, Singapore

Government invests $10.9bn in educaton this year

The budget is almost double from a decade ago and is 10% more than last year.

According to Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minster for Education and Second Minister for Defence, all schools must be resourced well. The government must also ensure that good teachers are not concentrated in the top few schools, but should be spread out across the system.

Dr Ng Eng Hen said: "Over the last 10 years, annual recurrent funding per student in primary schools saw the largest increase - up 110% to almost $7,000 in 2010. In the same period, funding for secondary schools and JCs grew almost 75%."

Each school has an average of 30-50% more staff compared to a decade ago. This resulted to an improved pupil-teacher ratio - from 26:1 to 19:1.

The government has also expanded the range of programmes, particularly those catering to slower learners.

However, to enable and measure social mobility, Dr Ng Eng Hen said that we must confine ourselves only to narrow academic domains or specific groups.

"Our education system in this 21st century must expand to ecompass the full limits of our people. We must always aspire to develop the richness of diverse talents within all Singaporeans."

Join Singapore Business Review community
Join Singapore Business Review community
A NOTE FROM SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.