27 June 2017
Singapore’s approach to teaching mathematics is a huge success. Other countries have begun to adopt our methods, including countries as far flung as South Africa and Chile. They have met with positive results.
In Britain, India and the United States, it was found that pupils who have been taught mathematics using Singapore’s teaching methods have seen improvement in their test scores.
But some overseas teachers may face issues in trying to incorporate content from Singapore maths into their own national curriculum.
The National Institute of Education is embarking on a pilot project to explore how Singapore-style teaching techniques for maths can be better incorporated into a foreign curriculum.
Associate Professor Lee Ngan Hoe, who is leading the Singapore team of researchers, said overseas teachers “may not know the philosophy and principles behind some methods, so there may be a mismatch in terms of how the (teaching) methods are used”.