ABSTRACT
Singapore’s story of expansion of secondary education following independence from British colonial rule in 1965 first demands that attention is given to the multi-ethnic character of the populace and the way a single system was formed out of several vernacular systems. In the late 1960s and 1970s, there was an explosion in the number of secondary institutions, followed by the expansion of enrollments in the 1980s. The 1990s saw a shift to improvements in quality. Each of these moments are traced herein, with particular attention paid to government policy priorities and the needs of the economy.
