Why is the Singapore education system considered the best in the world?

As Singapore’s 57th birth­day rounds the cor­ner, we at TTA want to cel­e­brate the best of Sin­ga­pore with you. And what bet­ter way to cel­e­brate as a learn­ing cen­tre than Singapore’s splen­did edu­ca­tion sys­tem?

What makes Singapore’s education special and successful?

Streaming

As all of you are prob­a­bly famil­iar with, Sin­ga­pore pro­vides mul­ti­ple learn­ing path­ways for Sin­ga­pore­an stu­dents based on their learn­ing abil­i­ties and inter­ests. Stu­dents are streamed into 3 lev­els after the Pri­ma­ry School Leav­ing Exam­i­na­tion (PSLE) into the Express, Nor­mal Tech­ni­cal, and Nor­mal Aca­d­e­m­ic streams based on the scores they obtained dur­ing PSLE. With 3 dif­fer­ent path­ways, stu­dents learn at a speed best suit­ed to their learn­ing abil­i­ties, and can there­fore learn in an opti­mal learn­ing envi­ron­ment.

Mastering Core Subjects

In Sin­ga­pore, our edu­ca­tion sys­tem is focused on teach­ing prac­ti­cal and sub­ject-spe­cif­ic knowl­edge. Teach­ers teach close­ly to the text­book, and stu­dents learn exam-spe­cif­ic answers with tar­get­ed infor­ma­tion. This is one of the rea­sons why Sin­ga­pore stu­dents con­stant­ly rank high in inter­na­tion­al tests. For exam­ple, Singapore’s 15-year-olds topped all The Pro­gramme for Inter­na­tion­al Stu­dent Assess­ment (PISA) test sub­jects, such as Math­e­mat­ics, Sci­ence and Read­ing in 2016, ahead of oth­er coun­tries like Japan and Chi­na.

Quality of Teachers

Some­thing unique to Sin­ga­pore is the effort made to cul­ti­vate and hire teach­ers of the top qual­i­ty for the nation’s chil­dren. Only the top 5% of Sin­ga­pore grad­u­ates, the cream of the crop in Sin­ga­pore, are eli­gi­ble to teach in pub­lic schools, and have to under­go train­ing at the Nation­al Insti­tute of Edu­ca­tion (NIE) before they start teach­ing. Teach­ers are also giv­en high salaries to attract the top tal­ent to join our Sin­ga­pore schools.

Constant Revision of Teaching Styles and Curriculum

In order to keep up with the chang­ing times and mind­sets, Singapore’s edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum is con­stant­ly updat­ed. Our edu­ca­tion sys­tem has been through 4 revi­sions since 1965, with the most recent one being changes to the PSLE scor­ing sys­tem.

A Culture of Learning

In Sin­ga­pore, it is not only the child who is involved in learn­ing. Our edu­ca­tion sys­tem has also been designed to engage par­ents in their child’s stud­ies through ini­tia­tives like Meet-the-Par­ent ses­sions where par­ents meet up with their child’s teach­ers to under­stand how their child is learn­ing in school, and how they can fur­ther sup­port their child in their learn­ing jour­ney. There is also respect upheld by the entire Sin­ga­pore com­mu­ni­ty for Teach­ers, and Singapore’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem, where every­one is dri­ven to help future gen­er­a­tions learn and suc­ceed.

As is often men­tioned, the most impor­tant resource in nat­ur­al-resource-scarce Sin­ga­pore is ulti­mate­ly our peo­ple. As such, the huge invest­ment that our gov­ern­ment and com­mu­ni­ty have put into cul­ti­vat­ing the next gen­er­a­tion has made Singapore’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem one worth boast­ing about in the world. With that, TTA wish­es Sin­ga­pore a Hap­py 57th Birth­day!