International assessments hit new highs year after year

Singapore is known for its elite education and currently has three main education systems: IBDP (International Baccalaureate), AP, IGCSE. And Singapore's performance is at the forefront of world standards. In the IB exam results released this year, Singapore students led the world with a very high average score.

Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's education director, points to Singapore's high literacy rate as far back as the 1960s, showing that the education system has made a big difference.

Among the top international schools, such as UWC's two campuses this year, a total of 576 students took the exam, the school average score of 38.2 points, 42.9% of the students achieved 40 points and above. Dulwich International school average score 38.9,100% pass rate. In addition, 48% of the students scored more than 40 points, and 3 students got full marks. 95% of students get accepted to their first choice university!

Although Singapore has a small land area and a small population, it ranks first in the PISA ranking (educational quality and problem-solving ability of students) in the world, and the United Kingdom and the United States, which have been considered the leaders in global education, are ranked outside the 20th place.

Singapore is also a good choice for parents who want to emigrate. Children who attend a Singapore Government public/private school until Primary 4, and pass the Primary 6 Certificate Examination (PSLE) two years later, can submit an immigration application to the Immigration Department of Singapore to apply for PR.

After getting PR, you can waive tuition fees, enjoy medical subsidies, and apply for public middle schools independently without quota restrictions. You can choose to apply for naturalization after one year of PR residency. Singapore passport can enjoy 191 countries in the world visa-free, the world is basically unimpeded, the gold content is extremely high.

Chinese is the second heavyweight course in the syllabus

Many parents worry that their children are too young to study English abroad will have problems, but Singapore has its unique bilingual teaching environment, which is not matched by other European and American countries.

Singapore is about 75% Chinese, bilingual education is written into the education syllabus of the country, Chinese is also the second language in Singapore, every school attaches great importance to Chinese education. Mandarin is a compulsory subject in government schools, with at least one Chinese lesson per day and a Chinese language test in the Primary Six Certificate Examination (PSLE).

The acceptable "underage" in Singapore is really low

Students from Singapore must be above the age of 3. The kindergarten can accept international students, which provides a lot of convenience for many families who need to travel abroad because of work, and can apply for a companion visa for the child's mother/grandmother/grandmother. For example, if the father needs to work in Singapore for a long time and the child is over 3 years old, he can apply to study in Singapore, and the mother can apply for a companion visa to accompany the child in Singapore. Avoid parents and children separated from each other for a long time.

Now look at Europe and the United States. The United States only accepts foreign students at the secondary school level. U.S. immigration law does not allow parents to accompany students in the United States, the United States visa application is only applicable to the spouse and minor children of international students in the United States, parents cannot apply. Therefore, parents of children studying in the United States are not allowed to apply for a companion visa.

To study in the UK, students are required to be four years old to apply. Parents can stay with their children until the age of 12, and after the age of 12, parents can only apply for a family visit visa. The family visit visa is generally for two years and multiple trips, but the cumulative duration of each stay cannot exceed 6 months, and you must leave the country after 6 months. But the advantage is that parents can go together, but the application materials are strict, and only to pay for private schools, you can apply for a companion visa.

Different stages of education in Australia have different age requirements. Primary school students are required to be at least 6 years old, and secondary school students are required to be under 18 years old. It should be noted that to study in Australia, the visa validity period is only 2 years, which is likely to affect the study of students. If you study in Grade 5 or above, the visa validity may be 5 years. Therefore, studying in Australia does not mean that the younger you are, the more beneficial it is to study abroad.

So compared with Europe and the United States, what is the real root cause of the harvest of parents' hearts? What is the secret of this tiny Southeast Asian country's meritocratic education system?

01

The government's strategic support of "rejuvenating the country through education"

In Singapore, the education sector is the second largest financial spender after the Ministry of Defence, and government spending on education has doubled since 2005, reaching S $12.9 billion in 2017, or 17 per cent of the total national budget. In addition to paying teachers' salaries and a well-developed infrastructure, the government also provides subsidies for Singapore's students. Singapore is the third most expensive country in the world to educate its children (after Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates).

