Nachamma Sockalingam
Educational development differs across nations – often steered by national policies. This paper presents a snapshot of the educational development landscape in Singapore by studying Educational Development Centres (EDCs) from five Singaporean universities.
Universities in Singapore top various global rankings. The question is if this emphasis on research and rankings is paralleled in educational development efforts reflecting a culture that learns. Also, there is a lack of documentation on educational development work in Asia and in particular, Singapore. This paper is the first to scan and document the educational development landscape, as far as the Singapore context is concerned.
The research questions in this study are: (1) What does educational development look like in Singapore, (2) What is the profile of educational developers in Singapore, and (3) What inferences can we draw from the existing educational development work in Singapore and what are the lessons learnt?
To this end, the author profiled Singapore EDCs in terms of organizational structures, EDC programmes and services, and the demography of educational developers. Data for this study was obtained from official websites that is available to public. Mixed method was used to analyze the data.
The snapshot of EDCs in Singapore are that typically these centres are centrally deployed, under the purview of Provost. The centres tend to take a holistic focus on faculty development, instructional development, organizational development and community development, although faculty development tends to be the most emphasized. Not surprisingly, the mission of the universities tend to shape the focus of the EDCs.
The size of EDCs range from 2 to 18 and this encompasses educational developers and administrative staff, with educational developers making the majority (50- 89%) of the total 46. In terms of gender, there was a slight bias towards male educational developers (60%) and strong bias towards female administrative staff (81.25%). A good percentage (33 to 100%) of educational developers across the five centres hold a Doctorate degree although typically not in education (60%).
The presentation compares the data with other studies, discusses the age and maturity of the EDCs in terms of their programme and services, the rationale behind these and the inferences drawn.
The outcomes of the study represent the tip of an iceberg and indicates a good level of university support for educational development work in Singapore but suggests areas for improvement. More details are shared at the presentation.
