The Curious Case of Singapore’s Education System

Ah Singapore... The land home to many academic prodigies, top-ranked institutions and an insane literacy rate of 97% among the population (15y/o and up). Some achievement eh? I would think that the bulk of Singapore's progress to where we are now was because the nation made an awesome investment during the 60s – investing in it's people.

But how great is our education system really? Is it as perfect as it seems or are there some issues creeping beneath the subtle cracks? It's a complex issue in my opinion but I hope that a glimpse into my overactive brain can make sense of some things!

Now, I've been privileged (and kinda broke) to be able to attend almost every type of educational institution in Singapore. The gist of it is:

• Primary: West View Primary (neighbourhood school)

• Secondary: Assumption English School (or Juvenile School to some)

• Pre-University: Millennia Institute (a 3-year neighbourhood Junior College basically)

• University: Singapore Management University (local University, elite to some) & Murdoch University (private university)

Each school brought something entirely different and constantly questioned my thoughts and views towards education. Here are some takeaways!

Resource Gaps are an Actual Thing

So many of us are aware of the statement that "every school is a good school" in Singapore. Well... nope. If you're talking about whether the kids are good kids, every school has them of course but if you're associating "good" with quality of education, then that phrase ain't it.

One of my most revealing memories happened in SMU – During an ethics lesson, the professor posed a question to the class on whether we thought our place in our university was a completely fair one and a classmate casually answered that if a kid doesn’t make it to the top 3 universities in Singapore (NUS, NTU or SMU at the time), then it’s their fault because they didn’t work hard enough. Right, so now let me respectfully debunk this.

Growing up with a sister who went to elite schools before her university helped me understand the slight bubble we both were functioning it. From her schoolmates deeming kids like me the moniker of "NSK" (Neighbourhood School Kid) to my school having fights and police visits rather frequently, that was just the tip of the iceberg of the actual realities of different schools in Singapore.

A little throwback to the big sis and me in our kindergarten days

From the equipment in our science labs, to the infrastructure of our sports grounds and even the quality of educators – the differences between our schools were incredibly stark. My favourite memory from learning about this happened in my teen years when my sister and I had sort of a "cultural exchange" during our friendly basketball matches. See, she went to the elite Singapore Chinese Girls School which was a stark difference to where I went.

We had to trade visits to each other's schools to play our matches and boy, were those visits funny! I was convinced her school looked like an actual school and mine looked like a prison while she was terrified at the shirtless soccer-playing boys who candidly spoke to her when mistaking her for me. We still laugh and joke about it till this day but it just showed what different worlds we lived in once we left home for school.

Opportunity Dynamic

So now I want to bring this conversation to a specific program present in my time called Direct School Admission (DSA). DSA was a program where students could get into top schools (post-primary) based on the talents that they have outside of the classroom (in sports or the arts for example).

Being a competitive basketball player in secondary school, we were well aware that elite schools had a bit of a head start in the form of recruiting talented first-years. At the same time, they also had well-recognized coaches, choreographers and conductors for other curricular activities. What's interesting to me is that, even with all these advantages, I often saw neighbourhood schools dominating "accessible" activities such as typical outdoor sports (like basketball).

I think even my school won the basketball championship once (before I became a student). I've thought about this for years, how could this happen? It couldn't just be the coaches. Then it dawned on me, it could be a flaw within the DSA system itself – their difficult threshold academic exams. Some of the most talented people I know (in both the arts and sports) were almost never as academically-inclined as top-performing students. And that's understandable. They spent most of their time practicing and perfecting their craft rather than diving into textbooks.

Not every child is going to have the time management skills to balance both being an elite academic and elite artist/sportsperson. Hell, even I don’t have good time management as an adult. (as you can see from my inconsistent blog uploads).

So ironically enough, I think things kinda balanced itself out when it came to DSA. Or were we NSKs just "lucky" to have talented students when we won competitions? It all has layers to it, I guess.

The Streaming System - I'm conflicted

In Singapore, particularly in the time I grew up, we were "streamed" into different capability levels from as early as 9 years old. The academically-inclined would be separated from the technically-inclined and this would last until tertiary education. My understanding of the roots of streaming was that it helped the country to segment the working population in order to maximize employment and get out of our 3rd world status.

But when I first experienced streaming in the early-to-mid 2000s, I started questioning the necessity of this system as I grew older. So we put kids in a box, and then carry on teaching and guiding them on a pre-set path to when they eventually start employment within only that path – this may be a controversial thing to say but it looked to me like we might have created an informal caste system in education. "Know your role early, and you'll only function within it for the rest of their life".

Of course, there are many who have changed the trajectory of their careers. Technically-streamed students going into academics and vice versa. But did streaming make this process incredibly hard? What about late bloomers? I only discovered my passion for writing at a later age and was lucky enough to recognize and pursue it. But I can't imagine the case for other people my age where any later passions could have never been discovered at all.

And it's no secret that streaming had led to inherent elitism after all. Why is it that something technically difficult to do like building furniture/structures be considered "less" than acing an accounting exam. Lol I can't even do both. But yeah jokes aside, I wonder if us humans naturally caste ourselves in the name of workforce efficiency. Is it a purposeful misbalance of power or is it just human instinct at the end of the day? So many questions.

Am I positive for the future?

Definitely! In light of the many questions I pose to the education system, I'm actually quite happy at some of the progress being made! There are more locally-recognized universities now – with more being open to accepting students who hold qualifications other than just A Levels of International Baccalaureate (IB). I also enjoy seeing universities who have technical or artistic specialties gaining more recognition now than how it was at my time.

There's still always room for growth at the end of the day. I think the first step begins within ourselves unlearning the many hindering conditioning we had as kids. It has been quite concerning of late to see what could have been healthy debates on social media devolving into "go educate yourselves" or nitpicking a person's background, education or otherwise, as a way to measure the validity of their opinions.

Of course, debates should always be supported with verifiable facts, but the condescending tone being thrown around on social media (from all sides of the political spectrum) is quite jarring of the subconscious elitism that I think all of us have to an extent.

Okay okay, I digressed there a little heheh.

But yeah back to Singapore, I would think a crucial step forward is to first debunk the myth that laziness is the only or absolute attributor to a person not going to university or not “making it” in the system. There are so many more things at play, and the sooner we trade conversation and acknowledge that, the more rational our society can be in proposing solutions for future kids (from all types of schools)!

At the end of the day...

I'm super grateful for everything honestly. The varying perspectives of every soul I've passed in all these schools have enlightened me so much.

Most recently while doing my master’s program, I had the best time picking the brain of my diverse batchmates. I entered it as a means to switch careers to something that’s miles from my bachelor’s degree but I met so many cool folks who took the program for reasons other than just job promotions. For example, an ex-police officer hoping to build his own business, stay-at-home mothers who wanted to expand their general knowledge for their young kids, and even people who still just want to make their parents proud – I think I learned more from the trading of our life stories than the actual classes themselves!

Whether it's outside or from the confines of my room during lockdowns, our collective experiences continue to make the world such a fascinating place to me!