SINGAPORE - It felt like the start of a high-stakes contest for Mr Harry Lee when his son Gabriel entered Primary 1 in 2022.
Gabriel was an SG50 baby, referring to those born in 2015 when Singapore celebrated its 50th year of independence. More than 37,000 babies were born that year – the highest number recorded between 2015 and 2024 – possibly resulting in greater competition for school places.
The registration process has several stages, with the earlier ones reserved for children with siblings in the school or parents who are alumni. These were not options for Gabriel.
So Mr Lee aimed for Phase 2B, which gives priority to children whose parents have volunteered at the school. They were hoping to enter a popular school in Hougang where the family lives because of its academic reputation and emphasis on values.
“Every day that we were on traffic warden duty counted as 45 minutes to these 40 hours, and we went once a week for 40 weeks,” said Mr Lee, who clocked his time mostly in the morning before work. Parents were required to fulfil at least 40 hours to be considered a parent volunteer. “The school did not guarantee us a spot, they told us it is not confirmed.”
“That year was very stressful for us,” said Mr Lee, 44, an actuary at an insurance company.
Gabriel eventually entered the school through Phase 2B. While Mr Lee acknowledged that competition exists in every education system, he felt much of the stress stems from uncertainty.
Clearer indicators of a child’s likelihood of getting a place – beyond historical balloting data – would help parents better gauge their odds in the current year, he said.
His experience is one of several pain points that parents face when navigating Singapore’s education system.
ST ILLUSTRATION: LEE HUP KHENG
Others point to an overemphasis on major exams, starting with the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), a competitive culture between parents, and heavy time and financial resources poured into getting outside-school help.
Long heralded as a meritocratic engine and a “social leveller”, the system has increasingly been described as an “arms race” by parents, students, educators, and politicians alike.
This is despite significant changes by the Government over the last five-year term, including the end of streaming and bell-curved scoring at the PSLE, which graded pupils’ performance relative to one another.
Ahead of the May general election, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had said during the Fullerton Rally that reforms in education have been made, along with enhancing parental leave and other investments in mental health and caregiving.
MPs from both the PAP and WP said they will continue to push for reforms in the House, including exploring alternatives to the PSLE, smaller class sizes and more support for educators.
But experts outline the challenge at hand: the Government having to push through changes while ensuring the system continues to deliver good results, and balancing the various interests from across society, making the issue a political hot potato.
The ‘arms race’ across milestones
Parents interviewed by Insight said navigating school life feels like running a race they cannot opt out of.
Some map out their children’s educational paths years ahead, while others turn to tuition and enrichment while trying to clinch spots in popular schools.
Students report stress over examinations and expectations, with some feeling their self-worth is tied to grades or the school they go to.
Political leaders have acknowledged the issue – during the debate on the President’s Address in September, PM Wong said the Government will do more in its new term to reduce the stakes of single examinations, and that Singapore has to move from a narrow meritocracy based solely on grades to a broader and more inclusive one.
Noting that education was a “great leveller” for his generation, he said that looking ahead, every parent and child should not regard it as a burden, but a springboard.
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At the same debate, Education Minister Desmond Lee said Singapore must break away from seeing education as an “arms race”.
His ministry will study how to reduce the stakes in exams, focus on non-academic aspects of the school experience, and guard against “hothousing” by families with more resources.
For many families, however, the race remains a daily reality. The first major hurdle is the PSLE, which determines the range of secondary schools a child can enter.
Ms Jyoti Khan, a mother of three, said the pressure of the system is “almost contagious”. When her children first entered primary school, she did not know how intense the journey could become.
By the time her older two had sat the PSLE, she found herself swept into the rhythms that govern so many families’ lives – sending her kids for tuition and planning the year around exams.
“All your peers, every parent, will be talking about ‘Oh, it’s a big year because it’s O levels, or it is a big year because it’s PSLE’, and you feel yourself joining in a little bit,” the 47-year-old communications consultant said.
Mr Sarfraz Khan and Mrs Jyoti Khan (second from right) with their children, Ayaan Khan, Aleena Khan and Aliya Khan (left to right). PHOTO: COURTESY OF JYOTI KHAN
Schools remind parents that exams are not the be all and end all, said Ms Khan, but the pressure is constant, amplified during conversations with others.
She tried not to pass that anxiety on to her children, now in Secondary 4 and 2, and Primary 2.
Yet, when her son applied to a secondary school through the Direct School Admission (DSA) pathway – which allows children to apply to schools through their non-academic strengths – she found herself helping him polish guitar pieces and write personal statements.
Associate Professor Vincent Chua, who teaches sociology and anthropology at the National University of Singapore, said competition persists because demand for “good schools” outstrips the supply.
