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Singapore’s educational reforms toward holistic outcomes: (Un)intended consequences of policy layering Year of publication: 2023 Author: Dennis Kwek | Jeanne Ho | Hwei Ming Wong Corporate author: Center for Universal Education at Brookings In the transition from economic imperatives to holistic drivers, there has been a gradual move over five policy phases (from 1965 to 2022 and beyond) toward curriculum and school diversification to cater to different students, with more autonomy given to schools to innovate their pedagogy and improve instructional quality to meet their students’ unique needs. Importantly, there has been a shift in policy rhetoric from focusing on educational structures to focusing on pedagogy and instructional quality. To shift pedagogy from being mainly didactic in nature—with emphasis on preparing students for national examination—the Singapore government recognized the need to focus on school leaders’ and teachers’ capacity building to enable new curricula and teaching practices. The school cluster structure was initiated in 1997 to enable collaboration and learning among school leaders, key personnel, and teachers. Opportunities for collaborative teacher learning are provided at different ecological levels: professional learning communities (PLCs) within schools and networked learning communities (NLCs) across schools. Beyond the education system, the Singapore government works with other ministries and community organizations, such as ethnic self-help organizations, to tackle educational equity issues. Ultimately, even though the official policy narrative post-1997 has been a de-emphasis on examination results and educational infrastructure to help improve the instructional quality in schools toward holistic outcomes and improved student well-being have been developed, education systems building co-exists with an alternative underlying shadow education system valued by parents who continue to chase narrow academic outcomes. Tuition and enrichment centers in Singapore constitute the shadow education system. 
The Comprehensive Learning Diagnosis: Chile’s approach to assess socio-emotional learning in schools Year of publication: 2023 Author: José Weinstein | Juan Bravo Corporate author: Center for Universal Education at Brookings Education in Chile has important challenges of quality, equity, and social integration. For decades, policies tried to respond to these concerns with a high-stakes accountability institutional framework, which has not had success. The underlying vision of educational quality was limited. The assessment system in place privileged cognitive and academic dimensions of educational results. Socio-emotional learning had been neglected or considered secondary, without an infrastructure of assessment tools that allowed teachers and principals to diagnosis students’ situations and monitor their progress. The COVID-19 crisis was an opportunity for change: Students’ socioemotional needs were a main concern for schools and society, and the regular accountability system based on standardized tests was interrupted. Subsequently, the Comprehensive Learning Diagnosis (DIA) was launched by the Education Quality Agency. The DIA is a voluntary assessment tool made available to all Chilean schools. The DIA promotes the comprehensive development of students, providing timely information and guidance to internally monitor students’ learning in the academic and socio-emotional domains at several points during the school year. Specifically, with respect to socio-emotional learning, three areas were considered: personal, community, and citizenship. In each of these areas, a set of socioemotional skills were defined, operationalized, and became possible to monitor by school communities. The DIA also collects students’ opinions of school management practices regarding socio-emotional skills. The DIA has received a wide acceptance in school communities. Despite being voluntary, an ample majority of schools decided to participate. The information collected from the DIA allows for practical use by principals and teachers. Moreover, the DIA provides the opportunity for students to inform school management. The new Chilean government has decided to strengthen DIA as an important component in a four-year national plan for reactivating academic and socio-emotional learning in schools. The previous high-stakes accountability system, which involved external assessments, has been suspended and is under discussion. The DIA experience has shown that critical social and educational situations can provide fertile ground to motivate deep and rapid transformation, if an educational actor (in this case the Education Quality Agency) is capable of enacting a pertinent, timely, and practical response to school needs. The DIA is not only an example of productive uses of students´ assessment by schools, but also a demonstration that it is possible to build an institutional arrangement among local, intermediate, and national levels of school systems, where a vertical hierarchy is changed by a collaborative relationship based on local agency, mutual trust, and differentiated technical contributions.