%0 Journal Article
%A Walker, ZM
%A Musti-Rao, S
%D 2016
%F discovery:10062049
%J Global Education Review
%K inclusive society, inclusion, Singapore, education, special needs, social inclusion, education policy
%N 3
%P 14-31
%T Inclusion in High-Achieving Singapore: Challenges of Building an Inclusive Society in Policy and Practice
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10062049/
%V 3
%X Building an inclusive society in which all people can participate effectively and live together requires  understanding inclusive education and its impact on the social order. As countries of different regions  face the vast array of challenges unique to their educational systems, it becomes apparent that inclusive  societies are intricately tied to social inclusion policy initiatives and developments in education.  Governments are becoming increasingly aware of the need to review their educational systems as they  attempt to define what an inclusive society is and how to make inclusion truly effective. Singapore is a  unique example of a country that has the resources and the vision, but currently lacks an educational  system designed to fully include individuals with special needs. Although Singaporean students  consistently score near the top in science, math, and reading achievement on international assessments,  many students with special needs still receive their education in schools separated from their mainstream  peers. In 2004, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong discussed a new vision of Singapore becoming an  inclusive society that embraces all individuals with special learning needs. In this manuscript, the authors  provide a brief history of Singapore and its education system and explore how PM Lee’s vision of an  inclusive society has shaped practice and policy in Singapore schools in the last decade. Specific ideas and  next steps for creating an inclusive Singapore for individuals with disabilities are discussed.
%Z This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative  Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is  properly cited