“Even though the new PSLE (scoring) system is designed to be non-competitive… the distribution of schools still follows a curve: a small number of elite schools, a majority of good ones, and a few that are less sought after,” he said. “As long as this hierarchy exists, competition will persist.
“The ideal, where every school is seen as a good school, remains some distance away.”
Parents feel compelled to invest in tuition, enrichment, and constant monitoring, Prof Chua said, adding that exams become more challenging to distinguish top performers.
When education becomes a contest, social comparison becomes a way of life, he said. “The result is an escalating arms race that breeds stress, burnout, and declining youth well-being.”
People still judge others based on the schools they went to, said Ms Khan. “I’ve seen it.”
Many still believe that a child gains more from going to a good school – apart from being affiliated with a brand name, they get access to social and alumni networks, she added.
This strain continues as children move through the system, intensifying at major exams like the O, N and A levels – seen as gateways into higher education.
For tutor Siti Aishah, 60, whose daughter just took the N levels, the culture of comparing children by their academic achievements has become toxic. “Especially when you have family gatherings and everyone starts all the comparisons: ‘Hey, what’s your son doing?’”
Her older son went to a polytechnic and has been accepted to a local university.
But her daughter often compares her results with her brother’s, and worries that going to ITE means she might not get into university, she said.
Madam Aishah has sought to reassure her daughter, and told her: “Come what may, the results we accept. Because you are you, and your brother is your brother. You two are different.”
The former teacher feels there are now more pathways for students, and with hard work, children can overcome early setbacks and find their way.
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Over the years, the Government has introduced more routes to reduce reliance on single exams and assess students more holistically.
More changes have also been promised.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) in May said efforts are ongoing to refine the DSA selection process. Former education minister Chan Chun Sing said in January that this will be part of a review to ensure that schools focus on students’ development, that the selection process is objective and transparent, and DSA continues to be accessible.
DSA was started in 2004 to allow students to enter secondary school on other merits such as sports, arts or leadership. Other schemes followed, allowing students to secure polytechnic places before sitting major exams – though they must still meet minimum entry and GPA requirements.
In 2020, full subject-based banding was piloted in 28 secondary schools, where students can take subjects at various levels of difficulty.
The new PSLE scoring system – where students are graded on their individual performance from Achievement Levels (AL) 1 to 8 – was implemented from 2021.
These changes were meant to reduce fine differentiation of students and encourage families to choose schools based on their children’s learning needs and interests.
In 2023, the ministry also scrapped mid-year exams in all primary and secondary schools, with a similar removal phased into junior colleges (JCs) from 2024.
Most recently, MOE revised the JC admission criteria to count just five subjects instead of six, to give students more time for holistic development and extracurricular activities.
Students in 2027 will be the first to take the new Singapore-Cambridge Secondary Education Certificate examination – in place of the current O- and N-level exams. This change is in line with the shift to allow students to be assessed based on specific subject levels.
But the pressure has not really eased, parents said.
Ms Jeanette Wong, 46, a public servant, whose two children sat the PSLE under both scoring systems, said both of them were just as stressed.
Under the old T-score system, pupils’ results depended on how they performed relative to their peers. With the new AL scoring, more of them could end up with the same PSLE score, leaving more school placements to potentially be decided through balloting.
A group of parents, known as EveryChild.SG, has banded together since 2023 to push for reforms to tackle what they say is an education system that incentivises a narrow form of academic competition rather than broader growth.
“This hurts both the mental health and future competitiveness of our children,” said the group’s founder Pooja Bhandari.
While the group commends recent reforms including the removal of streaming, she said the core design of the system – especially around the PSLE – still fuels stress. EveryChild.SG’s proposals include reviewing classroom sizes and resourcing, and making PSLE optional.
Part of the difficulty in shifting away from a competitive mindset lies in the tension between education as a public and a private good, said Dr Jason Tan, an associate professor of policy, curriculum and leadership at the National Institute of Education (NIE).
While the Government sees education as a tool for social mobility and equity, parents naturally focus on securing advantages for their own children, he added.
“No parent wants to be put in a position years later where they feel regret for not having done more to support their children and give them a competitive edge,” Dr Tan said.
Structural inequalities, like access to social networks and financial resources, can also reinforce the arms race. “Private money is being spent, and that is very difficult for any government to monitor,” he noted.
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Families with greater financial means often have a head start, and non-academic pathways like the DSA can favour those able to afford lessons in music, sports, or the arts, NUS’ Prof Chua said.
For less-privileged families, for whom education is often the primary route for upward mobility, the stakes are even higher, he added. “So when parents push hard, it’s not irrational – it’s strategic. They are responding logically to a competitive system.”
