Curriculum, standards and professionalisation: The policy discourse on teacher professionalism in Singapore

In this article the author explores the policy discourse on teacher professionalism (TP) in Singapore. Various types of relevant policy texts are collected and analysed, considering the three different perspectives of TP discussed in the existing literature - the managerial view, the professional view and the transformative view. The author argues that the current discourse presents a hybrid notion of TP that integrates managerial and professional views to serve policymakers' intentions, but this is a constrained view that may de-professionalise the teaching profession by narrowing TP to faithful alignment and effective implementation of the national curriculum. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.