Talk:Education in Singapore

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Education in Singapore was the Singapore Collaboration of the Fortnight between 18 February 2006 and 1 March 2006, part of a collaboration effort between Singapore Wikipedians.

",On the other hand, Singaporean students have topped international science and mathematics quizzes regularly, along with South Korean students. " what quizzes? conducted when, how and by whom? I've frequently heard similar statistics cited, yet have never seen details to back them up. ✈ James C. 05:55, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC) i suppose it is competitions

Not really. The studies refered to must be the "Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study" (TIMSS). Do a google search for more info! :D--Huaiwei 19:22, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Aiyah, the whole education system in S'pore is just so narrow -thinking! Everthing teachlike the textbooks don't have, lots of unnecessary homework and exams that test student's memory and not the thinking. Also so biased towards elite schools. -- "Don't want to be named"

Meh. The quantity of homework and examinations are satisfactory: just that technical rote seems to be favoured over technical conceptualisation. -- Natalinasmpf 23:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are u from elite school? i dun know wat r u talking. --"Don't want to be named"

I'm from Fairfield Sec. Do you consider that an "elite" school? Yes, there are problems, and there are merits as well, and reducing homework as you say is certainly not the way to go about it. ;-)

Regarding the bias towards elite schools, i do believe that this phenomenon arises out of the government's policy of maintaining a meritocratic system of education. It is in such a situation that we evidence the policy of fairness and meritocracy being diametrically opposed to each other. Perhaps it would be too harsh on the government to criticise them for purely favouring "elite" schools when they are merely trying to find a balance between the two, inasmuch as I do think that there is a slight slant in government policy towards the "elite" schools. -- Talonclaw 23:24, 06 March 2007

Guys, relax. It's just because James C. is an American, so forgive him. I understand that Americans don't particularly shine in Science and Maths. Look at New South Wales competitions, our average always like 80 percentile in the region (including Australia). Although I disagree with the Korean part. I think Japan's use of abacus makes their maths better, after having seen two 10 year old children multiply 7 digit numbers within 10 seconds using abacus. Imba! --218.186.8.12 16:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From Demographics of Singapore - I think here is a better place for this text - can anyone please integrate it?

The government has mandated that English be the primary language used at all levels of the school systems, and it aims to provide at least 10 years of education for every child. In 2000, primary and secondary school students totaled about 482,00, or 12% of the entire population. In 2000, enrollment at the universities was approximately 50,000 (full-time, part-time and postgraduate) and about 58,374 at the polytechnics. The Institute of Technical Education for basic technical and commerce skills has almost 16,000 students. The country's literacy rate is 93%.

Some of the quizzes and competitions quoted in the article are as below:

International Mathematic Olympiad

International Physics Olympiad

International Biology Olympiad

International Chemistry Olympiad

The above 4 are more commonly participated in.

List of international Olympiads

Why is much of the article content duplicated? Somebody familiar with the system please sort it out... Jpatokal 05:02, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I contest this statement. I think our command of English is rather good, actually. I mean, most of it is basically interjecting and empathic statements and funny stresses, which is a side effect of being an amalgam of individual cultures. How is this different from say, interjecting French phrases into English? People do this all the time, and I don't see anyone counting that as wrong. I consider the Singapore standard of English better than the the average teenager say in the....United States whose half their language use is colloquial. -- Natalinasmpf 19:11, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree that the line "Singaporean students also have a relatively poor command of the standard English language" sounds unsubstantiated. Relative to who? In fact, Singapore was ranked 4th in the World, and way ahead of any other Asian country in the TOEFL tests.--Huaiwei 19:22, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any figures for Singapore in TSE? — Instantnood 19:24, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

What is the TSE? Tokyo Stock Exchange? Testicular self-examination? Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy?--Huaiwei 19:44, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Test of Spoken English. By the way this report from the TOEFL website shows that the mean score of Singaporean test takers is the highest in Asia. Yet the number of test takers of Singapore is rather small, with respect to its population. — Instantnood 20:08, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I dont think there is. Perhaps you can help us find that data. As for the number of examinees, singling out Singapore alone for having a small number of examinees probably to signify its statistical handicap is equally relevant to plenty of other countries in that test. It remains, however, one of the few tests around the world which allows for a relatively comprehensive comparison across nationalities. Without the aid of better sources of comparison, and without data to contradict its findings, we have to make do.--Huaiwei 20:46, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The figures for that report hardly allow a good comparison. Only the English proficiency of the takers can be compared and examined, but not that of the citizens of a certain country in general. — Instantnood 20:57, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

