Education in Singapore

6 min readNov 29, 2020

at least, this is how I actually feel about it

Unlike many countries, Singapore as you can already tell is very academic-driven. And with the PSLE (primary school leaving examination) results being released a few days ago, I could tell that many 12 years olds are having mixed emotions about their results. I mean, I was in their shoes once and it didn't feel good at all.

With the recent news, about children committing suicide just because of their results not living up to their parents’ expectations. It's dangerous how the young think, don't you think so? However, I can't say that I'm not surprised at all and let me tell you why,

I grew up in a Chinese family where I got cousins who are way smarter than me, in St Joseph institute and CHIJ, having a pretty bright future in front of them and some even chose to go to poly instead of going to Junior Colleges. While I, only scoring 168 for my PSLE could only enter Normal Academic Stream (NA) in a neighborhood school, Naval Base Secondary School.

I could not face my extended family without feeling ashamed of myself ( yes it was that bad). Growing up, and being compared to literally everyone, made me feel pressured, and always had that negative thought that I wasn't good enough for everyone, dragging the family name. But came the inevitable, family gatherings, where all my relatives will be like “ah girl ah, how much is your PSLE score ah?”. I had to muster the courage to tell them that it's 168, you had no idea how many times I had to repeat the same explanation to everyone.

Never would I have thought that my relatives would be accepting of my results, to even say that I did the best that I could, motivating me to do better in the future.

But safe to say that it was not the worst one that I've experienced, I scored 16 for my N(A) levels and I chose to continue doing Secondary 5 which is studying what the express stream had studied for 4 years in half a year (sec 4s NA if you're reading, I would not recommend going to sec 5 but if you are able to catch up quick and think that you can do what the express is doing for 4 years in half a year then sure:)). there were two pathways to go after you completed sec 4 NA, either you continue with sec 5 or you go into Nitec at the Institute of Technical Education for 3 years then continuing with Higher Nitec for 2 more years then head to Poly / NS / full-time work.

As you already could tell, I continued my journey at Naval Base Secondary for another year, taking sec 5. It was a tedious journey, with a lot of staying up late to finish up homework and doing revisions. Halfway through, some things happened,

I was struggling with maths
2. I was failing almost every subject
3. I broke up with my then-boyfriend and was crying myself to sleep almost every night.

So many things happened all at once, another reason why I was failing was that the gap between NA and Express was so huge, so it took us some time to get used to the syllabus but by the time we got used to it, O levels were right around the corner.

D-day came when I had to receive my results in the school hall, I saw my results and broke down on the spot, I scored E8 for my maths while the other subjects were As and Bs. In Singapore, once you fail your maths, you're at a dead-end on your own, by yourself. So now, I only have two choices, one, going to ITE or two, going private.

The main reason why I did not choose to go to ITE in sec 4 was that I had the mentality that students going to ITE was plain stupid or that they did not have the heart to study at all. Basically, I thought that only rowdy kids go there.

A con about going to a private institute was that the diplomas you receive may or may not be recognized, so when you're out working, the pay you receive might be lesser than the others.

In the end, i chose to go to ITE EAST studying Higher Nitec in events management for 2 years, so far I can tell you is that it is not as easy as you think it is, there are plenty of group projects to do, work to be done and well, I was lucky that my class is not rowdy at all. Everyone in my class was smarter than I thought they'll be, and I've actually made some decent friends that I'm actually proud of, most of my classmates are also very competitive with their marks aiming to go to the different polys. Basically, they already know what they want and are willing to do anything for it. I still have a year and a half to go.

Ever since I've gone to ITE, I've not met with my extended family just yet but i did tell them the news over the phone. I guess you could say that my uncles were disappointed because I am actually the first person in the family to go to ITE. Imagine that I was actually going to tell them face to face, I would be lucky if I were to still be alive today… I'm actually happy that for once that due to the pandemic, there won't be any gatherings for a while so I can actually lay off for a bit.

so this is basically it, my experience in Singapore’s education system feeling that the culture of getting good grades is very toxic, I mean having good grades is great, don't get me wrong but focusing only on grades is toxic. Yes, good grades can make you Doctors, Lawyers, all the high paying jobs in the world, there is no argument in that at all.

But the response given by parents or families when the child didn't do exceptionally well is as important as well, instead of belittling them, try motivating them, give them a pat on their back and say good job, you did your best maybe next time try harder.

I know I may not be the best at giving advice but this is my experience going through education here in Singapore and growing up in a Chinese family.