The education system in Singapore aims at excellence for its students, offering various choices in preschool, primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Even if your children attend private or international schools, it is worth taking a closer look at the public education system in Singapore.
Singapore offers many different schools for all age groups and academic abilities, from primary up to college. There are different paths which lead to a university degree or a job. However, the first steps into the education system in Singapore usually start with preschool. Singaporean children attend preschool up to the age of six, getting prepared for primary school.
After six years of primary school, children move on to secondary school. The education system in Singapore allows students to choose a path at this point. They can decide whether they wish to attend a normal secondary school, a specialized school, an express school — which leads to the “O” Level in four years rather than the regular five years — or another school (such as a privately funded one), which offers a similar education. Post-secondary education usually takes between one and three years and offers a choice of schools, including junior colleges, polytechnics, and institutes of technical education.
Primary education, normally starting at age seven, is a four-year foundation stage (Primary 1 to 4) and a two-year orientation stage (Primary 5 to 6). Primary education is compulsory under the Compulsory Education Act since 2003. Exemptions are made for pupils who are homeschooling, attending a full-time religious institution or those with special needs who are unable to attend mainstream schools. However, parents have to meet the requirements set out by the Ministry of Education before these exemptions are granted. Primary education is free for all Singapore citizens in schools under the purview of the Ministry of Education, though there is a fee of up to SGD 13 monthly per student to help cover miscellaneous costs.
Based on results of the PSLE, students are placed in different secondary education tracks or streams: “Express”, “Normal (Academic)”, or “Normal (Technical)”. Singaporeans are forbidden to attend international schools on the island without Ministry of Education permission.
“Special” and “Express” are four-year courses leading up to the Singapore-Cambridge GCE “O” Level examination. The difference between these two courses is that in the “Special” stream, students take ‘Higher Mother Tongue’ (available for Standard Mandarin, Malay and Tamil only) instead of ‘Mother Tongue’. A pass in the Higher Mother Tongue ‘O’ Level Examination constitutes the fulfilment of the Mother Tongue requirement in Singapore, whereas Normal Mother Tongue Students will have to go through one more year of study in their Mother Tongue after their ‘O’ Levels to take the ‘A’ Level H1 Mother Tongue Examinations and fulfil the MOE’s requirement. A foreign language, either French, German, Japanese or Spanish can be taken in addition to the mother tongue or can replace it.
This is especially popular with students who are struggling with their mother tongues, expatriates, or students returning from abroad. Non-Chinese students may also study Standard Mandarin and non-Malay students Malay as a third language. This programme is known as CSP (Chinese Special Programme) and MSP (Malay Special Programme). Mother Tongue teachers conduct these lessons in school after usual hours. Students of Higher Mother Tongue languages are allowed to have up to two points taken off their O-level scoring, unless the student’s Higher Mother Tongue is used as their L1 in computation of L1R5. a scoring system discussed below where a lower value is considered better, if they meet set benchmarks. The Ministry of Education Language Centre (MOELC) provides free language education for most additional languages that other schools may not cover, and provides the bulk of such education, admitting several thousand students each year.
The pre-university centres of Singapore such as Junior Colleges and Centralized institute are designed for students who wish to pursue a local university degree after two to three years of pre-university education. Alternatively, Polytechnics and Arts Institution in Singapore prepare students for both workforce and university studies.
Besides junior colleges, most graduates of polytechnics and arts institution continue to pursue further tertiary education at overseas and local universities. Those with good grades are given exemptions for university modules completed in Polytechnic, notably universities in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Polytechnics and Arts Institution have also been actively working with many foreign universities to provide their graduates a chance to study niche University Courses locally.
Singapore has six autonomous public universities, namely the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Technology & Design, Singapore Institute of Technology and Singapore University of Social Sciences. The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University each have more than 30,000 students and provide a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes including doctoral degrees. Both are also established research universities with thousands of research staff and graduate students. As of 2016, both universities are ranked among the Top 13 in the world by QS World University Rankings for the second consecutive year and Top 54 globally by THE World University Rankings.
A third university, Singapore Management University (SMU), opened in 2000, is home to more than 7,000 students and comprises six Schools offering undergraduate, graduate, and PhD programmes in Business Management, Accountancy, Economics, Information Systems Management, Law and the Social Sciences. The University has an Office of Research, a number of institutes and centers of excellence, and provides public and customized programmes for working professionals through its Office of Executive and Professional Education.
The government has planned the fourth autonomous university, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), to meet the rising demand for university education. It started its operations in April 2012. Its permanent campus at Changi was opened in early 2015.
A fifth autonomous university Singapore Institute of Technology was announced in 2009. The institution started in 2010 and is intended to provide an upgrading pathway for polytechnic and arts institution graduates.
SIM University was established in 2005 as the only local private university in Singapore. In 2017, SIM University was renamed the Singapore University of Social Sciences and became the country’s sixth autonomous public university.
