EASTERN education is known as being a pressure-cooker while Western education is more laidback by comparison. But are there lessons that one education culture can learn from the other? Natalie Ng reflects on her own Singaporean education upbringing and compares it to her current experiences as an international student in Australia.
People always assume that I chose to pursue higher education in Melbourne either to escape the famously high stress East education system, of which Singapore is part of, or because the Western education system is somehow superior. Neither is true; I chose to study in Melbourne for my own personal growth and not because I decided one education system was better than another. But having studied in Melbourne for the past three years, I believe that both the East and Western education systems have lessons that they can learn from each other.
Singapore is famously known for its exemplary education system, but it is equally known for being a pressure-cooker. There is some truth in that, but I believe that it thoroughly prepared me to transition into university and set me up for life. Perhaps not in the sense of advanced trigonometry but more about the kind of work ethic that one needs as they transition into the working world.
Discipline, hard work and efficiency are key traits that are valued in Singaporean students. I don’t necessarily consider myself a hardworking or disciplined person by any stretch, but that might also be because by comparison, I was surrounded by so many of my peers who were so much more hardworking and disciplined than I was.
Funnily enough, my level of productivity — which was considered average in the Singapore education system — was considered to be very productive once I started studying here in Melbourne.
A healthy work ethic, in my opinion, would lead to a less likely chance of tasks snowballing over time and as a final year communication design student (and one day, a working graphic designer), the stress of dealing with last minute problems and deadlines is a major concern to me.
While that could be chalked up to the genuine passion I have for my course, I do think part of it is also rooted in the rigor of the Singapore education system.
Singaporean education
Singaporean education might seem overwhelming but it does instill a sense of responsibility and work ethic on children early.
When I was five, I attended my first enrichment education class and was expected to score no less than 90 per cent in primary school. In my final year of primary school (Year 6 in Australia) myself and many other Singaporean students had to take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) that would determine which secondary schools we would go to. That year, I had after school tuition classes every day of the week.
In the eyes of the West, I guess this would have been considered undue stress and pressure on young children and that they somehow missed out on their childhood. Perhaps that is a little early to be so concerned about a child’s academic performance, but I don’t think I missed out on my childhood at all.
Eventually, as I went on to secondary school, I realised that I was more inclined towards the arts and humanities than the sciences, which was what the Singaporean education system catered more towards.
“Did I wish that Singapore would put more time and resources into recognising or validating the arts and humanities? Of course.”
Junior college is what most Singaporeans attend as pre-university education where they sit for the Singapore-Cambridge A-Levels or International Baccalaureate (IB), qualifications which would give students the certification to go into university. In the junior college I attended, the ratio of arts and humanities to the sciences students was one to five.
I was only one of nine students out of approximately 500 doing art.
Did I wish that Singapore would put more time and resources into recognising or validating the arts and humanities? Of course. But I also know Singapore is a country that values STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) over the arts and humanities, and as we are a small country that has to constantly keep up to stay afloat economically, it’s perhaps understandable as to why the country’s education leans more towards STEM-based learning.
As a person who thrives in a creative environment, however, I decided it was not for me and ended up choosing a Western education for my tertiary studies purely because it benefited my own personal personal growth.
Australian education
Collaborative learning, creativity and ideas are what make Western education appear laidback by comparison.
What I’ve gleaned from my time in the Australian education system is that the West values creativity and ideas more than anything. The environment is much more laidback than the Asian education system, for sure.
Educators here adopt an approach that encourages individuals to get as much as they can out of their experience, as opposed to the pressure and expectation of results the Asian education system tends to value.
From my experience, I have found tutors to be generally flexible with assignment requirements. Rules exist but they function as guidelines and aren’t enforced with strictness. I think that lifts the pressure off for most people and because of this, I’ve enjoyed how tutors have been mostly open to everyone’s ideas. That kind of encouraging environment is very nurturing for any student, and in particular those in the creative field as it helps students produce the best work they can possibly deliver.
But that kind of environment may also breed its own set of problems, particularly when it becomes too laidback. Tertiary level students should be getting a taste of how the real working world works — meeting deadlines, learning how to balance, prioritise and compromise to produce work efficiently is all part and parcel of that learning curve that will take students into the working world.
“From my experience, I have found tutors to be generally flexible with assignment requirements. Rules exist but they function as guidelines and aren’t enforced with strictness.”
Though students of all disciplines understand the pressure of deadlines, as a communication design student, deadlines become part of your everyday life. Art and design students tend to work at a different pace because the inspiration has to strike, and then the ideas take time to develop and execute. So meeting deadlines can be a struggle for a lot of us design students. Tutors tend to be sympathetic and flexible with their deadlines and requirements if a student is behind, but when is it okay to relax or enforce the rules?
