Education in Singapore

The Ministry of Education (MOE) Singapore manages education in Singapore. Singapore has both private and public schools. The Ministry of Education oversees the development and administration of state schools and has only a supervisory role for private schools.

In Singapore, education covers 20 percent of the annual national budget. State schools and government-assisted private schools are subsidized for Singapore citizens and for the Edusave program. Foreigners who are enrolling in Singapore schools pay higher study fees in both types of institutions. In 2000, enrolling children in schools was made mandatory by the government based on the Compulsory Education Act. The inability to enroll the children in school becomes a criminal offense for the parents. Exemptions are only for homeschooling and full-time religious school. The exemption must be applied by parents from the Ministry of Education and meet a minimum benchmark.

English is used as the main language for the education system in Singapore. It is the first language that will be taught to children from preschool in Singapore. English is also the main instruction language in the schools. Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil are only used in Mother Tongue Languages subjects. Mother Tongue Languages subjects are offered in secondary schools under the Special Assistance Plan (SAP).

The education system in Singapore is one of the best in the world ranked by the OECD. The teaching method in Singapore focuses on understanding every syllabus before moving forward into the subject. It is a much more narrow and deeper type of instruction. PISA has that Singapore has the highest performance in international education and in the top of the world rankings. The Singaporean students also recorded half of the perfect scores in the International Baccalaureate (IB) worldwide examination.