From Daniel Yap

My wife is Finnish, and our preference for our children now is the Finnish education system. The outcome in terms of how we rank in results is very similar, but the pathway to getting there seems more “humane” in Finland, where schoolchildren only sit for their first major exam at 15.

The culture in Finland is very different, where even people who don’t excel academically can find very satisfying and fulfilling niches in life — they could be carpenters and get respect and a decent income. It is not a make-or-break issue whether one scores As in exams. When the education system says everyone is valuable, then the workplace and society see them as such.

Going forward, if we want a more egalitarian education system, we have to reduce the “elitist” effect, by removing things like SAP schools, for example, and including lower-performing students in “elite” schools.

We could also do away with the Primary School Leaving Examination and have a “through-train” system, since only less than 1 per cent do not pass the PSLE, into secondary schools. And at secondary schools, we could have a fixed percentage of places allocated to students from the physical neighbourhood.

From Junie Loh

Exams provided good motivation for me to learn ... They allow you to gauge your ability vis-a-vis the rest of the population and what you are good at and if there is anything you need to do to improve. If you fail repeatedly at something, it might give you reason to think about studying something else or changing your methods of study.

From Richard Seet

I have three children who have been through three different systems (the United States, Singapore and now Australia) and I believe Singapore can learn from these systems.

In Australia, students are regularly assessed to gauge what they have learnt, but this is not meant to stream them — results can be represented in a band of achievement rather than a specific score. Also, most children enrol at schools based on proximity, and in this sense, all schools can be good ones.

We should also cultivate other interests and emphasise other aspects of growth, such as speaking and presentation skills, so that children can learn to be more confident and expressive.

From Yvonne Wong

We should not only focus on academics ... it would be great if students could get into secondary schools not based on academic results but on other qualities, like their involvement in community or leadership abilities.

From Dinesh Subramaniam

We should bring equality into the education system from the very beginning. Children who have not had the opportunity to go to pre-schools like Pat’s Schoolhouse or EtonHouse are definitely at the losing end and tend to get spooked when they compare themselves with more privileged peers.

For working parents ... better work-life balance can help. When I was working in Finland, I was able to be home by 5pm to talk to my child about his day. Children want their parents and not tuition teachers or helpers to be alongside them.