Succeed or Sink

Appendix: Singapore education and training system at a glance

The vision for Singapore is to be ‘a developed country in the first league’ (MTI 2000). As a small island city-state endowed with no natural resources, Singapore has had to emphasise the human skills of its population and human capital to be economically competitive. The government has, therefore, stressed education and training to enhance the competitiveness of the country.

In 2000 Singapore’s Minister of Education Teo Chee Hean expressed his aspiration to make Singapore the ‘Boston of the East’ (Teo 2000). The education industry already formed an integral part of Singapore’s economy, contributing 3 per cent to GDP in 2000 and by September 2001 there were some 50,000 foreign students ...