IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eab/develo/22581.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Alternative Approaches to the Development of Early Childhood Education in Singapore

Author

Listed:
  • Yong Yik Wei

    (SCAPE)

  • Aekapol Chongvilaivan
  • Chew Jing Yang

Abstract

A knowledge-intensive, innovation-driven economy needs innovative and creative individuals in business, government, and the various professions. Singapores education system has an important role to play in equipping the young with the right qualities. This could be better achieved by moving away from an overly rigid education system that places undue emphasis on rote learning and examination scores, to an education system that develops students creativity and critical thinking abilities, and encourages their innate curiosity and willingness to experiment. We examine, as a backdrop, various economic theories of entrepreneurship and, believing that it is important to begin with a good educational foundation, the features of some alternative approaches to pre-school education. We also examine Singapores attempts to promote independent thinking and creativity among Singaporean students, and other countries experiences, in particular those of Finland and the Netherlands. Among other issues, emphasis is placed on play and the fostering of students love of learning, in less structured settings, as the media of learning during early childhood education.

Suggested Citation

  • Yong Yik Wei & Aekapol Chongvilaivan & Chew Jing Yang, 2008. "Alternative Approaches to the Development of Early Childhood Education in Singapore," Development Economics Working Papers 22581, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:eab:develo:22581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eaber.org/node/22581
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kanbur, S M, 1979. "Of Risk Taking and the Personal Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 769-797, August.
    2. Peter J. Boettke (ed.), 1994. "The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 53.
    3. Kihlstrom, Richard E & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1979. "A General Equilibrium Entrepreneurial Theory of Firm Formation Based on Risk Aversion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 719-748, August.
    4. Wilson, William W., 1998. "U.S. Grain Handling And Transportation System: Factors Contributing To The Dynamic Changes In The 1980s And 1990s," AE Series 23081, North Dakota State University, Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics.
    5. Vaughn,Karen I., 1994. "Austrian Economics in America," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521445528, January.
    6. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yong Yik Wei & Aekapol Chongvilaivan & Chew Jing Yang, 2008. "Alternative Approaches to the Development of Early Childhood Education in Singapore," Development Economics Working Papers 22581, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    2. Sarah Brown & Lisa Farrell & Mark N. Harris & John G. Sessions, 2006. "Risk preference and employment contract type," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 169(4), pages 849-863, October.
    3. Clemens, Christiane & Heinemann, Maik, 2010. "On entrepreneurial risk-taking and the macroeconomic effects of financial constraints," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1610-1626, September.
    4. Koen de Backer, 2002. "Does foreign direct investment crowd out domestic entrepreneurship?," Economics Working Papers 618, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    5. Pekka Ilmakunnas & Vesa Kanniainen, 2001. "Entrepreneurship, Economic Risks, and Risk Insurance in the Welfare State: Results with OECD Data 1978–93," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 2(3), pages 195-218, August.
    6. Brian Wu & Anne Marie Knott, 2006. "Entrepreneurial Risk and Market Entry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(9), pages 1315-1330, September.
    7. Newman, Andrew F., 2007. "Risk-bearing and entrepreneurship," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 11-26, November.
    8. Alok Kumar, 2012. "Self-Employment, Efficiency Wage, And Public Policies," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 1069-1079, October.
    9. Hvide, Hans K. & Panos, Georgios A., 2014. "Risk tolerance and entrepreneurship," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 200-223.
    10. Daniel Lechmann & Claus Schnabel, 2014. "Are the self-employed really jacks-of-all-trades? Testing the assumptions and implications of Lazear’s theory of entrepreneurship with German data," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 59-76, January.
    11. Mirjam Praag & André Stel, 2013. "The more business owners, the merrier? The role of tertiary education," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 335-357, August.
    12. Arnab Bhattacharjee & Jean Bonnet & Nicolas Le Pape & Régis Renault, 2005. "Inferring the Unobserved Human Capital of Entrepreneurs," Post-Print halshs-00337435, HAL.
    13. Martin Carree & Marcus Dejardin, 2020. "Firm Entry and Exit in Local Markets: 'Market Pull' or 'Unemployment Push' Effects, or Both?," Post-Print halshs-03220690, HAL.
    14. Pekka Ilmakunnas & Vesa Kanniainen & Uki Lammi, "undated". "Entrepreneurship, Economic Risks, and Risk-Insurance in the Welfare State," EPRU Working Paper Series 99-03, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    15. Ando, Sakai & Matsumura, Misaki, 2020. "Constrained inefficiency of competitive entrepreneurship," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 98-103.
    16. Marcus DEJARDIN, 2001. "Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth: An Obvious Conjunction?," Development and Comp Systems 0110010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Breuer, Janice Boucher & McDermott, John, 2012. "Culture, caution, and trust," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 15-23.
    18. Ferrante, Francesco & Sabatini, Fabio, 2007. "Education, social capital and entrepreneurial selection in Italy," MPRA Paper 2451, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Sabatini, Fabio, 2006. "Educational Qualification, Work Status and Entrepreneurship in Italy an Exploratory Analysis," Knowledge, Technology, Human Capital Working Papers 12107, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    20. Wim Naudé, 2008. "Entrepreneurship in Economic Development," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-20, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Entrepreneurship; Pre-school Education; Play-based Learning; Reggio Emilia approach; Montessori Method; Teach Less; Learn More (TLLM) initiative;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eab:develo:22581. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shiro Armstrong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaberau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.