Why universities must innovate in global engagement?

How is the landscape of higher education shifting and what does global engagement mean for
universities and colleges today? What innovative approaches are they taking and what are the lessons
for other institutions aiming to internationalise?

These questions will be debated by a panel of university and college presidents who will share their
experience of leading internationalisation in a webinar organised by StudyPortals on 1 November.
University World News is the media partner for the event.

The debate is being framed and moderated by Rahul Choudaha, executive vice-president of global
engagement, research and intelligence at StudyPortals, the global study choice platform, and a long-
time commentator on University World News.

He cites the work of Sheila Embleton, who defines global engagement in a briefing paper by the
Canadian Bureau for International Education as “a committed, meaningful interaction with the world as
a whole”; and Lou Anna K Simon, who in a publication by the American Council on Education says global
engagement is about “committing to meaningful relationships with partners in other parts of the world”.

Choudaha says both definitions assert that, at its core, internationalisation of higher education is about
identifying and implementing opportunities for meaningful relationships and interactions around the
world.

“Embedded in this approach is the rationale for developing global citizens who are positively
contributing to make our world a better place in times of divisive politics, disruptive technologies and
widening inequities,” he says.

He says the modes of engagement include international student recruitment and alumni engagement,
education or work abroad and exchanges, internationalisation of the curriculum, internationalisation at
home, and various forms of transnational education including joint or double degrees, foreign branch
campuses, online learning and massive open online courses or MOOCs.

However, global engagement is also facing several barriers including rising nationalistic and anti-
immigrant policies, de-funding of public higher education, the increasing cost of private higher
education, widening gaps of access and equity and shifting demographics.
“Higher education leaders face a daunting task of resourcing their global engagement ambitions while
ensuring its global relevance and local impact. In specific, institutional leaders must find innovative ways
to prioritise, design and implement global engagement strategies.”

The panelists for the webinar include:

Ann Buller, president, Centennial College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Ann Buller has led Centennial College since 2004 through major transformative changes and firmly
established its impact and relevance. Centennial offers students an education embedded with the values
of diversity, equity and social justice issues that affect our world. Previously, Buller served a three-year
term as the chief learning officer of Nova Scotia Community College. Prior to that, Buller served for two
years as the vice-president for students at Centennial.

Ashish K Vaidya, interim president, St Cloud State University, St Cloud, Minnesota, United States

Ashish Vaidya was named as interim president of St Cloud State University in 2016. He is leading the
university as a campus community towards the ideals of ‘Our Husky Compact’ – a bond shared by the
university and its students to engage as members of a diverse and multicultural world. Vaidya came to
the university as provost and vice-president for academic affairs in 2015. Previously, he served as
provost and vice-president for academic affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

Elizabeth J Stroble, president, Webster University, St Louis, Missouri, United States

Elizabeth Stroble was named the 11th president of Webster University in 2009. During her tenure,
Webster University, a global institution with a network of campus locations around the world, has
solidified its reputation as a truly global university. Strengthening Webster’s academic profile and global
outreach has attracted significant support from corporations, foundations, and government sources. Her
career includes academic and administrative appointments at the University of Akron, the University of
Louisville, and Northern Arizona University.

Rahul Choudaha, executive vice-president, StudyPortals (Moderator)

Rahul Choudaha is executive vice-president of global engagement, research and intelligence at
StudyPortals. Choudaha is a recognised scholar practitioner with expertise on data-informed
internationalisation strategies in the context of shifting student mobility trends and evolving
transnational education models. Choudaha blogs and tweets on global higher education trends,
including for University World News. He is also affiliated as a research associate with the Center for
Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, United States.

Internationalizing Student Learning

An internationalized curriculum and co-curriculum ensure that all students – including those who cannot
study abroad – are exposed to international perspectives and build global competence. Globally-focused
student learning outcomes articulate specific knowledge and skills to be addressed in courses and
programs.

Ex: Online Learning Bridges U.S.-Japan Higher Education

Teams from U.S. and Japanese colleges and universities met in Washington, DC, Oct. 24-26 to begin
developing new collaborative online international learning (COIL) courses.i Their work together is part of
the U.S.-Japan COIL Initiative, a two-year pilot project to test the promise of virtual exchange for
deepening U.S.-Japan higher education ties.

