Many educationists now complain that the school-leaving exams in Britain - GCSEs for 16-year-olds and A levels for 18-year-olds - are far easier than 15 or 20 years ago.
Mr Chris McGovern, a well-known education expert, said the examination system in Singapore was to be envied by comparison.
'GCSEs are just watered-down O levels,' said Mr McGovern, headmaster of St Anthony's Preparatory school in north London.
'The gold standard product is still the O level, as in Singapore. If you suggest to people here that we should go back to O levels (which were discontinued in 1988), they say 'that's so backward-looking'. But look at Singapore - it's not doing so badly.'
Sir Peter Williams, an academic who was recruited by Premier Gordon Brown to advise on raising mathematics standards in the country, says that the A level examinations are less difficult than 20 or 30 years ago, reported the BBC.
The A levels may have been the 'gold standard' of the examination system, but Mr Williams, who chairs the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education, suggests that standards have slipped.
Virtually every year, results improve across the board, but university professors complain that new students are so weak at the basics that they need refresher courses before they can properly embark on undergraduate studies.
In an interview, Mr Williams used the example of maths and physics to illustrate declining standards. He said the equations currently used in exams were simpler and material which had been studied in the first year now had to be pushed back to the second year to allow students to catch up.
MARK RICE-OXLEY
WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM THE BBC