Equitable Education and Social Responsibility Beyond the Pandemic: Singapore's Experience and Future Strategies

• In Event: Educational Impact of COVID-19: A Comparative Perspective Examining Finland, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, and South Africa

Abstract

While Singapore showed extraordinary performance in its policy response and containment of the virus overall, it went through its fair share of ups and downs in the tightening and reopening of educational, social, and economic activities as new events unfolded over the pandemic timeline. Underpinning the broader approach of saving lives and livelihood is the concern to ensure the wellbeing of all students and their equitable access to learning.
Cognizant of the disparaging effects of the COVID-19 crisis on disadvantaged families, balancing scalable and continued education for all with effective support for underprivileged students required judicious planning and thought. Despite many important obstacles, Singapore’s experience can provide various learning points, and is advantageous in informing future strategies as the pandemic continues to impact us globally in various ways.
This presentation aims to share Singapore’s approach to equitable education during the COVID-19 pandemic, its experience facing and overcoming various challenges, and its strategies employed along the way. Firstly, we provide a quick overview of the cycles of crises and responses in Singapore. We then conduct an analysis of these events and their corresponding policy implementations through a thematic review of local media reports and scholarly literature on the crisis. Based on integrated information, we share how Singapore’s responses were based on a balanced model that aimed to save lives, but also protect economic livelihood, ensure continued education, and support wellbeing for all. Importantly, Singapore’s policy response has always been executed in a careful, calibrated manner, yet it retains decisiveness and efficiency in rolling out measures. Subsequently, we focus on the education sector and elaborate on how education in Singapore was impacted by the crisis. Ministry and school-level reviews reflect Singapore’s attempts to minimize loss of learning nationwide, and the opportune use of these moments to disseminate knowledge on science and social responsibility to students. Nonetheless, equity issues surfaced during this time, and we elaborate on Singapore’s experience with regard to the acceleration of technology and virtual resources, which proved a struggle for disadvantaged students who lacked the means for the conducive and effective uptake of technology. As a result, providing free digital devices for every student became the forefront of Singapore’s plans to uplift digital literacy and accessibility. It also underscored the need to provide greater support to family factors, where targeting a child’s environment and ecology was a key insight gained when trying to understand how to support a child in education. Lastly, drawing wisdom from these experiences and projecting its relevance to the future, we summarize lessons and strategies for Singapore moving forward. Crucially, we believe that Singapore’s experience can benefit beyond its own borders. It paves the way for an interesting line of subsequent scientific research and discourse in the fields of cognitive science, psychology, education and more. For example, investigating future learning methods amidst the new normal, or how we can best support the learning of underprivileged students in a world that will continue to proliferate educational technology.

Authors

• Jallene Chua Jia, Nanyang Technological University - National Institute of Education

• Oon Seng Tan, National Institute of Education