The initiative is supported by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and coordinated in partnership with Japan’s
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).

Caroline Casagrande, deputy assistant secretary for academic programs for the U.S. State Department’s
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, told the teams, “The COIL courses that you are developing
are an innovative mechanism through which to leverage technology, reduce barriers to engagement
between U.S. and Japanese students, and further strengthen U.S.-Japan relations through educational
exchanges.”

Kazutoshi Aikawa, minister plenipotentiary and deputy chief of mission of the Embassy of Japan,
emphasized the project’s urgency: “Those who can succeed on the global stage need understanding and
tolerance to diversity, and students are expected to have these skills by the time they graduate
university. It is expected that universities will promote student exchange in both directions and switch to
interactive classes that encourage students to be autonomous and proactive.”

nvited speakers discussed the value of online collaboration as a new mode of exchange in the historic
and evolving relationship between the two countries’ higher education systems. Representatives of the
SUNY COIL Center and Kansai University Institute for Innovative Global Education (KU-IIGE) as well as
other experienced practitioners presented guidance for creating shared learning outcomes for a joint
online module, even across disciplinary boundaries.
Keiko Ikeda, vice-director of KU-IIGE, gave advice from her own experience launching a COIL program on
her campus in Japan, including: who to have on your campus support team; idiosyncrasies inherent to
virtual communication; and the importance of understanding the higher education system in a partner
country.

Representatives of the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange and TeamUp
Japan discussed the broader significance of higher education collaboration in the context of bilateral
relations between the two countries, as well as government resources to support partnerships and
student exchange activities.

Participants offered their own suggestions for technology tools tailored to specific types of student
learning in COIL courses. After working together for two days, the U.S.-Japan teams sketched out a work
plan to deliver their courses by December 2019.

Following a national call for submissions in March 2018, ACE selected six U.S. institutions for the
initiative: DePaul University (IL), James Madison University (VA), the University of Alabama, Sinclair
Community College (OH), the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and City University of New York College
of Staten Island.

The Japanese partners are Nagasaki University, Kansai University, Chiba University, J.F. Oberlin
University, and Kagoshima University.

In the coming months, participating institutions will join ACE webinars on COIL-related topics, complete
an online professional development module developed by the SUNY COIL Center, and host ACE review
teams on their campuses.

If the pilot proves successful, ACE hopes to expand the initiative to include more U.S. and Japanese
partner institutions.

For more information about the initiative, see the press release or email CIGE@acenet.edu. Follow along
on Twitter under the hashtag #USJPCOIL.

\
Faculty Global Engagement

As the drivers of teaching and research, faculty play a pivotal role in internationalization. To guide
student global learning, faculty need opportunities to engage globally and develop their own
international competence. Institutional policies and programs support such engagement, and help
faculty incorporate international perspectives into their teaching.

Internationalization in Action: Engaging Faculty in Internationalization, Part 1

On the Books: Faculty Policies and Procedures

By Robin Matross Helms, Senior Research Specialist at ACE, and Alegneta Asfaw, Graduate Research
Associate at ACE

In a 2000 article entitled "The Worthy Goal of a Worldly Faculty" (AAC&U Peer Review, Fall 2000) Patti
McGill Peterson, now ACE's Presidential Advisor for Global Initiatives, described the crucial role that
faculty play in institutional internationalization efforts, particularly in shifting culture and sustaining such
efforts over time. She wrote:

Students graduate, but the faculty remain and serve as the stewards of the curriculum. As a group, they
have the capacity to set a deeply embedded foundation for the international and intercultural character
of an institution. Investing in the worldliness quotient of all college and university faculty – not just the
area studies specialists – has the potential to pay off in myriad ways.

Nearly a decade and a half later, most institution leaders would likely agree that faculty are indeed key
to the success of internationalization. Faculty are, in many ways, the heart of the whole academic
enterprise. They are the drivers of teaching and research in any institution, shaping and delivering the
curriculum and carrying out the institution's research mission. These areas are critical to any institutional
internationalization effort.