If one student is allowed more time to bend the rules just because they are unable to prioritise or balance their assignments, that becomes unfair for the rest of the students who worked within the given time-frame. It also means more work for the tutors who have to chase up those students.
University isn’t the working world, but deadlines are still deadlines in the working world. One has to figure out a way to work as efficiently as possible while producing the best possible result. It is not so much as compromise as learning how to prioritise and manage your workload. Know your own capabilities.
What one education system can learn from the other
Neither education cultures are better than the other but there are things that Eastern and Western education can learn from one another.
I will be graduating at the end of this year and I think I absolutely made the right decision for myself to study in Melbourne. I can’t say if I would be the same person as I am now had I stayed in Singapore to study but I do feel that there are lessons to be learned that both education cultures could benefit from.
Singapore could definitely have a healthier education environment that’s less stifling to students’ voices, enables class discussion and encourages a variety of opinions to emerge from a young age. There should be more of a balance with respect to arts education and less pressure should be put on students at a young age (and that means time for activities out of academics as well, which is something Asian parents need to be reminded of).
With Australia, more emphasis in encouraging students to cultivate a strong work ethic from an early age would help instill a stronger sense of responsibility later in life. This would include emphasising discipline, hard work and efficiency in their studies. A stronger emphasis also on preparing students for university-level study would also be ideal.
“International students are lucky in that regard as they get the best of both worlds in their education.”
All this is to say that Eastern education needs to foster creativity and ideas, something the West does very well, while Western education should commit to providing students with a clearer focus and stronger work ethic — traits emblematic of the East.
Though both education systems have their strengths and weaknesses, the agreed goal by the end of every students’ education is to prepare them for work. Students have to recognise that the image they project to their peers and educators is the same one they’ll project to employers in the future.
International students are lucky in that regard as they get the best of both worlds in their education. The degree isn’t what gets them the job; it’s the experiences and what they’ve learned along the way. And for international students to understand and leverage that, it would mean all the difference later in life.
Do you agree that there are ways that both education cultures can learn from each other to better enrich the student experience? What have you found most challenging or interesting about the Eastern education culture and the West? Do you think one is better than the other? Why? Discuss all this and more in the comments below!
Nice information. Thanks for sharing it. Yes, I agree with your point that there are ways that both education cultures can learn from each other to better enrich the student experience.
But Australia education cultures is best than Singapore
I agree with Minkie..Just migrated from Singapore to Melbourne with hubby n 6yr old son..He started going to Foundation class and we asked him if he likes it in Melbourne or Singapore education system he said Melbourne(his reason was not much of studying and more playing).
I completely agree that the East has a lot to learn form the West a vice versa. I’ve been in Australian education system throughout Australian high school Yr 8-year 12 and it is definitely more encouraging of self-initiated learning. No one pushes you, and personally I don’t like to be pushed, as it doesn’t work unless I genuinely respect and trust the teacher’s opinion. But I do think that they can be too laid back when stricter rules (especially behavioural rules) could be enforced. So many people don’t care, or don’t learn how to prioritise their time, set themselves deadlines.. there can be no work ethic whatsoever even in Year 12s as they leave highschool. In that regard they haven’t prepared students fully for work. However, I also believe that it is only the student that can decide on how hard they should work, and they reap the rewards/failure afterwards, so that is not to say that a stricter system would work longterm but studies should be done to investigate this more… I’m not sure how Australian teachers and students would respond to being as strict as Singapore.. I’m not sure if it’s something they would be comfortable with because lots of teachers are laid-back in personality and like to joke around with students as well.. Also, there’s a fear of not doing things the right way in Singapore that is totally absent in young people here in Australia.. they are not so caged in by their own mind, and more free to create, to decide and to be themselves.
Hi
just like to add some extra pointers. I do agree with the author generally. But it is best not to think that studying in Australia is always that easy…
I’m studying Pharmacy in a top university… and the lecturers in Australia are as strict as the ones in Singapore…
my tutors are also not as lenient as one may think…(I did A levels btw…so i know how difficult the sg system can be…)
From my experience and reading other people’s experiences… circumstances will alter how you view the education in general… i agree that if YOU study general studies… and if it is rather easy for you to enter the course with average results… most likely you will have the carefree life that people will expect in an australian university
however … if it is quite a competitive course… don’t have your hope too high like i did… cos it ain’t easy…
Hi Natalie Ng,
I had been teaching in Indonesia for around six years and in my seventh year there I started teaching in a school called Singapore International School, where I had the opportunity to teach the My Pals Singaporean Curriculum to grade 3 students from Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, India, Pakistan and China in Maths, Science, English and Social Studies. I really liked the curriculum as I liked the way it structured the concepts in a way that gives an excellent overview of the concepts and prepared the students for the next stage, and at a very competitive level. The leadership I had at this school was a Canadian and he was supportive of my time at this school during my time there. Then due to not enough students at the school, I had to leave.
