Singapore School versus American School

On my tour to many Rotary Clubs presentations, the most frequent questions asked to me is " How is your education system in Singapore different from the US?" Well I would like to share them in this blog as to provide a better perspective on this issue.



Singapore being a tropical climate do not have 4 seasons thus we do not have long winter or summer breaks. In fact, our cirriculum in break down into 4 terms and each term consists of 10 weeks. The structure of our school year is as follows:

Term 1: 10 weeks
Holiday for 1 week in Mid March
Term 2: 10 weeks
Holiday for 4 weeks in June
Term 3: 10 weeks
Holiday for 1 week in Mid September
Term 4 : 10 weeks
Holday for six weeks from mid Nov to end Dec.

The cycle continues again every year.

In addition, what is interesting is that in Singapore and Malaysia, we celebrate teacher's day and children's day in . It is a school holiday and teachers and pupils are given a day to rest. We will have parties and students will bring gifts for teachers. Cool rite.

I think we must do the same in the STATES. Students should show appreciation to their teachers :) It is long time overdue.



On a seperate note, we teachers in Singapore and Malaysia will move from one class to another and the pupils will stay in the classrooms waiting for the teacher. In the States however, it is the other way around. They teachers will stay while the pupils move to the other classroom. We, Singapore and Malaysian teachers love this ideas as we have our own classroom and are able to decorate and "personalise" the classroom to meet our pupils' needs.