However, recognizing that faculty are crucial to internationalization is one thing – getting them involved
is another. Faculty are extremely busy, and often feel pulled in multiple and competing directions –
particularly younger faculty who are balancing their jobs with dual-career coupledom and other family
responsibilities. And, as an attendee at ACE's recent Leadership Network meeting observed, faculty are
often "inherently skeptical." For those who have been around for a while, internationalization may seem
like a passing fancy – yet another administrative fad that will come and go, and nothing to get too
excited about, or involved in.

A Strategic Approach
Despite these obstacles, given the priority many campuses are placing on internationalization, most
have at least some level of engagement in the process by at least some faculty. Almost certainly, there
are faculty scattered around campus who maintain personal and professional relationships with
counterparts abroad, often over long periods. A handful of faculty may travel overseas for conferences,
or lead a student group as part of a course. Some disciplines lend themselves nicely to international
course content, and faculty may emphasize these areas in their teaching.

The challenge, however, is to strategically scale up and systematize faculty engagement in

internationalization. Doing so requires a sustained effort by institutions to align policies and programs,
think creatively, and capitalize on existing resources that can be applied in new ways.

This installment of Internationalization in Action and the following installment focus on the key
challenges institutions face in this process, and examples of good practices and campus models for
addressing these issues and encouraging deep, on-going engagement by faculty throughout the
institution. Part 1 below addresses issues related to policies and procedures; Part 2 (posted in June
2013) addresses professional development for faculty, and their role in internationalizing the
curriculum.

We'd love to send more faculty abroad, but that's expensive and budgets are tight.

A little goes a long way. Small grants that allow faculty to spend a limited period of time abroad or
complete a short-term project can open the door for greater involvement down the road. Such grants,
even of just a couple thousand dollars, send a message about the priority institutions place on faculty
international engagement, and can spur faculty motivation to pursue additional opportunities.

Actively promote outside programs and funding sources. Even in tough budgetary times, the U.S.
government and other organizations sponsor programs and funding opportunities for faculty
international engagement. Institutions should make sure that faculty have access to information about
such opportunities (e.g. through a centralized website) and are encouraged to apply, and should ensure
that broader institutional policies (e.g. allowing a leave from teaching) facilitate their participation if
selected. A research office, or Office of Sponsored Programs, is often well positioned to help with this
process.

U.S. Government Funding for Faculty Travel Abroad: Four Big Names

Department of State The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program sends approximately 1,100 American
scholars and professionals per year to approximately 125 countries, where they lecture and/or conduct
research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.

The Fulbright Specialist Program (FSP) promotes linkages between U.S. academics and professionals and
their counterparts at host institutions overseas. The program is designed to award grants to qualified
U.S. faculty and professionals, in select disciplines, to engage in short-term collaborative 2 to 6 week
projects at host institutions in over 100 countries worldwide.

Department of Education American Overseas Research Centers provide grants to support faculty
stipends and other costs abroad.

Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program contributes to the development and improvement of the
study of modern foreign languages and area studies in the United States by providing training
opportunities for faculty, teachers, and upperclassmen and/or graduate students in foreign countries
outside of Western Europe.

U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program fosters university partnerships through the exchange of
undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff within the context of bilateral curricular
development.

National Science Foundation NSF/European Commission Implementing Arrangement (July 2012)

provides opportunities for NSF-funded early career scientists and engineers to pursue research
collaborations with European colleagues supported through the European Research Council (ERC)
awards.

USAID Higher Education for Development funds higher education-based partnerships that target
development challenges worldwide, many of which are faculty-initiated. Each partnership links a higher
education institution in the United States with another institution in a host country. In support of
USAID's development goals, partners work together to address a wide range of challenges—from public
health to entrepreneurship training, and beyond.

Create programs and policies to engage more faculty in existing relationships abroad.

Institutions with existing partnerships abroad can deepen those connections by purposefully exposing
more faculty to the partner institution, publicizing those relationships broadly, and encouraging
additional new linkages. Even when such encounters are relatively short, they may set the stage for
deeper engagement down the road, or may motivate faculty to engage abroad in other ways.

The University Commitment to Global Engagement

As universities from around the world, we are committed to educating students who can successfully
live and work in our globally connected world and change it for the better.