My next school was a school called Jakarta Nanyang School (which is affiliated with Nanyang School in Singapore). The leadership here was done by a Singaporean who was formerly a student at Nanyang School in Singapore, and her were the most strict I had ever faced since my time in the Army Reserve recruit course. I was be called into a meeting because one of my students made a grammatical error when filling out a survey or students could be called into a meeting for wearing the wrong socks to school. Although, the same curriculum was taught at this school, the stress that I felt from the pressure at this school was just driving me into depression from the much stricter deadlines and consequences that I faced, which lead to me returning back to Australia to teach.
After the experiences at both of these schools I felt that the academic results produced at both schools seemed similar, even though one of the schools was much stricter than the other. Which made me believe that the extra strictness was not needed, and that I could appreciate the way that the Canadian principal dealt with things at Singapore International School.
Since I have returned to Australia to teach in both South Australia and Queensland, in both contract and relief teaching jobs I have seen a much lower standard in both Maths and Science, as I would see students in year 5, 6 and 7 could struggle to understand how to even understand equivalent fractions, I could remember teaching my grade 3s how to add fractions with different denominators and seeing them understand this in a few days. This is one of numerous examples that tells me that Singapore is 3 years ahead of Australia in terms of Maths and various other subjects. This shows in the PISA results as Singapore is at the forefront, and Australia seems to be dropping back places, and I believe that Australia is losing ground because of the lack of discipline in schools.
Since my experiences with teaching at those schools to Asian students in Indonesia (the Singaporean Curriculum) and students in Australia, I have felt, ‘Why can’t the Australian students be more like the Singaporean students?’ , ‘What would it take for students in Australia to be at the level of students in Singapore?’ and ‘Maybe I should have stayed in Indonesia so that I can send my son to a school that has the Singaporean Curriculum!!’
Then I think again that it is not an easy life for students in a place like Singapore, as I remember seeing a boy in a coffee shop in Singapore with his mum doing homework, and hearing his mum shouting at him. Then when I tell Singaporean parent about this experience, they tell me that they do this to their children as well. Which makes me think, maybe the extra pressure in Asian education is excessive.
Also the following quote about the education system in Hong Kong (which I believe is similar to Singapore) seems to sum up the education system in some Asian countries.
Pastor Francis Chan quoted the following: https://youtu.be/a3T1srvSgKw
‘If there was a documentary of a kid growing up in Hong Kong. I feel like it’s almost like these kids in Hong Kong grow up on a treadmill. An what I mean by this is, it’s like the moment you were born, your parents are signing you up for the best pre-school and they’re pushing you to crawl before everyone else does, and walk before everyone else, and to think better than everyone else, and they’re comparing, if you’re not walking fast enough, I’m going to up the speed on you, because I have to get you in the best primary school, so that you can run even faster, so that by the time you’re in the first grade, man, your algebra better be better than all of the other kids. And go, go, faster, faster, because I want to get you into this high school. This high school will make you run faster, and if you run fast enough, you’ll be one of those few that make it into that university, that university where people run faster than anyone else, because if you graduate from there, you are guaranteed a job where you can run so, so fast’.
I have answered your questions as below:
Do you agree that there are ways that both education cultures can learn from each other to better enrich the student experience?
I agree to a degree, but I believe that the Western education system could learn more from the Eastern education system because it reaches a higher level and the competitiveness leads to more discipline. The PISA results tell me that the Asian education is more successful.
What have you found most challenging or interesting about the Eastern education culture and the West?
The most challenging part of the Eastern education system has been the strict judgement and consequence of every detail I have faced when faced with strictness of Singaporean principal. The most interesting part of the Eastern education system has been the broadness of the Maths / Science program, which I love. The most challenging part of the Western education system has been the lack of discipline in schools, but maybe this has been because I have done mostly relief teaching in Australia. The most interesting part of the Western education system has been the attempts to integrate other cultures into it.
Do you think one is better than the other? I cannot help thinking that the Eastern curriculum is better.
Why? Because of the PISA results.
I really thank you for your insight into the ideas that the Western education system offers because I would see Asian students in Indonesia has a heavy schedule every week of Mandarin, piano, sport, and much more after school and think, ‘I want this for my son.’ Then become regretful that I have taken him to go to school in Australia. Your insight has helped me to understand that I have been thinking for him, may not be the best for him, and I thank you again for this.
Best Regards,
John Jerram