You are stating the obvious, and you are stating a statistical handicap prevalant in the educational industry (and also just about in any other industry in actual fact), but which cannot possibly be eliminated...unless of coz you can come up with a standard English test which everyone on Earth has to take?--Huaiwei 21:41, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. Average results of Singaporean test takers in TOEFL cannot justify whether Singaporean students have good command in English. — Instantnood 21:45, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

And the whole study gets thrown out of the window too since it dosent represent all of the populance of any other country either. Heck, lets throw all major exams of the world too, since not everyone goes to school too. Maybe this site should also be destroyed, since not all in the World are contributing to it, so it isnt exacly representing the World's views on every conceivable topic?--Huaiwei 22:07, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Calm down... :-D — Instantnood 22:40, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I am perfectly calm. I am actually smiling when reading your posts.--Huaiwei 22:51, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To put an end to this debate, Singapore's command of English is better than that of Britain's (Straits Times). You'll be surprised at how many Britons cannot pronounce properly or even write a proper sentence. Yet, many world atlases give Singapore a much lower literacy rate (sometimes up to 20%) than that of Britain.

Singaporeans may have decent written English (although it's sometimes hard to tell, given the obscene proliferation of SMS language), but our genereal standard of spoken English has a long way to go. My $0.02.

"The public secondary education in Singapore are generally not receptive of international students with the exception of perhaps Malaysians and admission is a covert closet-operation that is marked by much bias and total lack of transparency."

Can the person who contributed this part of the article state the source? --Eraser78 00:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have deleted this part as there is no substantial evidence to support this claim.

It is probably a well-known fact that in the education industry, hordes of scholars usually group with their own kind and are unsocialble, leading to ostracisation. Malaysians, on the other hand, are very similar to Singaporeans. --218.186.8.12 16:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"At the end of Primary 4, students will be classified into EM1, EM2 or EM3 language streams"

There has been changes regarding that. Could this piece of information be reviewed and edited?

In response to people who want to deny the fact that Singapore has a relatively high budget allocation for education, try here [1], its only 1999, but it states " or 19 percent of total expenditure" - however, this tends to flux around 18-22% - I'll dig up more sources. -- Natalinasmpf 18:15, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is a dismay mention of Co-Curricular Activities in the article, and ... it doesn't seen fun or exciting. In fact, it sounds pretty scary:

Co-Curricular Activities become compulsory at the Secondary level, where all pupils must participate in at least one core CCA, and participation is graded together with other things like Leadership throughout the four years of Secondary education, in a scoring system. Competitions are organised so that students can have an objective towards to work, and in the case of musical groups, showcase talents.

Is it really that miserable nowadays?? Does anyone enjoy CCA and participate just for fun? -- Vsion 4 July 2005 10:04 (UTC)

As a current secondary school student in the IP programme, you could say that for a fair amount of people, that holds true - a number of people would much rather not have any CCA at all. Sad but true. Of course, people still do enjoy their CCAs... Factually speaking, anyway, I think it should remain the same because it is technically true. It is compulsory and you must participate in a core CCA. - unregistered user, 20 Aug 2005 08:34 (UTC)

I created a template, Template:Education infobox which can give a quick at a glance demographics table for education articles. See its implementation at Education in the United States and feel free to help improve the template.--naryathegreat | (talk) 01:00, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Strange... but why aren't the universities mentioned? Even the paragraphs on poly and ITE seem rather short and uninformative as compared to the gigantic chunk on secondary education. Surely our universities aren't so bad as to not qualify to be considered part of "Education in Singapore" right?

That aside, perhaps comparisons with other countries' education systems (especially those with similar demographics) could be cited in the criticisms, or even placed under its own subheader. Just a suggestion. 05:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right. From what I've read, NUS is the 13th top university in the world, far beating all other Southeast Asian universities and even Australia's (50+ if I'm not wrong). --218.186.8.12 16:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

International and private schools in Singapore cannot admit Singapore students without the permission from the Ministry of Education. However, two international schools, Anglo-Chinese School (International) and Hwa Chong International as it plays the National anthem and follows the country's billingual policies.

