Brighton College, Singapore will be jointly operated with global schools’ group Cognita, which operates across eight nations. Cognita will handle day-to-day operation, with a joint board offering overall governance.

The school is Brighton College’s fifth international sister school, with four others currently operating in Thailand and the UAE.

Brighton College, Singapore, for children aged 18 months to 11 years, will be led by Paul Wilson who currently leads on academic, co-curricular and pastoral areas at the UK campus. Wilson said on his appointment: “Establishing a school in such a dynamic and successful country is a very exciting opportunity.

“My vision for Brighton College in Singapore is for a forward-looking school that prioritises emotional well-being and fosters a life-long love of learning.”

Read more at: https://ie-today.co.uk/Article/brighton-college-to-open-new-school-in-singapore/

Vocational education boosts job prospects and earnings, finds new study

The relative value of academic and vocational schooling is an increasingly debated topic worldwide. Previous research has found mixed effects of vocational schooling, especially in the longer-term perspective, but it is not clear whether any of it successfully avoids the selection problem: pupils who choose vocational and general education programmes differ in many ways, which in turn affect their longer-term outcomes.

In a new working paper, economists Mikko Sillman and Hanna Virtanen provide new evidence on the effects of vocational education in the context of upper-secondary schools in Finland, using data on all pupils in the period 1996–2000. 

In Finland, pupils are allocated to upper-secondary schools and programmes on the basis of their preferences, with their grades in lower-secondary school being used as a tiebreak device in the case of oversubscription. This means that grade thresholds determine admissions to over-subscribed programmes and schools. 

The authors use these thresholds to study the impact of vocational versus academic education among applicants who apply to both types of programme and whose admission is determined by the cut-offs – that is, applicants who are at the margin of being accepted to either programme.

The results show that admission to vocational programmes in upper-secondary school increases annual income by 7 per cent at age 31, while having no effects on the probability of being employed. 

In sharp contrast to the idea that these benefits dissipate as pupils grow older, the authors find that the benefits actually increase with time. 

Read more at: https://www.tes.com/news/vocational-education-boosts-job-prospects-and-earnings-finds-new-study