The ECE Landscape in Singapore: Analysis of Current Trends, Issues, and Prospect for a Cosmopolitan Outlook

The ECE Landscape in Singapore: Analysis of Current Trends, Issues, and Prospect for a Cosmopolitan Outlook

This critical analysis essay investigates the recent trends and issues of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Singapore by triggering a cosmopolitan outlook for the future. Trends are introduced by reviewing recent government initiatives. Issues are examined by analyzing and incorporating the related scholarly studies and my exploration of teachers’ reflections about such changes. The critical analysis is made with multiple discourses to interpret trends and issues in Singapore. These trends include inquiry-based learning, child-centeredness, and teachers as reflective thinkers. The issues consist of teachers’grappling to adapt to the local traditions of efficiencyand standardized-oriented education for the global trends. The future landscape argues for adopting cosmopolitanism, instead of being “universalized” in a narrow way (which is standardized and homogenized by the worldwide views; usually dominated by the western perspectives only). In globalization, cosmopolitanism prevails in both a local context and foreign cultures through emphasizing education as an evolving process to uphold the local traditions and be open to the new possibilities. A cosmopolitan outlook including a cosmopolitan teacher and cosmopolitan ECE is argued and proposed for the future landscape by drawing upon Hansen’s (2010), Luke (2004), and Popkewitz’s (2003, 2007) works.