Comparative education: Singapore "High Schools"

In America, "High School" has a certain meaning and a certain range of connotations. Americans know what High School is: they have been there and have gathered together certain impressions and assumptions. This understanding, however, will lead to misunderstanding of the present situation.

You see, Singapore is influenced by its colonial origins. Its education is largely patterned on the UK model of O levels, A levels and specialized single subject degrees. This is not the American system. Therefore, when I used the term "High School" yesterday, it had a different meaning from what an American would understand a High School to be. Secondary Schools in Singapore, as they are more commonly known, follow a narrower base of subjects, at a higher level than any given age in the American system. What this means is that, by the end of secondary education in Singapore (a stage normally called Junior College here), a student will have reached a higher standard than would be attained in a US High School. However, it should be remembered that this higher benchmark would be in a narrower range of subjects than in the US.

For reasons I do not yet fully know, the school which is being considered for Ainan: The National University of Singapore High School for Maths and Science, otherwise known as the NUS High School for Maths and Science, is called a High School. That is odd in the Singapore landscape: for other schools do not have this title. I will learn why on Friday, I suppose.

Anyway, given the influence of the UK system on the educational practices of Singapore, this NUS High School will reach higher standards than an American High School would, at the same age. Thus it is not a comparable situation. The level of demand on Ainan, seven, would be higher than if he were in an American High School. In Singapore, students take A levels at eighteen. As I have noted before, it was said of this exam, when I was a child, that the standard was so high that it was like taking an American college degree. That is the context in which NUS High School is embedded.

I will learn more tomorrow of what the place is about. One thing should be noted, however: NUS High School is a specialist centre for the mathematically and scientifically gifted. Therefore, Ainan would be among many gifted students - who are more than twice his age. That should be an interesting experience. I hope it is a good one, and that they welcome him. We will see.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and three months, a scientific child prodigy, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, thirteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, IQ, intelligence, child genius, adult genius, baby genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)