Savoirs et apprentissages fondamentaux à Singapour

In a country which fosters the development of an economy based on knowledge, investment in school education is the main source of prosperity. The National Curriculum aims at ensuring the successful learning of students while optimizing their aptitudes. The main drift is to train citizens capable of thinking in a more creative and autonomous way so as to meet the economic challenges and to teach academic contents related to a specific knowledge while taking into account each and every student's needs and maximizing the capacities and talents of everyone. That implies a redefinition of the notions of knowledge and learning, of the improved status of learning processes, of going beyond the mere culture of performance. These measures can hardly be implemented without contradictions, ambiguities and resistances. Moreover, their very implementation supposes that the ways of assessing students be modified and diversified.