Poland, autumn 2023. At an election rally, Donald Tusk promises Maciek from W\u0142oc\u0142awek that he will abolish homework in primary schools. By January 2024, Education Minister Barbara Nowacka announces on television that the regulation is ready and will take effect on April 1. She signs it on March 22 and publishes it in the Journal of Laws on March 25\u2014just 1 week before the start date. Teachers learn the details from the media rather than through official ministerial training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Singapore, 2009. The Ministry of Education creates the PERI committee. For 2 years, 16 schools test every aspect of a new assessment method\u2014not to find the most efficient metric, but to understand how the change will affect the daily life of an 8-year-old in the classroom<\/strong>. Researchers at the National Institute of Education collect the results, pass them back to the schools, and the schools then report their feedback to the ministry. Full implementation comes in 2016\u20147 years after the process begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not simply a story about Singapore\u2019s superiority over Poland. It is an attempt to answer a more important question: what does an educational reform actually mean, and whom is it really meant to serve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dennis Kwek, a researcher at the National Institute of Education, put it bluntly in a report published by the Brookings Institution:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Singapore\u2019s reform is not a one-time event, but a continuous work in progress. It is a systemic journey aimed at moving away from a historically rooted, narrow academic paradigm toward a more balanced model, where a child\u2019s holistic development carries as much weight as exam results.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n That matters all the more because the statement comes from a country that has long ranked among the world\u2019s top performers in PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mechanism has a name: policy layering<\/strong>. Instead of tearing down the old system, Singapore adds new layers to stable foundations. In 2009, the PERI committee recommended a model of holistic assessment. The years 2009\u20132010 served as the prototype phase: 16 schools, limited scale, and careful documentation of mistakes. Between 2011 and 2013, the implementation phase expanded to 72 primary schools and involved more than 1,000 teachers. Only in the years 2014\u20132016 did the deepening phase arrive\u2014125 schools, 3,300 teachers, and regular Teacher Learning Communities, where educators learned from one another rather than from a ministerial circular<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That does not mean the Singaporean system is flawless. Even today, despite more modern teaching methods, parental pressure to achieve remains intense. The tutoring market is thriving, and student stress related to the primary school leaving exam has not disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February 2025, during an Independence Day speech, Estonian President Alar Karis announced the TI-H\u00fcpe<\/strong> programme\u2014the AI Leap. By September, 20,000 students and 4,700 teachers had gained access to artificial intelligence tools. Barely 6 months passed between the announcement and implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ivo Visak, executive director of TI-H\u00fcpe and a former high school principal, explained the pace directly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AI leap has already happened among students, but we still have not directed it or grounded it pedagogically. That is why we have to act now.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Instead of imposing a ban, Estonia chose to intervene in the way students use AI. Working groups made up of scientists, teachers, school leaders, and tech entrepreneurs\u2014including representatives from OpenAI and Anthropic\u2014spent several months defining the competencies students should develop with AI before any tools were built.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This reverses the standard logic of digitalisation. First comes the pedagogical question\u2014what do we want the student to know?<\/em>\u2014and only then comes the choice of technology. Estonia is consciously turning itself into a testing ground, but on its own terms: the country defines the goals, while technology companies provide tools to help achieve them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The key question, as Visak put it, was simple: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Why would a student use standard educational aids when other tools can provide an answer immediately?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The answer lies in so-called Socratic AI models<\/strong>\u2014systems that guide students through questions instead of delivering ready-made solutions. In this model, the teacher becomes the trainer of the algorithm rather than its victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the tensions are real. Education Minister Kristina Kallas has publicly admitted that the greatest risk is a widening gap between highly motivated students<\/a> and those who lack support at home. In 2027, when the first TI-H\u00fcpe class graduates, it should become clearer whether speed was an advantage or a mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To complete the picture, it is worth turning to a country that many still instinctively associate with the gold standard of schooling. For 2 decades, Finland was a byword for educational success. Then came successive rounds of PISA, and the scores began to fall. Since 2003, the country has lost 79 points in mathematics\u2014the equivalent of roughly 2 years of learning.<\/strong> In December 2023, Minna Kelh\u00e4, Director General of EDUFI, said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The causes lie in changes in the social environment: inequality, motivation, and the influence of social media.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Finnish Ministry of Education has described the pace of that decline as \u201cexceptionally fast\u201d and \u201cextremely worrying\u201d\u2014not as a neutral observation, but as an admission of systemic failure. In response, the government announced a \u20ac200 million package for curriculum reform. From August 2025, Finland added 2 extra hours per week of language and literature for grades 1\u20132 and made school funding in the poorest neighbourhoods permanent rather than temporary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The response is almost anti-reformist in tone: more mathematics, more native language, a return to basics. Finland is not looking for a new paradigm so much as trying to recover something it has lost.<\/strong> For the Finns<\/a>, the lesson is bitter but useful: no system is immune to social change. Even the most carefully designed reform will fail if schools do not notice that children are losing the ability to concentrate, and that the gap between a supportive home and a silent one grows wider every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEducation Reform in Singapore Begins With Well-Being<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
How Does Singapore Reform Education?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Estonia and Finland: What Makes a Strong School System?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
Estonia Does Not Fear AI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Finland: The Slow Rusting of a Legend<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n