Tag Archives: kindergarten

Practice makes Professionals

Singapore’s Lien Foundation, which has a strong interest in education and the early childhood sector recently teamed up with one of the largest childcare providers, St. James’ Church Kindergarten to establish a Practicum Centre. That will allow trainee teachers a better experience as they learn to be teachers than they often currently receive.  With better mentoring and a sense of the profession they are entering, the hope is they will both be better teachers and make a career in a sector with a stubbornly high attrition rate.  Here is a piece on the importance of this I published in Today using data from a recent survey I conducted.

Practice Makes Professionals

by Trisha Craig

(op-ed published by Today, August 18, 2014)

Last week’s announcement by the Lien Foundation and St James’ Church Kindergarten that they would be launching a new Practicum Centre for pre-service pre-school teachers heralds a welcome addition to the early childhood education sector.

Designed to provide high-quality mentoring to student teachers during their mandatory classroom teaching, the new centre hopes to enhance the practical skill set of young teachers and help set the stage for a satisfying career as pre-school professionals.  Continue reading →

Let kids play, give teachers trust

Singaporean parents will support a focus on play in pre-school if convinced it will benefit their children later. TODAY file photo

Singaporean parents will support a focus on play in pre-school if convinced it will benefit their children later. TODAY file photo

Op-ed published in Today, March 15, 2013

By Trisha Craig

Wednesday’s announcement by Education Minister Heng Swee Keat that the Ministry of Education (MOE) will, for the first time, become directly involved in establishing and running kindergartens is a welcome and auspicious development. It signals the seriousness the Government attaches to early childhood education and its commitment to raising standards and providing broad access to high quality pre-school.

The programme for now is a pilot one, where models will be tested and best practices sought in 15 demonstration sites. As the MOE embarks on this remarkable endeavour, are there any models of excellence from which it can learn?

Internationally, the gold standard is often considered Finland. Does Finland, a small, wealthy open economy near the Arctic Circle, offer any lessons for Singapore, a small, wealthy open economy near the equator, when it comes to early childhood education?

At first glance, it would seem so. After all, in addition to some financial measures, the two countries are so similar, and top the global charts, on all kinds of international measures of institutional (lack of corruption), economic (global competitiveness), and scholastic performance (maths and science scores at secondary school).

Thus, when they diverge, as they do on pre-school quality — the national angst caused by the revelation that Singapore only ranks 29th internationally is certainly part of the backstory to the improvements outlined in the MOE’s announcement — Finland is a natural place to look at when it comes to lessons on how to improve the system. Continue reading …