singapore itself, the Ministry of Education (MOE) realizes that it cannot be sticking to the well-known “Singapore model”. In Singapore, the MOE is beginning to introduce different educational pathways for different students including those where students can skip taking the once unquestioned Singapore-Cambridge GCE O levels, whose equivalent examination is the IGCSE that is done in Indonesia in some international schools. The MOE in Singapore is also allowing schools to introduce the International Baccalaureate (IB). Although the IB is still a form of high stakes examination, it is generally considered to offer a more rigorous course that requires greater use of abstract thinking skills.

In addition to these abstract thinking skills, schools in Singapore must also get students to do more work of a collaborative nature where, to follow a co-operative learning principle, they sink or swim together. Where good individual academic performance is usually applauded, it should also applaud good collaborative academic performance. Perhaps even consider that good individual academic performance should not be prized as it has been traditionally. Students must be acclimatised to such an approach an attitude to “work” while in school. It is because schools are so lacking today in preparing such students that employers often lament the selfishness and the difficulty or inability of their new workers to work in teams. Therefore, in general, schools in Singapore and I am certain elsewhere in the world, do not really prepare their students for the future workplace despite all their claims to the contrary.