I am a student currently in NTU & from the IP students I know, most of them do well = get into university & a course they were aiming for. In the academic sphere, I would say the IP is doing pretty well, maybe even better than those who took the O lvls.


However, the main problem of the IP is the segregation it creates.
In RI, the IP students have alr been in sch for 4 years, & everyone knows everybody when they get promoted to JC. This creates a 2 groups, mainly the IP and the mainstream (those who got into RJ by O lvl results).
I have friends who got in RJ thru O lvls, and they said life was bad especially in the first few weeks. Why? People like to stick together, and when you know your friends for 4 years, it is pretty unlikely that they will include a total stranger & outsider into their group.

Having said that, it is also the responsibility of the mainstream students (those who got in thru O lvl results), to try to mix with the IP students.
In short, the IP creates some sort of an exclusive group especially within schools like RI, where they continue all the way from sec 1/sec3 to JC2. I’m not saying RI is the only school like that, but I’m merely using RI as an example.

Such exclusiveness happens in schools like NJC as well. And believe me, more funds are allocated to the IP programme than to the mainstream. So it is impossible, if not unthinkable, for an IP student to NOT do well when their sch is literally pouring so many resources on them.
Because of the unequal allocation of funds, the IP students DO INDEED get a better programme, and they get a rather interesting curriculum. The normal O lvl track cannot even be compared to their curriculum.

There definitely are cases where students drop out of the IP. But the reason is usually because they are not self-motivated enough, or maybe they have certain personal problems like family, etc, we don’t know.
But even then, every programme has its pros and cons, and it is up to the policy makers to tweak it either for the better, or for the worse.

It’s really hard cos nobody wants to be a teacher nowadays in Singapore, everybody wants law, medicine, engineering, but not teaching. and the demand for teachers is extremely high, which results in them having a very good pay even if they can’t teach. Furthermore, teachers are burdened with LOADS of admin work. I am a student myself, and I can see how tired the teachers are by just looking at them. And such a working environment in such an education system with so many kiasu parents, is just going to drive a teacher nuts…


There ARE indeed teachers who are extremely good and do their job extremely well. But there are also MANY teachers out there who’re just going to work for the sake of it, & not for the sake of teaching the younger generation. That is the main problem Singapore has to counter, which I think we have not found a proper solution to it yet.

And what do I say is the solution? A major overhaul of the education system would be the answer. Starting from the top echelons all the way to the ground level. However hard it might be to change mindsets, I believe it is possible.