Educationalists have long noted that Singapore students outperform most of their international peers academically, as measured, for instance, by PISA rankings. The PISA, or Programme for International Student Assessment, is a global study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of school pupils’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading.
Equally astonishing is the short time Singapore took to transform itself from a low-skill, low-salaried nation, to one that commands the highest level of literacy in the world and an unemployment rate that has stayed at rock bottom.
But, for all of Singapore’s impressive progress, international education rankings alone will not protect its workers from the forces of economic change that will engulf the world economy in the coming decades. Global economic development and technological innovation will lean heavily on disruptive technologies and completely new business models that will throw many traditional jobs and even whole industries into disarray even whilst they create fantastic new opportunities for the next generation of skilled workers.
For example, the 2016 Future of Jobs report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) argued we are entering a “fourth Industrial revolution” in which over seven million white collar and administrative jobs will be destroyed through technological change in the next five years alone.
The future economy will need both strong vocational skills as well as soft skills. But employers frequently lament that the education system is not delivering the skills that they need. In 2015, more than a third of global companies reported difficulties filling open positions owing to shortages of people with key skills.
As such, governments in the region are beginning to realize that academic skills will not enough.
Education ministers throughout the world are beating a path to Singapore’s door to find out the secrets of its spectacular success in its science and maths results. But they should also remember that the jobs of the future will require flexibility, creativity, independence of thought, and teamwork, and that Singapore’s top PISA rankings alone will not be enough to guarantee success.