Let us see, what about a Singaporean?

Step 1: Primary School for six (6) years
- Primary school education is compulsory for all Singaporean children, especially since primary school education is free for Singapore citizens (except for some misc. fees to individual schools)

- Morover, it is now difficult to find Singaporean primary schoolers who have never gone to kindergarten (or equivalent preparatory programmes)
- First four (4) years: Considered as a foundation programme, educating students in the primary building blocks of the Singaporean education system, i.e. Mathematics, English, Chinese (or other Mother Tongues).

- Primary 5 - 6: Before 2004, it is in this stage of primary schooling that students are categorised (i.e. segregated) according to their abilities into the EM1, EM2 and EM3 groups. The difficulty of the language papers differ according to the group. The EM1 and EM2 streams were merged in 2004 however.
- Final Exam: Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). The PSLE is not only provides results in grades, but in a benchmark score as well (which is thus, undoubtedly more important). With these scores, young Singaporeans compete for places in the very best secondary schools.

Step 2: Secondary School Education for 4 or 5 years
- Depending on one’s PSLE results, one can choose from primarily two different streams of secondary school education. The normal stream (with 5 years of education) and the special/express stream (with 4 years). Generally, most students are in the 4-year stream.

- Both streams culminate in the Cambridge ‘O’ Levels examination, where students must sit for at least 6 subjects, though it is not uncommon for students in better schools to take up to 10 subjects.

- It is critical to stress that even at such a young age, examination results already matter. Different secondary schools resulting from differing PSLE scores are of significantly different levels, with the very best secondary schools way ahead of the worst neighbourhood schools. [Warning: Impartiality not guaranteed]

**This post is getting pretty long here. I’ll stop for now…