Although the second sentence, strictly speaking doesn't make sense, it seems to suggest that Anglo-Chinese School and Hwa Chong International admit Singaporian students because they play the Singaporian national anthem. From my experience this is either incomplete or incorrect. The Australian International School played the Singaporian anthem (along with the Australian one), I dont know if any of the students there are Singaporian, although (when I was there) many of them certainly weren't Australian. I have a feeling that all international schools have to play the national anthem by law. --BadSeed 21:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re: the United States on contrast, only allocates around 4%.

I think this 4% only refers to federal budget, US education is decentralized, there are fundings by state and local district. --Vsion (talk) 07:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. But the article is on education in Singapore, not education in the U.S., so this is irrelevant. The sentence has already been removed by someone. Neutrality^talk 21:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What are the relative sizes (percent of enrollment) of each of the secondary education streams (Special, Express, Normal (Academic), Normal [Technical])? Neutrality^talk 21:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a question I've never seem to be able to answer myself. I believe there are standard classifications, which by here are suggested to be:

• Independent
• Government autonomous
• Government aided
• Government aided autonomous
• Government
• Full school

Which is more than enough to scratch one's head at. For example, Fairfield Secondary (which I am so dearly fond of!) declares in its website [2] it is an autonomous school and "government-aided". List of schools in Singapore puts in both government-aided and autonomous anyway, but I think the list needs to be reorganised to prevent redundancy. Anyway, is there an actual distinction (there can be private schools which are government-aided but not autonomous?) I thought there were only three classifications (government-aided/autonomous, which I assumed to be the same previously, government-run, and independent) Can a government-run school be autonomous?

Also, standardisation seems to be an issue, because doesn't the SAP schools fall under one of these six classifications anyway? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 23:24, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there are such distinct classifications because they can be independent of one another, i.e. you can have a government school that is autonomous and is SAP but is not a full school. They are akin to independent attributes that are tagged to define the classification of any non-private school in Singapore. These tags are:

• Government or Government-aided or Independent
• Autonomous or non-autonomous
• SAP or non-SAP
• Full school or non-full school

Of course, certain tags are the exclusive domain of certain types of schools, e.g. all full schools are government-aided or independent schools, and so it would seem that certain categories are redundant.

—Sengkang 02:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Autonomous just means 'extra funding due to performance'. - Mailer Diablo 12:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aided schools used to be completely funded by private organisations like the Hokkien Huay Guan. Now, teachers are being paid by the Government and have become very similar to government schools. --218.186.8.12 16:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Er...to clarify. During times when there were two classifications: Government and Government-Aided, they simply represent various levels of goverment funding: full, and partial. In 1988, the "Independent school scheme" was started, which involve zero funding but also full liberty in school management, including recruiting their own teachers and modifying their school syllabus or even dumping the GCE examinations as and when they wish to. Some of the schools seleted as Independent schools were actually fully-funded government schools, including the likes of RI and RGS. Upon selection as Independent schools, they shed their previous classifications due to the removal of all funding.

Fast forward to 1994, when it was felt more schools could gain greater autonomy in terms of school management, but without the need of becoming fully independent. Thus "Autonomous schools" was formed which borrow some elements from Independent schools, but the key difference is that they do not shed their previous classification as they retain funding from the government as per previous arrangement. Thus, Government as well as Govt-aided schools can be autonomous schools, and it is not accurate to assume that autonomous schools are all govt-aided. In fact, 15 out of 26 Autonomous schools today are government schools.--Huaiwei 15:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious what was the state of the Chinese schools before independence? I suspect that there were a lot less people who spoke Mandarin then, and a lot more people who spoke dialects, although they could intercommunicate. I just wondered what they used in the classroom. Then there's before 1949, before the implementation of Simplified characters and pre 1920s, before the era of Putonghua. Just curious if there's any information on it. Because it seems rather difficult to teach in one language even in the Chinese schools at the time (I don't like the effects of the SMC though - promoting a common language is one thing but discouraging dialects is another). Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 00:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"... H1 subjects are worth 1 Academic Units (AU), H2 subjects 2 AUs, H3 subjects 1 AUs and ..."

H3 for 1 AU(s)?