From the different education system in the world, the top scorer is being produced from the education system of Singapore in their PISA test. The instruction is been given through the medium of English, and extremely arduous work is being done in Science and Mathematics. Let’s see in this article what Struggle for Education in Singapore one has to go through.
Many of the immigrants get their children’s to enroll in the local schools. Still many of the immigrant’s shell lot of money from their pockets in order to enroll their children to international school. Some of the reasons are below –
Costing- Tuition fees is very high- Few immigrants can afford
The fees of an international school in Singapore is very high. The school fees go from around $ 20,000 to $35,000. Even some of the emigrants send their children to Causeway which is across Singapore for attending school at Johor Bahru.
Schools at the local level are not that costly, but they keep on growing. In the year 2008, emigrants from a non-ASEAN country, need to pay around $650 for enrolling their child in primary school. For a secondary school, the fees are around $950 per month and pre university fees would be around $1300 per month.
Level of stress- Private Coaching and Study are highly stressful in Singapore
Most of the local students face a lot of stress and much of their time is spent on taking the lessons from private coaching. These are not at all reasonable.
The children who are studying in the international school does not have so much stress as the parent’s expectation are not that high. The education system is really laborious, as while at the age of 10 years higher level exams need to be clear. Similarly at 12 years of age PSLE and around 16 or 17 years, O level need to be clear. The main goal of doing well in studies could not be attained till students get into the course of International Baccalaureate.
Therefore, Local schools mainly focus on the subjects such as science and maths, so that they get their students to prepare for an education at the university. Some of the parents opt for local schools so that they make their children disciplined.
To take admission in the international school is not easy. Few international schools are more competitive and most of the students depend on the tuition from outside to improve a grade.
Native Language
Those international schools which are there in the native place would give more of exposure to the language of that place. The students studying here would get graduated with proficiency in the local language. These could be taught as a second language like Punjabi, Japanese, Tamil, Chinese, Urdu, Bengali and many others. But for the other subjects, a medium of language for study would be English.
Parents who are not able to find the school for their children with all the study done in local language, need to go to International school with a medium of language would be English only. The standard of the English language would be quite low in the local school. But, this would not be an issue if the Anglophone family is there.
It does not matter that whether English is a local language or not while studying in International school children will become fluent in English. It will also not adopt the Singapore accent in these school.
Course of Study in Singapore
In which school should a child go depends on that how much time one wants to stay in Singapore?
If the stay is small then an International school should be adopted which has the same course as that in the native place schools.
Timings of school and holidays in Singapore
The timings for International school in the morning would be around 8 to 9 am till 2 to 3:30 pm. While local school timings are 7:30 am to 1:30 pm.
Holidays in International school would be as per the place where the school is. Local schools give one month holidays in June, December.
Cultural values
The students of a local school would be having exposure to the culture. But, in International School, there would be no exposure to a culture which could lead the child to become less friendly.