ABSTRACT
In the Asia-Pacific region, there have been waves of educational reform since the 1990s. These educational reforms displayed various trends at different levels ranging from the macro-level, the meso-level, the site-level to the operational level. At the macro-level, there were trends towards re-establishing the new national vision and educational aims, restructuring the education system at different levels and market-driving, privatizing and diversifying education. At the operational level, there were trends towards using information technology (IT) and new technologies in education and paradigm shifts in learning, teaching and assessment (Cheng 2003, 6). The six countries/regions (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam) discussed in this chapter are, to some extent, under the influence of the Sinic civilization or the Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC). Economically, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea have been well known to be “High Performing Asian Economies” (HPAEs) whereas China and Vietnam are seen as a growing giant and an emerging economy respectively (Ashton et al. 2002; Kennedy 2007). Gopinathan further explained that societies or “developmental states” such as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have achieved a tight coupling between education and training systems and
these societal level changes were … made possible by a strong belief in the value of learning in these Confucian-heritage cultures … made up of persistence in the face of boredom, metacognitive awareness, and an acceptance of rules governing group participation leading to a sense of diligence and receptiveness.
(2006, 215–16)