OSIAS COLLEGES INC.

F. TANEDO ST. SAN NICOLAS, TARLAC CITY

TEL. NO. 045-982-02-45

Name: John Paul F. Ong Date: September 24, 2021

Degree/Program: MAED Major in Administration and Supervision Score/Rating:_________
Faculty: Education

Progression Versus Reflection: “Curriculum Development in Singapore and Turkey:

Reflections of Administrative Structure and Educational Reforms” Commentary

Reflections especially in technical and creative papers are Philosophical or simply self-

realizations and discovered learnings an individual has experienced. Pamintuan (2010) in his

lectures in Introduction to Philosophy in fact emphasizes this Reflections are intellectual and

empirical products of human historicities. As a matter of fact, when this comes into place a clarity

shows that this indeed is not a Research paper for 2 entities do not incorporate to one another in

the academic sense especially Reflections hugely different from Researches which brings me into

2 major issues in this paper.

First things first, Researches should hugely finds a concrete solution to a problem or

commonly a clue or an action plan destination after needs assessment towards an evaluative

process and the list goes on. Take a concrete look on the SOP 2 of the paper. “What are the

reflections of educational reforms in Singapore and Turkey on curriculum development process?”

This itself is hugely problematic for when you say this SOP, that means to say this paper expects

from the researcher the insights, new approaches and realization to “INITIATE” the research per

se. Unfortunately, the execution and idea is frankly a Reflection paper title rather than a research

paper. Take a look from a critic’s writings on formulating a reflection paper which titled “Infinity
Unity of Love” created by the critic itself on the 14th of February 2014 which Focuses on

Empedocles’ idea.

If Empedocles illustrates love by uniting the 4 elements by love, Then, I will illustrate
them by innovating it in the context of the Infinity Gauntlet of Thanos, The Infinity
Key. This Infinity Key can aid us towards maintaining the love that keeps us united
as one. Empedocles introduces the 4 elements as the key and as innovation these
elements has 1 to 2 corresponding attributes that will be the key to stay in the City
of God. First, Fire. It has 2 attributes, Power which is a burning desire for unity,
peace and care. This is the source of love that will help us thirst for peace and
harmony. And Time which Fire quickly spreads just like a firestorm in seconds. This
Time shows that we must widely spread quickly the love and peace in our land like
a firestorm. Earth has 1 attribute which is Reality. In life we are made by soil and
we will return to it when we die, humility is the keyword in this element because
being humble is shouting and accepting your own weaknesses. Thus, Reality aids us
to cherish every moment of our life because in the end will end up in the soil again.
Wind also has 1 attribute which is Soul. This represents our replenishment of life by
the breeze of the wind this, the Soul gives us life by the breezing powers of love that
relieve the thorns of hatred and Pride. And Finally, Water has 2 attributes Space
which is a wide dimension which enables man to move, this dimension also gives
life and color though love, a wide Space of love is a flowering Water which flows
down our world. And finally, Mind which represents clear taught and clear mind of
evilness. This attribute helps us to understand a person well as clear as the water
flows in the sea thus; listening is its aid to understanding who the person is.

Now each element with their corresponding attributes which represents man’s
moral acts forms the infinity key which leads us to the City of God were we
experience the happiness of God completely. But if 1 element strives or lost then the
infinity key will broke into pieces and you will remain in the realm of the City of the
World. Just like the elements the key will be formed by loved and destroyed by hate.
Although if we continue uniting these elements and applying continuously in our life
then a new realm in the city of God will occur and better world. (Ong, 2014)

As you can see here, the critic exposes the new ideas on how to view Empedocles’ idea

and implicate it into harmony instead of circular idea of Empedocles utilizing the Fides et Ratio

of St. John Paul II. However, look at the researchers implicate the paper regarding Curriculum

Development.

REFLECTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL REFORMS ON CURRICULUM

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN SINGAPORE EDUCATION SYSTEM

Singapore education system with approximately 50-year-history has reached its

present level through the reforms implemented within the scope of four basic phases,
which are survival-driven (1959-1978), efficiency-driven (1979-1996), ability-
based (1997-2011) and student-centric, values-driven (2012-present), respectively
(SME, 2012a).
 REFLECTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL REFORMS ON CURRICULUM
DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN TURKISH EDUCATION SYSTEM

With the establishment of Republic of Turkey in 1923, significant steps were taken
in the modernization policies through education (Varış, 1976), hence, Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, firstly invited John Dewey to
Turkey and took his ideas on how to implement education in a democratic system
and how to train teachers to enable them to adopt to the new system (Ata, 2001). In
this context, Dewey was charged with building the fundamentals of the education
system in Atatürk’s period (TEDMEM, 2015).

