PLS Working Paper Series

Vicente Reyes and Gopinathan S.

This article critically examines the sense-making processes of key stakeholders of the Singapore education system: the historically dominant city-state, highly-qualified teachers and high-performing students and their efforts to remake themselves and the consequences to their education philosophy and practices. The article interrogates Singapore’s landmark Teaching Schools Learning Nation (TSLN) policy initiative one of the main engines deployed  towards achieving a Knowledge-Based Economy (KBE). The article uses the analytical lens of micropolitics in schools as it explores the issues and challenges faced by various stakeholders caught in the midst of Singapore’s globalisation imperatives. Empirical findings from current research at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice (CRPP) at the National Institute of Education (NIE) are used to support key arguments made in the article. In exploring sense-making processes, the article uncovers paradoxical interpretational responses of various stakeholders as they implement various aspects of TSLN and provides a critique of the city-state’s KBE ambitions.

This working paper has now been published with the International Journal of Educational Reform, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2015. The full article can be accessed through this link:

A Critique of Knowledge-Based Economies: A Case Study of Singapore Education Stakeholders