Education Ministers from seven top-performing school systems gathered at the inaugural International Education Roundtable (IER) to discuss how education systems could continuously improve, in order to equip students with the skills and attributes required for a fast changing and unpredictable future.
The Ministers noted that certain fundamentals were common across top performing education systems. Further, international benchmarking tests, while not comprehensive in measuring educational outcomes across systems, had provided the impetus for countries and territories to systematically seek out useful lessons and experiences from others.
They agreed that to sustain and enhance performance, education systems needed to focus on attracting individuals with the right attitudes and aptitude to become educators and providing them with the best tools, including information and communication technologies (ICT), to do their jobs well.
For all schools to improve there was a need for a rigorous system of performance management, transparent data and sharing of best practices.
A joint project by the Singapore Ministry of Education and McKinsey & Company, the Roundtable, held in Singapore from 6-8 July, was attended by Ministers and senior government officials from Australia (Victoria), Canada (Alberta), China, Hong Kong, Sweden, and the US.