Parents want certainty over their children’s future. That’s fuelling the education arms race
Parents increasingly value holistic development, but rising anxiety about an uncertain future is driving them towards more tuition, enrichment and other measurable forms of preparation.
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While many parents expressed a desire for holistic education, their actions demonstrate enduring preferences to ensure their offspring do not fall behind academically.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Leonard Lim and Cheung Hoi Shan
In the past decade, Singapore’s education system has increasingly been described as an intensifying arms race by parents, students, educators and politicians. The extreme competition to secure a Primary 1 place in a choice school, the pressures surrounding the Primary School Leaving Examination and successive rounds of streaming, as well as subject and school choices, have all contributed to anxiety among families.
But findings from a nationally representative survey of 1,500 local parents of children attending primary schools by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Social Lab, analysed in a working paper published on Sept 25, are somewhat heartening.