THE UNIVERSITY COMMITMENT TO GLOBAL EDUCATION

As universities from around the world, we are committed to educating students who can successfully
live and work in our globally connected world and change it for the better. We are also committed to
discovering, producing, and sharing new solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. These
missions require of universities an openness to—and engagement with—ideas, knowledge, and people
from all parts of the world.

Knowledge and innovation is not bound by national borders. This has always been true, but the scope
and complexity of today’s challenges make the necessity for global engagement even more critical.
These challenges have come into focus through the United Nations’ adoption of a new global
development agenda known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs comprise 17
transformative objectives concerning the most pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges
facing the world today. The SDGs set interdependent development priorities that apply to low-, middle-,
and high-income countries alike.

The SDGs are globally shared objectives that can only be achieved through international cooperation
and

multi-stakeholder engagement.

As institutions dedicated to the public good, we express our commitment to global engagement through

a series of actions, including:

Developing the global competence of all students so they have the skills to productively engage with
individuals from different cultural and national backgrounds.

Increasing our students’ understanding of the most pressing economic, social, and environmental
challenges facing the world today.

Significantly increasing student physical and virtual mobility across nations so that many more of our
students experience realities outside their domestic contexts and deepen their understanding of
challenges and opportunities in other parts of the world.

Committing to cross-border and cross-sector research, knowledge sharing, and innovation in

collaboration with our public and private stakeholders in pursuit of novel solutions to the SDGs.

Communicating publicly about the progress and importance of our global engagement.

Strategy aims to make US students more globally engaged. ... The strategy, Succeeding Globally
through International Education and Engagement, aims to prepare American students to succeed in a
globalised world, and to improve the US education system, from kindergarten through college, by
collaborating with other countries.

The Benefits
Become a more cross-culturally and globally conscious citizen of the world.

Develop important competencies that will help you collaborate more effectively with people from
different cultures.

Demonstrate to future employers and graduate schools that you are prepared to work in today’s
global society by completing these academic courses and cross-cultural experiences.

Receive a certificate and a transcript notation that shows you have earned a Global Citizenship
Certificate.

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ASEAN higher education systems are becoming more open for international engagement

Wednesday 02 May 2018

Higher education systems in the ASEAN region are becoming more open for international engagement,
say a new British Council report released today.

‘The Shape of Global Higher Education’ - the British Council’s unique policy framework which assesses
higher education (HE) policies in various countries - was launched today at the Going Global conference
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The latest report in this series focuses on the ten ASEAN member states: Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam,
Brunei, Indonesia, Cambodia, The Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar and Lao PDR.

It is notable that Malaysia in particular, but also Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore
and Thailand compare favourably with countries from across the world, in terms of the policies and
infrastructure provided to support international HE.
We reveal that national strategies for expanding and supporting international higher education
engagement are often firmly embedded within other national plans, and linked to the countries’
economic priorities. In Cambodia for example, the international higher education strategy is linked with
other policy areas and strategies focusing on growth, employment, equity and socio-economic and
industrial development.

Promotion and support of international student mobility is a priority for many ASEAN nations, and
underpins many regional objectives; in fact a number of measures in place to support student mobility
focus on intra-regional opportunities, including Singapore’s ASEAN mobility scholarships.

All of the ASEAN countries already have, or are trying to develop, significant levels of inbound
transnational education and are aiming to grow their HE systems often through building on international
transnational education partnerships.

Michael Peak, Head of Higher Education Systems Research, British Council, says,

“International higher education is of clear national and regional importance within ASEAN. The region,
although diverse in many ways, including in terms of the size of the economy, and the relative ‘maturity’
of the HE systems, is united by a desire to engage further in international higher education.”

Today’s report is the third edition of “The Shape of Global Higher Education” series which aims to build
our collective knowledge and understanding of higher education policy and legislation in various
countries.

As we now have a snapshot of the policy environment in 2016 and in 2018 for five of the studied
countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia), this allows us to see any changes
over time in the HE policy environment.

And all five countries included in 2016 and 2018 have strengthened their systemic national support for
international HE engagement, in particular the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Some of this
additional support includes recognition of transnational education qualifications (Thailand); and
increased collaboration with regional recognition and quality assurance agencies (Vietnam).
The aim of the study is to allow the international higher education community to benchmark the level of
support provided by national systems for international engagement and activity – including mobility of
staff and students; mobility of programmes and institutions and international collaboration in research.