Families in Singapore spent $1.8 billion on private tuition for their children in 2023, according to the latest government survey on household expenditure. The figure has risen over the years, from $1.1 billion in 2013 to $1.4 billion in 2018.
IPS senior research fellow Gillian Koh said private tuition has come under public scrutiny as it is considered a “deadweight loss of resources for society arising from the arms race in education”.
It has resulted in “lots of resources expended for uncertain outcomes”, she said, but also is what parents feel they must do if they wish the best for their children. “It provides them with a very important sense of agency.”
To parents like self-employed transportation manager Kelvin Koh, 49, having fewer resources means having to be more strategic.
He advised his daughter, who just took the O levels, to choose combined rather than pure academic subjects – even though she qualified for them – in order to maximise her chances of scoring well.
Combined subjects merge two subjects and are seen as less intensive than pure subjects at the O levels.
Self-employed transportation manager Kelvin Koh with his daughter Natasha. To parents like him, having fewer resources means having to be more strategic. He also opted for more affordable group tuition for his child. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
Mr Koh also opted for group tuition for his daughter, as this was more affordable than hiring personal tutors or enrolling in one of the “premium” enrichment chains.
This gave them some assurance that she does not lag behind her peers or fall short of academic goals, he said.
“Even though schools give the necessary assistance and guidance to students, some of us feel that it is not enough – comparing big classes in schools versus smaller groups in tuition – and we need more help.
“We are small fish, we try to be the best among all the rest.”
What reforms could come next?
Parents said they are hoping for more moves to relook major exams.
Ms Angela Leong, 51, hopes children will be able to find their place in a system that can offer multiple pathways, with less hinging on high-stakes exams.
Assessments and results continue to loom large even as the system goes through changes, said the homemaker with two children aged 13 and 17.
“Children these days have a lot of options, which is a good thing,” she said, adding the key is finding a path that best fits each child’s strengths.
Parents acknowledged there still needs to be a system to sort children into schools.
With secondary school students increasingly being able to customise subject combinations, Madam Aishah hopes for further changes to the PSLE.
“I hope they will implement bite-sized tests or projects that will determine if children have met the expectations of what is required, along with the standard tests. This is a less threatening environment for them.”
Similarly, Ms Wong hopes for an alternative to PSLE, which she feels has added “unnecessary pressure” for children at a young age.
“You send your children, from kindergarten level, to enrichment classes, all to ensure they have a good head start, but it is all geared towards the major exam which is unnecessarily pressurising,” she said.
Students report stress over examinations and expectations, with some feeling their self-worth is tied to grades or the school they go to. PHOTO: ST FILE
Removing the PSLE and piloting a through-train system from primary to lower secondary is something Jalan Besar GRC MP Denise Phua has been pushing for in the House since 2009.
She told Insight she will continue to press for these changes, along with the need to envision an education system fit for a rapidly changing world, and ensure a more equitable distribution of opportunities.
Asked if she thinks the Government will seriously consider her proposal for an alternative to the PSLE, Ms Phua replied: “It’s not an impossibility.”
She said a deep dive into the concerns around the PSLE and how to address them is needed, before piloting any alternative.
Ms Phua added that she believes there is “no turning back” on broadening the definition of success, but more must be done to ensure the labour market values non-academic skills and blue-collar jobs.
She and other MPs have spoken about the importance of re-tooling the education system to reduce pressure on students, while preparing them for a rapidly evolving economy.
Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC MP David Hoe said students would benefit from more opportunities to discover their interests and strengths during their schooling years.
The former teacher noted that students make decisions such as their post-secondary courses of study that may shape their future careers, and said the system can do more to help them make these choices with greater self-awareness and confidence.
Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Darryl David, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education, said more needs to be done to equip educators given how much information is readily available – especially with the rise of generative artificial intelligence.
WP’s Sengkang GRC MP Jamus Lim, an associate professor of economics at Essec Business School, said the opposition party will continue pushing for changes in its 2025 manifesto, including reducing class sizes.
He said the Government has taken steps towards reform but must do more to introduce flexibility and alternative pathways in the system.
This is especially vital now as AI begins to replicate some work done by white-collar workers, he said, raising concerns that the “cookie-cutter” route in the current system for most students may not prepare them for these changes.
He acknowledged that the system has worked well so far – meaning it is difficult to bring about fundamental changes.
His WP colleague, Aljunied GRC MP Kenneth Tiong, said major exams remain too determinative of eventual socio-economic outcomes – meaning that how students do in early exams often still determines their future educational journeys and certification. This has an impact on the jobs they eventually are able to land and hence their incomes.