With the strong support of the government and the increasingly strong domestic educational atmosphere, Singapore's young education continues to dominate the world, and higher education institutions are developing rapidly. The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University are both prestigious institutions of higher learning in Asia, attracting countless students from all over the world to study each year, making them the education hub of the whole Asia and even the world.

02

Elite screening under the shunting system

Diverse pathways to study in Singapore. Secondary schools in Singapore offer three different streams of programmes and children are assigned to three classes of schools based on their Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) results:

◾ Express (including comprehensive courses offered by some schools)

◾ General (Academic)

◾ General (craft) courses

The purpose of this system: the main hope is that students can be assigned to courses that suit their learning pace and style. If students are enrolled in General (academic)/ General (craft) stream courses, they can also take certain expediting or general (academic) stream courses, giving students the opportunity to develop their strengths, strengthen their ability in certain areas of expertise, and gain more time security in basic subjects.

Overview of education in Singapore

Although Singapore's education diversion system is highly controversial, it allows students to choose courses of different difficulty according to their strengths and weaknesses, so that each student can get suitable for their own development. It teaches students according to their aptitude, saves educational resources, reduces educational costs, and plays a certain role in Singapore's economic construction and social development.

03

Establish a system of education supervision departments

The Singapore government has a special education supervision department responsible for the assessment of schools, principals, teachers and classroom teaching, and the assessment strategy is scientific and rigorous.

Teacher quality evaluation procedures: at the end of each year to submit the next annual activity target, twice a year work report, once a year, the principal and director of the discussion rating.

Teachers' teaching evaluation includes: teaching plan, teaching skills and organization, classroom management, feedback and evaluation, professional quality.

The discipline in the evaluation work is strict, and once a teacher fails in the evaluation, he will be expelled from the teacher series and cannot be a teacher for life. It is also this rigorous regulatory attitude that has led to the implementation of Singapore's education system and the improvement of education levels year by year.

04

National teacher training system

Every year, the Singapore government selects the best students, fully subsidize them to go to the top schools in the United States, and then return to the national education school after graduation, and after certain training and practice, enter the public school to inject fresh blood into the school.

Singapore knows that the students they teach can only be good enough if the teachers are good enough, which is one of the reasons why this small country's educational philosophy remains at the forefront of the world.

Driven by the innovative education model, Singapore has occupied the leading position in Asian education in recent years, and more and more elite students will study in Singapore in the future. Singapore's investment in education is wise, and the future is bound to be a more competitive world environment for talents, and Singapore is bound to go further.

Excellent education begins in kindergarten and continues through college. Children and parents have a wide range of options in Singapore, from well-equipped, world-connected international schools to excellent government schools.

The most important thing is that studying abroad is cost-effective

Compared with the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, studying in Singapore is very cost-effective.

The cost of public primary school is around 800 Singapore dollars per month, which is about 4,000 RMB. The primary school fee for international schools is about 100,000-150,000 yuan/year, and the junior high school fee is about 150,000-200,000 yuan/year.

In the United States, the cost of the top 100 high school schools is about 300,000-400,000 yuan/year, such as studying in elite private schools in first-tier cities, about 500,000 + yuan.

It is closest to China and has the highest safety index

In terms of distance, Singapore is closer to China and has more flights. Whether it is a student returning home or a parent coming to visit, the cost of air tickets is also very affordable. Singapore visa cost is low, the procedures are simple, compared to the United States, the United Kingdom complex information preparation, but also need to go to the embassy face to sign, long approval time, and so on the cumbersome procedures, Singapore visa is really very simple.

The Institute for Economics and Peace surveyed the security and stability of 163 countries and regions around the world and released the 2022 Global Peace Index. The top 10 countries are Iceland, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Singapore and Japan. Among them, Singapore's security index ranks first in Asia.

Singapore is politically stable, has a strict ban on guns and dangerous weapons, and has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. I believe this is also the most concerned issue of young parents studying abroad.