Why is Singapore’s school system so successful, and is it a model for the West?

For more than a decade, Singapore, along with South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong and
Finland, has been at or near the top of international leagues tables that measure children’s ability in
reading, maths and science. This has led to a considerable sense of achievement in Finland and East
Asia and endless hand-wringing and head-scratching in the West.

What then do Singaporean teachers do in classrooms that is so special, bearing in mind that there are
substantial differences in classroom practices between – as well as within – the top-performing
countries? What are the particular strengths of Singapore’s instructional regime that helps it perform
so well? What are its limits and constraints?

Is it the right model for countries seeking to prepare students properly for the complex demands of
21st century knowledge economies and institutional environments more generally? Is Singapore’s
teaching system transferable to other countries? Or is its success so dependent on very specific
institutional and cultural factors unique to Singapore that it is folly to imagine that it might be
reproduced elsewhere?

Singapore’s instructional regime

In general, classroom instruction in Singapore is highly-scripted and uniform across all levels and
subjects. Teaching is coherent, fit-for-purpose and pragmatic, drawing on a range of pedagogical
traditions, both Eastern and Western.

As such, teaching in Singapore primarily focuses on coverage of the curriculum, the transmission of
factual and procedural knowledge, and preparing students for end-of-semester and national high
stakes examinations.

And because they do, teachers rely heavily on textbooks, worksheets, worked examples and lots of
drill and practice. They also strongly emphasise mastery of specific procedures and the ability to
represent problems clearly, especially in mathematics. Classroom talk is teacher-dominated and
generally avoids extended discussion.
Intriguingly, Singaporean teachers only make limited use of “high leverage” or unusually effective
teaching practices that contemporary educational research (at least in the West) regards as critical to
the development of conceptual understanding and “learning how to learn”.

For example, teachers only make limited use of checking a student’s prior knowledge or
communicating learning goals and achievement standards. In addition, while teachers monitor
student learning and provide feedback and learning support to students, they largely do so in ways
that focus on whether or not students know the right answer, rather than on their level of
understanding.

So Singapore’s teaching regime is one primarily focused on the transmission of conventional

curriculum knowledge and examination performance. And clearly it is highly-effective, helping to
generate outstanding results in international assessments Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study (TIMSS) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The logic of teaching in Singapore

Singapore’s education system is the product of a distinctive, even unique, set of historical,
institutional and cultural influences. These factors go a long way to help explain why the educational
system is especially effective in the current assessment environment, but it also limits how
transferable it is to other countries.

Over time, Singapore has developed a powerful set of institutional arrangements that shape its
instructional regime. Singapore has developed an education system which is centralised (despite
significant decentralisation of authority in recent years), integrated, coherent and well-funded. It is
also relatively flexible and expert-led.

In addition, Singapore’s institutional arrangements is characterised by a prescribed national

curriculum. National high stakes examinations at the end of primary and secondary schooling stream
students according to their exam performance and, crucially, prompt teachers to emphasise coverage
of the curriculum and teaching to the test. The alignment of curriculum, assessment and instruction is
exceptionally strong.

Beyond this, the institutional environment incorporates top-down forms of teacher accountability
based on student performance (although this is changing), that reinforces curriculum coverage and
teaching to the test. Major government commitments to educational research (£109m between 2003-
2017) and knowledge management are designed to support evidence-based policy making. Finally,
Singapore is strongly committed to capacity building at all levels of the system, especially the
selection, training and professional development of principals and teachers.
Singapore’s instructional regime and institutional arrangements are also supported by a range of
cultural orientations that underwrites, sanctions and reproduces the instructional regime. At the most
general level, these include a broad commitment to a nation-building narrative of meritocratic
achievement and social stratification, ethnic pluralism, collective values and social cohesion, a strong,
activist state and economic growth.

In addition, parents, students, teachers and policy makers share a highly positive but rigorously
instrumentalist view of the value of education at the individual level. Students are generally
compliant and classrooms orderly.

