Helping Singapore’s schools achieve even more.

The hunger for excellence in education is by no means an Israeli phenomenon; it is a priority for every country searching for a better future, including Singapore, which has one of the world’s top education systems. 

The success of Mitchell Excellence 2000 (ME2K), an enrichment program in science and math for high-achieving grade 4-9 students, attracted the attention of the Singapore Ministry of Education. The Ministry launched a two-year trial project in which the International Center for Excellence through Education (ICEE) would train science teachers in an adapted version of the program.

Teachers from 30 schools were selected to participate, and underwent training by Excellence Educators Institute staff members over the course of 2009 and 2010. An evaluation study was conducted alongside the implementation of the ME2K program.

An outstanding initial report card.

At the conclusion of the trial phase, the Singapore Ministry of Education determined the program to be successfully achieving its goals, and elected to expand it, extending ME2K to all the centers for gifted and talented students, and bringing ME2K training seminars to more and more teachers in the country.

Adding math to the science curriculum.

At the onset of the trial phase, Singapore had accepted only the science curriculum of ME2K, and had excluded the math curriculum. The reasoning was that Singaporean students consistently scored at the high level in the international math tests.

Once Singaporean administrators were exposed to the science curriculum of ME2K, however, they made a significant change. Beginning in 2014, ICEE expanded its work in Singapore to target primary school mathematics. The program provided ME2K math training to fourth- to sixth-grade teachers, including teachers of advanced students and teachers in gifted programs.

Targeting a nationwide adoption.

In 2016, in light of these successes, the Singapore Ministry of Education decided to further expand our work in that country. The Ministry’s strategic goal is to expand ME2K in mathematics to all primary schools by 2020.