5: System Leadership for Future-ready Learners in Singapore

Schools are generally regarded as open systems (Betts, 1992; James & Connolly, 2000; Lunenburg, 2010). They have selectively permeable boundaries that surround and enclose the internal processes. For a school, the boundaries can take the form of physical infrastructure, staffing, financial resources, curriculum, learning modalities as well as other constraints under which the school may work. These boundaries may be permeable where they are subject to interaction with the environment. These interactions are predominantly with the larger entity of educational governance and policies mandated at the national or state level.

In Singapore, the Ministry of Education (MOE) sets the environment where schools function in as open systems. The objectives of MOE are to formulate and implement education policies on education structure, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It oversees the management and development of government-funded schools, the Institutes of Technical Education, polytechnics and universities (Ministry of Education (MOE), 2019a).