Singapore tries creativity in education to compete with China

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/08/07/BUGT0E3EJN1.DTL&type=business

China's juggernaut has region on edge

Singapore nervously tries to reshape its business profile

Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, August 7, 2005

In Southeast Asia, most eyes are on Singapore, the hub of the region's economy, where creativity has become the new buzzword.

Education has long been a linchpin of Singapore's economic success, and the country has ranked No. 1 in some international surveys of school math and science skills. But Shanmugaratnam, the education minister, says this achievement may have come at a cost of excessive conformity. Now, he says, increased attention to the arts is needed to unleash Singapore's economic potential.

"We are redesigning our concept of meritocracy to include a broader range of merits, not just results in standardized exams, to help stimulate creativity and innovation. The arts are a big factor in this," he said.

For Singapore, long known for its authoritarian approach to economic development, this change requires a change in mind-set.

"We must reinvent ourselves," said Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who also is an economic adviser to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. "China is advancing very fast along the same value-added path we traveled in recent decades, so we must find new niches. We have been excellent engineers and managers, but we have not done enough as inventors and entrepreneurs. We are not producing enough patents."