Importantly, teachers also broadly share an authoritative vernacular or “folk pedagogy” that shapes
understandings across the system regarding the nature of teaching and learning. These include that
“teaching is talking and learning is listening”, authority is “hierarchical and bureaucratic”, assessment
is “summative”, knowledge is “factual and procedural,” and classroom talk is teacher-dominated and
“performative”.

Clearly, Singapore’s unique configuration of historical experience, instruction, institutional

arrangements and cultural beliefs has produced an exceptionally effective and successful system. But
its uniqueness also renders its portability limited. But there is much that other jurisdictions can learn
about the limits and possibilities of their own systems from an extended interrogation of the
Singapore model.

At the same time it is also important to recognise that the Singapore model is not without its limits. It
generates a range of substantial opportunity costs, and it constrains (without preventing) the capacity
of the system for substantial and sustainable reform. Other systems, contemplating borrowing from
Singapore, would do well to keep these in mind.

Reforming the Singapore model

The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s challenged policy makers to take a long hard look at the
educational system that they developed, and ever since they have been acutely aware that the
pedagogical model that had propelled Singapore to the top of international leagues table is not
appropriately designed to prepare young people for the complex demands of globalisation and 21st
knowledge economies.

By 2004-5, Singapore’s government had more or less identified the kind of pedagogical framework it
wanted to work towards, and called it Teach Less, Learn More. This framework urged teachers to
focus on the “quality” of learning and the incorporation of technology into classrooms and not just
the “quantity” of learning and exam preparation.

While substantial progress has been made, the government has found rolling-out and implementing
these reforms something of a challenge. In particular, instructional practices proved well entrenched
and difficult to change in a substantial and sustainable way.

This was in part because the institutional rules that govern classroom pedagogy were not altered in
ways that would support the proposed changes to classroom teaching. As a consequence, well-
established institutional rules have continued to drive teachers to teach in ways that prioritise
coverage of the curriculum, knowledge transmission and teaching to the test over “the quality” of
learning, or to adopt high-leverage instructional practices.

Indeed, teachers do so for good reason, since statistical modelling of the relationship between
instructional practices and student learning indicates that traditional and direct instructional
techniques are much better at predicting student achievement than high leverage instructional
practices, given the nature of the tasks students are assessed on.

Not the least of the lessons of these findings is that teachers in Singapore are unlikely to cease
teaching to the test until and unless a range of conditions are met. These include that the nature of
the assessment tasks will need to change in ways that encourages teachers to teacher differently.
Above all, new kinds of assessment tasks that focus on the quality of student understanding are likely
to encourage teachers to design instructional tasks. These can provide rich opportunities to learn and
encourage high-quality knowledge work.

The national high stakes assessment system should also incorporate a moderated, school-based
component that allows teachers to design tasks that encourage deeper learning rather than just
“exam learning”.

The national curriculum should allow substantial levels of teacher mediation at the school and
classroom level. This needs to have clearly specified priorities and principles, backed up by substantial
commitments to authentic, in-situ, forms of professional development that provide rich opportunities
for modelling, mentoring and coaching.

Finally, the teacher evaluation system needs to rely far more substantially on accountability systems
that acknowledge the importance of peer judgement, and a broader range of teacher capacities and
valuable student outcomes than the current assessment regime currently does.
Meanwhile, teachers will continue to bear the existential burden of managing an ongoing tension
between what, professionally speaking, many of them consider good teaching, and what,
institutionally speaking, they recognise is responsible teaching.

One of the central challenges confronting the Ministry of Education in Singapore is to reconcile good
and responsible teaching. But the ministry is clearly determined to bed-down a pedagogy capable of
meeting the demands of 21st century institutional environments, particularly developing student
capacity to engage in complex knowledge work within and across subject domains.

The technical, cultural, institutional and political challenges of doing so are daunting. However, given
the quality of leadership across all levels of the system, and Singapore’s willingess to grant
considerable pedagogical authority to teachers while providing clear guidance as to priorities, I have
no doubt it will succeed. But it will do so on its own terms and in ways that achieve a sustainable
balance of knowledge transmission and knowledge-building pedagogies that doesn’t seriously
compromise the overall performativity of the system.

