ABSTRACT
Singapore was first pushed into the limelight when the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment results were announced and Singapore was amongst the top five performers for mathematics, reading and science. Singapore is a small city-state, which is two-thirds the size of New York City and one-tenth the size of Shanghai. The scale of Singapore's education system could be one reason why it is possible for the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) to achieve its current status in a relatively short period of time even though Singapore is a young nation that achieved independence in 1965. During the 1960s, the Singapore education system began as a mix of community-based schools that implemented different curricula. The mediums of instruction involved different languages, namely, English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay. Accountability of schools was also centralised. MOE prescribed standards that schools needed to meet. Another significant development was the introduction of school ranking in 1992 as a form of local accountability.
