Page 9 - Education Change and Economic Development: The Case of Singapore Dr. Goh Chor Boon National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

Education Change and Economic Development: The Case of Singaporec69

policy in schools and provided three streams of instruction at both primary and

secondary levels. Instructional and curriculum standards were raised through
the centralization of writing of instructional materials and textbooks. The
Curriculum Institute of Singapore (CDIS) was set up in June 1980 to produce

teaching materials of high quality which included textbooks and multi-media
teaching materials. In short, the underlying philosophy of the education system
was to let pupils progress at a pace suited to their individual abilities. Its aim

was to enable each child to go as far as possible in his or her schooling career,
thereby giving everyone the best possible educational foundation for subsequent
training and employment. By reducing dropouts, the NES achieved its objective
of cutting educational wastage in the education system.

Economic Development in the 1990s and the
“Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” Vision

Increasing regional and international competition motivated Singapore’s
leaders in the 1990s to initiate “The Next Lap” – a vision for economic

development that would propel the city-state to be in the league of the industrial
8
economies and to attain the same standard of living as the Swiss by 2020. To
achieve this objective, the economic policy of the Economic Development
Board (EDB) continued to be pro-MNCs but attracting only those that were
able to invest in industrial clusters that were deemed to provide the next wave
of economic expansion. Local companies were encouraged to move out into the

Asia-Pacific to tap on cheaper production resources and to place Singapore in

8 Government of Singapore, Singapore: The Next Lap (Singapore: Times Editions,
1991).