There has been much international effort to improve or transform Vocational and Technical Education (VTE). However, the outcomes often remain elusive. VTE continues to be largely shunned by society as a sector of education for low-achievers and academic failures.A Breakthrough in VTE: The Singapore Story shares the Singapore experience that was made possible through strategic planning, organisational excellence, innovation and ingenuity. It is a compelling story of how the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) began to transform lives and change its image over a period of fifteen years (1992-2007). This book, based on a first-hand CEO account, vividly captures the sort of leadership, policy choices, fundamental principles and capabilities in the journey of transformation. The details of the 'what, when, how and why' are a valuable guide for leaders and practitioners in building quality and sustainable VTE systems which are responsive to social and economic needs.

Singapore under the ruling People’s Action Party government has been categorized as a developmental state which has utilized education as an instrument of its economic policies and nation-building agenda. However, contrary to accepted assumptions, the use of education by the state to promote economic growth did not begin with the coming to power of the People’s Action Party in 1959. In Singapore, the colonial state had been using education to meet the demands of its colonial economy well before the rise of the post-independence developmental state. Education, Industrialization and the End of Empire in Singapore examines how the state’s use of education as an instrument of economic policy had its origins in the colonial economy and intensified during the process of decolonization. By covering this process the history of vocational and technical education and its relationship with the economy is traced from the colonial era through to decolonization and into the early postcolonial period.

This book describes in vivid detail how a newly independent nation with neither a history of technical education nor industry, developed in a short period of time a world-class system of technical and vocational education that helped it make rapid progress in its manufacturing and industrial sector. The economy and the education sector both developed in parallel, with each complementing the other, utilizing strategies and making the decisions that were to bring the country quickly to advanced status.Studies show that premature investment in higher education at the expense of technical and vocational education has created many leaders but few doers, leading to high unemployment. The Singapore Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) story demonstrates how governmental support helped changed the image of technical and vocational education to one equal with higher education, yet including bridges and ladders to allow everyone to maximize their potential.

Pt. I. The early beginnings. ch. 1. Historical perspectives -- ch. 2. Dynamics and challenges -- ch. 3. Aligning education with economic development -- ch. 4. Vocational training under the former VITB -- pt. II. Journey of transformation. ch. 5. Move towards organisational excellence -- ch. 6. The three waves of transformation -- ch. 7. Strategic planning makes a difference -- ch. 8. Changing the image -- ch. 9. ITE: a world-class educational institution -- Photos insert -- pt. III. Implications for developing countries. ch. 10. Some lessons on building quality and sustainability -- ch. 11. Concluding reflections.

This edited book is a comprehensive resource for understanding the history as well as the current status of educational practices in Singapore. It is a one-stop reference guide to education and educational issues/concerns here. There are three sections: Part 1 provides a sectorial overview of how education has been organized in this country such as preschool, special needs, primary and secondary, and adult education divisions. In Part 2, contributors critically delve into issues and policies that are pertinent to understanding education here such as underachievement, leadership, language education, assessment, and meritocracy to question what Part 1 might have taken for granted. Part 3 contains the largest number of contributors because it offers a scholarly examination into specific subject histories. This section stands out because of the comparative rarity of its subject matter (history of Physical Education, Art, Music, Geography Education, etc.) in Singapore.

This latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series considers changing space-times of education by asking how they become unevenly textured as our worlds globalise, horizons shift and familiar points of reference melt and are remade. Acknowledging the reach of economic and cultural change, digital communication, geopolitics and persistent inequalities, the chapters trace processes that are re-making education and societies. Examining the depth of their impact on practices, methods and concepts reveals the significance of knowledge-building and socially embedded forms of reasoning in emerging patterns of educational governance, pedagogic and policy reforms as well as in lived understandings of self and social worlds. The organisation of the collection into three sections – Making Spaces, Troubling Temporalities, and Mobility and Contexts – begins to map out an ambitious project. It calls on education researchers and professionals to write the present as history by grasping the socio-spatial, historical and political dimensions and effects that frame, form and filter the educational present. This research calls for a revitalised historical sociology and novel forms of comparative education that can provide productive insights, inform creative problem solving and suggest practical directions for education. This agenda recognises: the unevenness of educational space-times the making of education as a social institution the persistence and effects of social embeddedness, eventful space, situated knowledge, and geosocial thinking the present as history and multiple temporalities in education different registers of transformation that become visible through lenses such as identity, work, citizenship and mobility. The World Yearbook of Education 2018 continues the project of compiling worldwide research on globalising education. These volumes offer a powerful commentary on how and why space-times of education are changing and emphasise the importance of forms of knowledge that materialise categories of professionals, policies and practices. This volume will be of interest to academics, professionals and policymakers in education and social policy, and also to scholars who engage in historical studies of education and debates about the socio-material formations that contribute to educational inequalities and dynamics of difference.