This has also led to distortions in other areas like the housing market, where property prices near good schools have risen disproportionately, he said.
In 2023, research by real estate firm OrangeTee & Tie found that rental rates rose at a faster pace for condos near popular primary schools. Rents at condos near five of the 10 schools studied registered faster growth than their respective district median rents.
Ms Phua said the Government’s challenge is not a lack of awareness or will. “It is that of managing the difficult, albeit essential, change of steering a hitherto successful giant ship onto a new course without causing it to sink or creating a mutiny among its passengers.”
A system at a crossroads
Political observers also highlighted the challenges of enacting educational change.
Singapore Management University (SMU) law don Eugene Tan said since the system still works reasonably well, the need for a revamp can seem “almost counter-intuitive”.
IPS’ Dr Koh said education policy is “always a political hot potato” as some want change, while others resist, preferring a predictable system that lets their children excel – even as they voice complaints.
Policy reforms are difficult to push through as it means getting parents to forgo individual advantage, said NIE’s Dr Tan. “Parents may think that if they let go, their children will be on the losing end.”
NUS’ Prof Chua suggested strengthening distinctive programmes of every school, so that each has their own attractive niches and parents feel less pressure to chase a small handful of “top schools”.
Opening more places under Phase 2C of the Primary 1 registration process will also give those without connections or proximity a fairer chance, he added.
Various core PAP 4G leaders have helmed MOE since 2011, SMU’s Prof Tan noted.
Since 2015, Mr Ong Ye Kung, PM Wong, Mr Chan Chun Sing and Mr Desmond Lee have held the post. Before that, former deputy prime minister Heng Swee Keat – another key 4G leader before his retirement from politics in 2025 – was in the role.
This gives the current government leadership a good pulse of what works well and what needs to be reformed, Prof Tan said.
He noted that Mr Lee, the current minister, is known for his “quiet but impactful” style of leadership and as someone who goes to the ground to understand the issues.
On reworking the PSLE, Prof Tan said other school systems like those in Malaysia and Hong Kong have done away with their versions of the exam, and there is the possibility of making it optional.
The idea of having terminal national exams leading to the next phase of schooling is not universal, and other school systems do not have such exams, he noted.
Malaysia did away with its primary school leaving exam in 2021 and switched to evaluating students with school-based assessments, a system in place since 2011, while Hong Kong abolished its national exams in 2000 and used the results of internal assessments at Primary 5 and 6 to band students.
But of all the pressure points in the current system, Primary 1 admissions stand out, NIE’s Dr Tan noted.
“In an ostensibly meritocratic system, you have a Primary 1 admission system that still is so closely tied to what parents can bring to the process… This, to me, doesn’t seem to square with meritocracy,” he said.
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In the quest for reform, school admissions across the system remain crucial and need to be re-examined.
More than sorting students, these systems – for entry into primary school, secondary school or tertiary education – signal wider values and what the government of the day considers important, he noted.
They also represent gateways to further opportunity, he said, and shape expectations and influence choices beyond the classroom.
People’s anxieties are not just about exams or admissions, but the perceived hierarchy of academic or vocational routes, social prestige, and career prospects, Dr Tan said.
“Many people are simply acting on the basis of what they believe to be happening, because they want the best for themselves and their children.”
This underscores the need to consider the system as a whole, including how different skills are valued and rewarded in the economy, he added.
“You cannot just reform what happens within schools, without paying attention to what happens to people after school.”
The evolution of Singapore’s education system
1960: PSLE introduced
1971: O levels introduced
1973: T-score system for PSLE introduced
1975: A levels introduced
1979: Introduction of Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools
1980: Streaming (special, express, and normal course) introduced
1984: Gifted Education Programme (GEP) starts
1994: Normal course differentiated into Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical)
1995: Special course merges with express
2000: Compulsory Education Act passes, all Singaporean citizen children must attend primary school**
2004: Direct School Admission introduced
2013: Poly Foundation Programme established
2016: New PSLE Achievement Level (AL) system announced
2020: Full subject-based banding (SBB) is piloted***
2021: New AL scoring system for PSLE replaces old T-Score system
2024: Subjects taken at G1/G2/G3, removal of express, N(A) and N(T) as SBB is rolled out to all schools
2024: New Singapore-Cambridge Secondary Education Certificate (SEC) examinations announced to replace O and N level exams
2027: First batch of students will take the SEC exams
*T-score system was officially implemented and issued to candidates on results slips in 1982.
**It became effective in 2003.
***It was piloted from 2020-2023. Schools progressively adopted aspects of full subject-based banding from 2021-2023.
