While doing community service by giving tuition as a teenager, Mr Deepak Warrier, 21, realised a gap between him and his students.
"Some of the kids I taught clearly had immense potential but also absent parents and unsupportive home environments," he said.
"On the other hand, I have well- educated parents who taught me to read from a young age," said the former Henry Park Primary School and Raffles Institution student.
"I feel that I've benefited enormously from Singapore's education system, especially from the schools I went to," said Mr Warrier, who was also in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP).
Being in the Humanities Programme in his junior college years and the Raffles Academy, a programme for students with talent in certain subjects, also exposed him to "thinking and reasoning at a high level", he said.
Mr Warrier, whose father is an information technology professional and mother, an assistant manager, lives with his family in a condominium in Buona Vista. He graduated from RI in 2013 and is heading to New York University to read economics next month.
"The GEP was a valuable experience at a formative age because of its outstanding teachers, small class sizes, and commitment to nurturing creativity and critical thinking beyond the bounds of Singapore's exam-intensive education system," he said.
The point of the study that he and Mr Pu Liang, 21 - a schoolmate from RI - did was to highlight the need for equal access to all primary schools.
"Our point is that every child has to get a credible and equitable shot at these opportunities, regardless of how wealthy or well-connected the parents are," said Mr Warrier.
Mr Liang, whose mother worked in the pharmaceutical industry and father is a university professor, said: "My mother taught me in primary school as well as in early secondary school, and she teaches my sister now. I owe much of my academic success to her."
His family lives in a condominium in the West Coast area.
He said the project allowed him to make use of computer science and data analysis concepts he had learnt in university on real-world data. "Overall, I believe that our conclusion verifies a well-known social issue that would benefit from more policy review."
Amelia Teng
