ABSTRACT

This critical analysis essay investigates the recent trends and issues of EarlyChildhood Education (ECE) in Singapore by triggering a cosmopolitan outlook forthe future. Trends are introduced by reviewing recent government initiatives. Issuesare examined by analyzing and incorporating the related scholarly studies and myexploration of teachers’ reflections about such changes. The critical analysis is madewith multiple discourses to interpret trends and issues in Singapore. These trendsinclude inquiry-based learning, child-centeredness, and teachers as reflective thinkers.The issues consist of teachers’grappling to adapt to the local traditions of efficiencyandstandardized-oriented education for the global trends. The future landscape arguesfor adopting cosmopolitanism, instead of being “universalized” in a narrow way(which is standardized and homogenized by the worldwide views; usually dominatedby the western perspectives only). In globalization, cosmopolitanism prevails inboth a local context and foreign cultures through emphasizing education as an evolvingprocess to uphold the local traditions and be open to the new possibilities. Acosmopolitan outlook including a cosmopolitan teacher and cosmopolitan ECE isargued and proposed for the future landscape by drawing upon Hansen’s (2010),Luke (2004), and Popkewitz’s (2003, 2007) works.

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