After proclamation of the Republic, Law on Unification of Education (Tevhid-i

Tedrisat) was enacted in 1924 and all educational institutions were connected to
MoNE as well as curricula were undergone comprehensive changes. The underlying
concepts of those changes were secularism, positive sciences and western
orientation, thus the standardized first five-year curriculum was prepared (Varış,
1976). (Şişmana and Karsantık, 2020)

As observed, it is more of a progressive report on the development and evaluating the

changes of the curriculum progress of individuals. This is where Dupitas (2020) will expose this

kind of Curriculum by Malcolm Skilbeck that it is a dynamic process of the curriculum that rotates

to enrich the quality of learnings the learners would experience and always observe an immediate

flaw of the curriculum. Nevertheless, this paper is more like an Historical report paper rather than

a research paper on its own. Thus, if this paper wants to emphasizes the researchness element, the

best suitable for this for a qualitative is an Evaluation of both curriculums and utilizing qualitative

immersion base approach to create new innovative ways for curriculum implementation. Sadly,

the paper itself is merely exposing developments rather than leaking what loopholes on the

curriculum has exposed where From Canada to Adana (2020) an Turukish Educator comments in

her youtube video “I Sent My Kids to a Turkish School // A Canadian Parent's Perspective on the

School System in Turkey” reacts that Curriculums will always have flaws to give an open ended

path towards evolutionary adoptability learning processes.

Finally, the results and discussion part are hugely conflicting to the title itself. To save the

paper’s element, the best title for this is the “Evaluative Progress of Singaporean and Turkish:
Curriculum Development in Administrative Structure and Educational Reforms” since a0

all contents exposes progresses and sees flaws like:

Program for Rebuilding and Improving Existing Schools (PRIME) was launched in
1999 for achieving Desired Outcomes of Education and Key Stage Outcomes, which
were the important steps for determining national standards. Through that program,
school conditions were intended to be enhanced such as establishing libraries
including new media sources and classrooms in which strategic use of information
and communication technologies (ICTs) is promoted. The School Excellence Model,
which was introduced n 2000, offered the criteria for schools’ self-evaluation.
Additionally, full-time schooling initiated at all secondary schools in 2000 and extra
(non-academic) programs enabled students’ holistic development. In 2003, SME
focused more on strengthening Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which was a
dimension of Desired Outcomes of Education, and emphasized to develop students’
life skills. Flexible School Infrastructure reform, introduced in 2005, intended to
redesign the use of the present areas at schools and transform the areas out of the
classrooms into effective learning areas (SME, 2010). Even though those
improvement studies were carried out for increasing the quality of education at the
macro level, they were of vital importance for achieving the national standards, and
enhancing and evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum prepared for meeting
those standards at the micro level. (Şişmana and Karsantık, 2020)

Notice that the flow of the paper sees the loop hole of the current curriculum of the time

and the transition it to what developments they occur. Therefore, it is not reflecting the realizations

of the flows, it is actually reporting the progresses of the developments instead of opening new

doorways to innovate or better expose a plan synthesis of both curriculums for interconnectivity

of complex learning progresses of students. And b) the paper should better of qualitative

immersion process or Philosophical theory conceptualization for synthesis basis. Thus, the paper

should have supposed to expose 3 elements. “Progress, struggles and realizations towards

expectations” which critically speaking, gave a historical paper instead.

In conclusion, the paper has 2 major flaws. Utilizing the idea of a reflection basis by which

that itself removes the essence of being a Research paper and the paper does not look address the

“Reflection” part rather it addresses a Historical basis of the paper. Needless to say, the topic

overall is good at first glance however, the execution did not meet the title per se resulting it rather

to be a historical paper with no basis rather than a research on what issues or ideas that are not yet
tackled in the curriculum of both countries. More often than not, curriculum researches should

always mark in 2 essences. Either you create it in Philosophical principle, formulation of

curriculum steps like what Tyler and Taba did by which Paliwen innovates (Dupitas, 2020) and

evaluate to synthesize or assess the curriculum towards connecting the open ended loop hole of

the problem of the curriculum per se. Thus, Curriculum Researches should be treated delicately

and not just exposing the idea if the essence of its researchness should be present at all times.