Singapore, at the top of the table, then concluded that the table itself was the issue.

Exams for the youngest primary school pupils were eliminated starting in 2019. Report books no longer included class rankings. The decimal points that separated a 73.4 from a 73.7, indicating excessive anxiety in households throughout the island, were eliminated. Each subject’s marks are rounded to the closest whole number. Subject averages, overall totals, and highlighted failing grades will no longer be included in school reports, according to a Ministry of Education announcement. Education Minister Ong Ye Kung stated, “Learning is not a competition,” which would have been radical coming from any nation but was truly shocking coming from the one that had just won the competition by the biggest margin in recent memory.

Why Singapore Overhauled Its Entire Exam System — and What America Could Learn From It

The reforms were not the result of failure or weakness. It’s worth clinging to. Singapore did not destroy its exam culture because it was losing. It was dismantled because policymakers realized that the skills being produced by relentless exam preparation were increasingly out of step with what the economy actually needed, which included a sophisticated service sector, creative problem-solvers, and workers who could adapt to rapid change. By 2022, workers will need to update about 42% of their skills, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Future of Jobs report. That capacity was not being developed by a system that focused on teaching students how to do well on a two-hour written exam.

However, the deeper reform—what Singapore did to its teachers long before it touched its exams—is the one that receives less attention abroad. It’s like reading the end of a book without the chapters that led up to it if you don’t understand the exam overhaul and the teacher selection process.

In Singapore, only one out of every twelve applicants is hired as a teacher. That ratio is a design decision rather than a financial restriction. Applicants must have graduated in the top third of their class. Secondary school teachers must have majored in the subject they wish to teach. Candidates who satisfy the academic requirements are put through a four-person interview panel that uses essays and role-plays to assess teaching ability, communication skills, and personality. Of those who make it to the interview stage, 80% are turned down. The government then pays the remaining applicants to work with a mentor teacher for three to six months. Of those placements, 40% fail. The few who do finish the National Institute of Education’s 16-month postgraduate diploma program make between SGD $3,600 and $5,000 per month while enrolled.

In contrast, there are over 1,400 teacher preparation programs of wildly differing quality in the US, where certification is generally understood to approximate a guaranteed degree rather than a competitive credential, and the main prerequisite for admission to education schools is a high school diploma and the ability to pay tuition. It’s not a subtle contrast. Singapore selects its teachers through a rigorous and costly process. America mostly understands it by default and then questions why outcomes differ so greatly between classrooms.

The selection logic is strengthened by the pay structure. The minimum starting salary for teachers in Singapore is between SGD $5,000 and SGD $6,000 per month, which is calculated to ensure that no one takes a pay cut to enter the profession. The salary range for master teachers is SGD $18,000–20,000. Every teacher receives 100 hours of professional development each year, and graduate degrees are sponsored for exceptional teachers. Three consecutive D ratings result in removal from the profession. Annual evaluations assign ratings ranging from A to D. To put it simply, teaching in Singapore is a high-status profession that draws competitive applicants and eliminates those who aren’t performing well. It is the reverse of a backup plan.

When all of this is taken into consideration, it seems that the teacher system and the exam reforms are manifestations of the same underlying belief: that education is too significant to be viewed as a mass-production process with inexpensive inputs and outputs that are quantified by a single standardized number. Since 1965, Singapore has gradually moved from teacher-directed instruction to learner-centered pedagogy, from narrow academic metrics to holistic development including character, civic engagement, and socioemotional wellbeing, and from centralized top-down control to school autonomy.

Whether the reforms are having the desired effect is still up for debate. Despite official policy shifting away from exam pressure, Singapore’s shadow education system—private tutors and enrichment centers that parents continue to use—remains sizable and thriving. The gap between official policy and household behavior is a problem that the reforms haven’t yet resolved, and parents who grew up studying for exams don’t instantly update their assumptions because a ministry published a framework. Singapore’s own education researchers acknowledge the existence of this tension.

However, what counts is the direction of travel. The question of whether standardized testing should play a major or supporting role in how schools are evaluated is still up for debate in America. After winning that game, Singapore is discussing what will happen next. The disparity in each nation’s place in that discussion indicates how far we still have to go and whether or not there is genuine political will to close it.

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