She was a junior college teacher before joining the newspaper. As a young reporter, she covered a range of topics from health to education. She honed her investigative journalism skills further at The Philadelphia Inquirer on a Knight Ridder fellowship and on her return joined a special report team and wrote many award-winning stories. She became Education Correspondent in 1998 and has since written extensively on education issues. She has a BA from the National University of Singapore and a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.