It is already clear that the government is willing to tweak once sacred cows, including the national
high stakes exams and streaming systems. However, it has yet to tackle the perverse effects of
streaming on classroom composition and student achievement that continues to overwhelm
instructional effects in statistical modelling of student achievement.

Towards a knowledge building pedagogy

Singapore’s experience and its current efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning do have
important, if ironic, implications for systems that hope to emulate its success.

This is especially true of those jurisdictions – I have in mind England and Australia especially – where
conservative governments have embarked on ideologically driven crusades to demand more direct
instruction of (Western) canonical knowledge, demanding more testing and high stakes assessments
of students, and imposing more intensive top-down performance regimes on teachers.

In my view, this is profoundly and deeply mistaken. It is also more than a little ironic given the reform
direction Singapore has mapped out for itself over the past decade. The essential challenge facing
Western jurisdictions is not so much to mimic East Asian instructional regimes, but to develop a more
balanced pedagogy that focuses not just on knowledge transmission and exam performance, but on
teaching that requires students to engage in subject-specific knowledge building.
Knowledge building pedagogies recognise the value of established knowledge, but also insist that
students need to be able to do knowledge work as well as learning about established knowledge.
Above all, this means students should acquire the ability to recognise, generate, represent,
communicate, deliberate, interrogate, validate and apply knowledge claims in light of established
norms in key subject domains.

In the long run, this will do far more for individual and national well-being, including supporting
development of a vibrant and successful knowledge economy, than a regressive quest for top billing in
international assessments or indulging in witless “culture wars” against modernity and emergent, not
to mention long-established, liberal democratic values.

The definition undergirds the global competence assessment in the 2018 PISA test, and it also
provides a roadmap for educators and education systems to integrate global competence into their
teaching.

Implications for Educators

Educating for global competence is an accessible, practical approach that is not beyond the reach of
the average teacher. As the myriad examples in the publication show, this type of teaching is
practiced across all age groups and subject areas in countries all around the world.

Students gain global competence by practicing skill development in the classroom and applying their
learning to real-world topics. Although reading textbooks, listening to lectures, and memorization
have their place in learning, they must be paired with more active learning to develop global
competence.

Teaching for global competence does not require a new curriculum. It requires combining
instructional strategies for active learning with global issues and weaving them into the existing
curriculum.

Instructional strategies include structured debates, organized discussions, learning from current
events, learning from play, service learning, and project-based learning.

Implications for Education Systems

To spread global competence beyond individual teachers and their classrooms, education systems
must leverage teachers as advocates and ambassadors, advance whole-school engagement strategies,
and support innovative school leaders.

Professional development for educators is the key to scaling global competence. To reach every
student—especially the most marginalized—developing the capacity of educators to teach for global
competence requires systematic professional learning.
The results from PISA 2018 can inform potential changes in policy to strengthen education for global
competence, including building the capacity of the teaching force to do so.

Resources for developing global competence at scale exist. Organizations including the Center for
Global Education are developing professional development opportunities and collaborative platforms
worldwide.

The challenge is to provide access to professional learning for all teachers in order to transform their
teaching, their classrooms, their schools—and, ultimately, each and every one of their students.

The idea of global competence articulates the knowledge and skills students need in the 21st century.

Globally competent students have the knowledge and skills to:

Investigate the World

Globally competent students are aware, curious, and interested in learning about the world and how
it works.

Recognize Perspectives

Globally competent students recognize that they have a particular perspective, and that others may or
may not share it.

Communicate Ideas

Globally competent students can effectively communicate, verbally and non-verbally, with diverse
audiences.

Take Action

Globally competent students have the skills and knowledge to not just learn about the world, but also
to make a difference in the world.

The Four Domains of Global Competence

The Four Domains of Global Competence [image and description]

LEARN MORE ABOUT TEACHING FOR GLOBAL COMPETENCE

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Teaching for Global Competence

Learn about online global competence courses offered by the Center for Global Education in
collaboration with Arizona State University designed for educators in schools and in out-of-school
time.

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RESOURCE

Global Competence Outcomes and Rubrics

Download globally focused performance outcomes and rubrics in a variety of grades and all academic
subjects, plus a free copy of the book here.

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Educating for Global Competence

Read the book that introduced the definition of global competence, Educating for Global Competence:
Preparing Our