From the category archives:

Education

Education: Crazy Week for Singaporean Students – an American Comments

After spending some time in China and other parts of Asia, I did not expect to discover major cultural shock after moving to Singapore. For the most part, this proved to be true – I did not really encounter, or experience, anything that could be considered as ‘culture shock’.
However, when l I really started working [...]

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Education: Great Article about Education in Singapore

I found an interesting article on the Gaurdian website about the education system in Singapore. For policy makers in the UK, I can understand why Singapore is a good model to study. Not only have the done very well, but they have done very well in a system that is almost identical to that of [...]

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Education: My First Invigilation in Singapore

This was an interesting experience.
Today I had to invigilate a ‘common test’ (during which time students take a ‘paper’).
The setup made me think back to the stories I have read about the Imperial Chinese Civil Service Exams. Students had to take the exam in the sports hall (think basketball court without hoops), with about 399 [...]

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Education: SARS and E-Learning Week

In a couple of weeks, we are going to have out “E-Learning Week”. From what I understand, there are two reasons for e-learning week. First, it serves as almost an emergency drill. In case of, say, a SARS outbreak, students and teachers will be able to communicate and continue with lessons via the internet. Singapore [...]

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Education: My Experiences with the Singapore System, Part II

The past two weeks have been very interesting. In the first week, I had no idea what was going on. My schedule did not make sense, I could not understand all the acronyms and terms, and I was unsure how my classes were supposed to operate. After talking with colleagues, attending a training session, and [...]

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Education: Holy Cultural Difference!

I just discovered that, as a lecturer, I have access to all of my student’s personal information. When I say ‘personal information’, it includes the typical information you would expect a school to have, plus: ethnicity, religion, number of family members, parents occupation, monthly income (!), what type of housing they live in, their grades, [...]

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Education: A Brief Intro to the Singapore System and Info about Polytechnics

Brief Intro – Skipping the Details
This is the first of what I expect to be many posts about the education system here in Singapore. The system follows the exam-oriented British model, which is much different than the one in the USA. If you are not familiar with the British system, it can be quiet [...]

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