This article is a commentary on the seven articles in this special issue of EJTE on teacher quality from international perspectives. In the article, Marilyn Cochran-Smith points to differences as well as common themes and details across the articles in the issue. The article discusses the emergence of teacher quality as a global concern, including…

This paper explores the contemporary relationship between international student migration and diaspora formation. It argues that international students have been largely absent from recent discussions of 'knowledge diasporas', where migrants' 'home' states attempt to harness and co-opt the skills and knowledge of their émigrés. This is surprising,…

This cross-case analysis explores national level internationalisation of higher education (IoHE) policies in Singapore and Japan. Through comparison of the state level internationalisation strategies, this paper aims to highlight how each country's unique policy environment impacts their approach to IoHE. The analysis suggests that despite the…

Education reforms around the world have been powerfully shaped by the rise of the neoliberal political, economic and cultural agendas. Neoliberal policies (re)produce certain types of institutional processes such as managerialism, performativity, and competition. These elements are mediated in varied ways by national ideologies, societal needs and…

This article re-examines the contents of Singapore's Thinking Schools Learning Nation (TSLN) and Teach Less Learn More (TLLM) educational initiatives, introduced and implemented to promote change and to prepare Singaporeans for a twenty-first century knowledge-based economy. Adopting a critical realist perspective that enables investigations into…

The combination of neo-liberalism and the massification of higher education combined with the diminished public funds for higher education contributed to the rise of academic capitalism and entrepreneurship across higher education systems and institutions across the world. With the focus on human capital development and its contribution to…

This article relates changes in higher education (HE) and research in East Asian societies to recent trends in political economy and, in particular, the reorientation of developmental states (DSs) in the region. The DS is oriented to catch-up competitiveness and, as the horizon of development shifts, so do its appropriate institutional forms and…

It is frequently claimed that the "competition state" responds to external competition by making competition increasingly central to its internal processes as well. This article discusses education reform in Singapore as departing from the opposite position. In Singapore "excessive" competition in education is now targeted by…

Scholars studying the global governance of education have noted the increasingly important role corporations play in educational policy making. I contribute to this scholarship by examining the Assessment and Teaching of twenty-first century skills (ATC21S™) project, a knowledge production apparatus operating under cognitive capitalism. I analyze…

For several decades, Singapore has experienced a high rate of outbound degree mobility with around 1 in 10 higher education students currently studying outside the country according to UNESCO figures. Singapore's successful economic development strategy, which has seen it become a key Asian hub for knowledge-intensive industries for…

Several education hubs have emerged in Asia and the Middle East in recent years with a specific focus on cross-border higher education. Through considerable efforts in policy planning and generous funding, these hubs aim to transform a country or city into an eminent destination for education, research, and training. The inherent design of these…

In this article I first discuss how in Singapore the concept of meritocracy captures both elitist and egalitarian aspirations, and the ways in which its education policies have for a long time vacillated between these conflicting dimensions. I then argue that critical studies of meritocracy need to go beyond an understanding of the term as an…

Globally, governments recognize the importance of creativity and innovation for sustainable socioeconomic development, and many invest resources to develop learning environments that foster these capacities. This paper provides a systematic framework based on Nair's "Innovation Helix" model for studying the factors of a country's…

Policy makers in both Singapore and Hong Kong have been preoccupied by the need to meet the competitive economic challenges of a global economy. As education is widely considered as a social investment which contributes significantly to economic growth, both in Singapore and Hong Kong there is a consensus that the school curriculum needs to be…

Focusing on Singapore's "Global Schoolhouse" project, this article discusses how efforts to transform Singapore into a "world class" knowledge economy entail changes to the status of citizenship in Singapore. The project of wooing top foreign universities to Singapore is permeated with an entrepreneurial ideal of Singapore as…