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.

This piece was first published in The Straits Times on 1 October 2026.

Leonard Lim is an adjunct research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at the National University of Singapore, and co-authored the 2017 IPS Working Paper analysing the first survey results of parents’ perceptions of Singapore’s education system.

Cheung Hoi Shan is an assistant professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University and a developmental psychologist.

Top image from Pexels.