Higher Education in Singapore during Covid-19

Singapore’s higher education scene features local Autonomous Universities and international universities that have either set up their own campuses or deliver their transnational education through Private Education Institutions. In early 2020, the city-state’s use of public-health best practices had garnered praise from WHO. However, in April, the rate of new infections increased alarmingly, and some of the international media that previously cited Singapore’s coronavirus response as the gold standard changed their tune and called the city-state disenchanted and Southeast Asia’s new epicenter.

Initially, Singapore’s education system did not witness measures quite as drastic as some other countries: Universities and schools were not closed—with some institutions of higher learning teaching fully online, while others pursued blended learning approaches. With the stricter measures that were implemented in early April, schools and universities were compelled to switch to home-based learning until 1 June. Universities responded by conducting all lessons online and by converting their exams into a variety of online formats or into take-home assignments.

In our contribution, we discuss whether the current move to online delivery will be merely an event-driven adoption or whether educators will continue to use additional technological tools for innovative andragogical practices in a post-crisis environment. Rather than falling prey to a misperception of online learning as a weak option and mistaking current emergency measures with the real McCoy (that usually requires much more extensive preparation), the current emergency measures should perhaps be evaluated as what they are: Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT).