ABSTRACT
The world has entered a new era of prolonged uncertainty with disruptions to global peace, health, climate, food and water security. The opening chapter of the book questions the dominant focus in modern-day schooling on efficiency, effectiveness and measurement of performance in good education. International indicators of high performing education systems—Singapore’s education system is a prime example—provide a broad metric of the health of school systems. Scholars, however, alert us to the dangers of performance-focused outcomes since market-driven accountability indicators can limit the function and purpose of education. This narrowed form of education is characteristic of high-performance schooling, where the growth of the student as a person is curtailed to meet functional economic ends, and the worth of a school is tied to the attainment of measurable achievement outcomes. This chapter calls for an urgent re-examination of education from the ground-up, particularly from inside schools and classrooms. By looking closely, deeply, and analytically into students’ lived experiences and how broad policies and curricula are implemented in our schools, we learn what is crucial for schools to guide students in their decisions about what students consider successful, meaningful and ethical. Chapter 1 asks, “What is the purpose of education in schools today?”
