Education for future-oriented citizenship: implications for the education of twenty-first century competencies

Abstract

Globalization and the knowledge economy have opened up worldwide agendas for national development. Following this is the emphasis on the social dimension, otherwise known as social capital. Much of social capital includes "soft skills" and "twenty-first century skills", which broadly cover critical, creative and inventive thinking; information, interactive and communication skills; civic literacy, global awareness and cross-cultural skills. Proactively, the Singapore government is preparing for Curriculum 2015, a new curriculum that would develop student attributes, embedded in the "confident person", "self-directed learner", "active contributor", and "concerned citizen". Significantly, a new curricular initiative, Character and Citizenship Education, emphasizes the integrative nature of citizenship and twenty-first century competencies and has been implemented in all schools in Singapore from 2011. This future-oriented approach to citizenship education emphasizes the significance of individual initiatives and the intellectual capital of citizens. This paper analyses features of this particular approach to citizenship education, and its strengths and significance, which may be viewed as an integrative "total curriculum approach" with a "whole-society" perspective. In addition, the challenges of teaching twenty-first century skills will also be highlighted. This departs from the conventional paradigm of socialization, but to help students develop attributes for a future society to come.

Character education, the individual and the political

“…2. It is important to recognise here, that while not uncontested, the relationship between character education and citizenship education is more clearly connected in some, nonwestern democracies (here, Singapore, in which Character and Citizenship Education is a school subject, provides an illustrative example; Lee, 2012;Shumer, Lam, & Laabs, 2012;Sim & Low, 2012). While not wishing to ignore the importance of other contexts, the analysis offered here focuses deliberately on character education and citizenship education in westernised democracies.…”

How to Achieve a Healthy City: a Scoping Review with Ten City Examples

“…This effective provision of public housing has allowed the government to intervene in other aspects of social life by tying respective social policies to housing policy. These social interventions aim to nurture individuals who possess empathy, participate responsibly, and exhibit sensibility in a society that is diverse in terms of ethnicity, culture, and religion [ 74 ]. To support this objective, a social mix in public housing estates is planned, particularly among the three major ethnic groups, namely Chinese, Malays, and Indians.…”

Creating a better future: Implications from futures imagination education in Taiwan

“…According to the US National Center on Education and the Economy, the same education that is being delivered today will no longer be sufficient for young people for their living, learning and earning futures. Individuals or groups who are creative and forwardlooking are able to cope with the insecurity and uncertainty that future entails, while pedagogy may be the answer to influencing a young individual's future social, economic and civic participation (McWilliam, 2009).Therefore, scholars have noted that almost all Asian countries have embarked on curriculum reform in order to develop '21st-century skills' which broadly include critical, creative and inventive thinking; information, interactive and communication skills; civic literacy, global awareness and cross-cultural skills (Kennedy, 2008;Lee, 2012), as innovations in education become crucial.…”