The future of learning and work, and the development of learning societies, are being disrupted by technological advancements, shifting demographics, extended careers, and more recently, by the coronavirus disease pandemic, with a massive impact on businesses and individuals around the world. Disruptions such as the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0, demographic changes in the labor force, and increases in human life expectancy have accentuated the inadequacies of traditional education and training systems in responding to rapidly evolving skills needs of businesses and individuals. This chapter discusses the need for a new learning architecture for a more flexible and agile system of education and training, where both public and private sectors play significant roles to help companies, workers, and society address skills needs for the future of work and living. The SkillsFuture movement in Singapore is presented to demonstrate how strong multistakeholder partnerships are fostering a more dynamic, holistic, and collaborative learning ecosystem for individuals to acquire new skills and confidently navigate the uncertain future.

Citizenship education is crucial for the continued existence of a society. The purposes of and approach towards citizenship education differ from country to country. Social studies is often a key vehicle for citizenship education, and it may be utilized for three primary goals: namely, socialization into the norms of society; acquisition of disciplinary concepts and processes and the promotion of critical or reflective thinking (Ross, 2006). In Singapore, Social studies is an important school subject used for citizenship education. This paper examines the development of Social studies over the years in post-independent Singapore and shows that the approach of Social studies had for many years been transmissionist, focused on socializing the young into the norms of Singapore society, creating a parochial national identity. The primary goal was the development of moral, law abiding and patriotic citizens. With the challenges of globalization, rapid technological advancements and changing demands of the economy, however, there is increasing recognition of the need to develop citizens with a sense of belonging to the nation but who are more informed, thinking and capable of social reformation. This, however, is still a fledgling goal, and more time and deliberate effort will be required to achieve this.

This chapter examines the complex ways in which political, economic, cultural and moral foundations shape pervasive conceptions and practices of educational leadership in Singapore. It argues that school leadership reflects fundamental socio-political values that underpin Singaporean governance: these core values are built on three pillars – the developmental state, neo-liberalism and meritocracy. The chapter sketches the historical development of education and leadership since the foundation of Singapore as an independent republic in 1965, concluding that the instrumentalist imperative of education (preparation of a suitably qualified workforce, and cultivation of a loyal and harmonious citizenry) has dictated the purpose of schooling and thus the approach to leadership in Singapore’s education system. Further dimensions of leadership are explored in terms of its ‘tight-coupling’ between the hierarchical layers of the education system, and at school level, a ‘social compact’ between school leaders and teachers, which is reinforced by a paternalism associated with Confucianism. In emphasising the tight-coupling across the whole of society and its education system, the chapter concludes by powerfully illustrating how a ‘state-citizen compact’ based on values of trust, dependency and self-responsibilisation are reflected in the wider community, even in the lives of low-income, ethnic minority families.

Based on the academic research results related to the relationship between socioeconomic status, cultural capital and educational inequality, this study uses the relevant data from PISA2018 and employs research methods such as Multilevel Linear Model and regression analysis, taking four countries with better PISA scores in previous years, namely China, Finland, Singapore and South Korea as examples to investigate the effects of socioeconomic status and cultural capital on student performance in these countries respectively. It was found that in Finland and Singapore, where the economies are more developed, the effects of cultural capital and socioeconomic status on PISA scores are limited, which may be related to the importance of culture and arts in their school education systems, and must compensate for the inequalities brought about by family background; while in Korea and China, the effects of socioeconomic status-related factors on students' PISA scores are limited, and culture-related factors gradually occupy the main position of influencing students' scores, reflecting the poor emphasis on culture-related factors in the education systems and family education of these countries. © 2022

Global comparisons of teacher education programs should start with an understanding of the school systems that teachers are being prepared for in their local contexts. The purpose of this article is to describe Singapore’s dual education system as well as teacher preparation in a country that educates many students with disabilities in a separate environment. The focus will be on three of the factors critical to understanding comparative work: the goals and purposes of inclusive education and inclusive policy, the past and present state of Singapore with regard to policy and governance, and teacher training in the context of dual education. Suggestions for how teacher educators can learn from one another despite the vast differences in how students with special needs are educated are provided.

Finland and Singapore are both top-performing countries in international assessments such as PISA. Finland has been consistently one of the high-achievers regarding not only students’ literacy levels but also educational equity. Similarly, Singapore has continuously shown outstanding performance in PISA. It outperformed all the other participants in all three literacy domains in PISA 2015. We believe exploring the factors affecting students’ science literacy in these two top-performing countries will provide the low-performing countries with a useful guideline. In this regard, we aim to build models including the student and school-level factors associated with the students’ science literacy in Finland and Singapore using PISA 2015 data. We conduct Hierarchical Linear Modeling to create these models. The sample includes 5882 students in Finland and 6115 students in Singapore. The resulting models explain about 43% and 40% of the within-school variance while they explain 62% and 71% of the between-school variance in science literacy in Finland and Singapore respectively. At the student level, students’ enjoyment and interest in science are the most influential predictors of science literacy while at the school level, schools’ economic, social, and cultural status is by far the most powerful predictor of science literacy in both Finland and Singapore. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.