gender equality in education singapore

Download entire report as .pdf

Download sections of report as .pdf.

Globally, some progress on women’s rights has been achieved. In Singapore, 0.1% of women aged 20–24 years old who were married or in a union before age 18. The adolescent birth rate is 2.1 per 1,000 women aged 15–19 as of 2019, down from 2.5 per 1,000 in 2018. As of February 2021, 29.5% of seats in parliament were held by women.

However, work still needs to be done in Singapore to achieve gender equality. In 2018, 2.4% of women aged 15-49 years reported that they had been subject to physical and/or sexual violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months.

As of december 2020, only 36.9% of indicators needed to monitor the SDGs from a gender perspective were available, with gaps in key areas, in particular: unpaid care and domestic work and key labour market indicators, such as the gender pay gap. In addition, many areas – such as gender and poverty, physical and sexual harassment, women’s access to assets (including land), and gender and the environment – lack comparable methodologies for reguar monitoring. Closing these gender data gaps is essential for achieving gender-related SDG commitments in Singapore.

Gender data gaps and country performance

For this score, we use the 72 gender-specific SDG indicators in the Women Count Data Hub’s SDG Dashboard for the 193 UN Member States. For each indicator, we calculate the 33rd and 66th percentiles of the distribution and, based on those two values, countries are classified as belonging to high performance, medium performance and low performance categories. For more details, see the methodological note and the article “We now have more gender-related SDG data than ever, but is it enough?”

• Low performance
• Medium performance
• High performance
• Missing data

Country score - Singapore

Average region score - asia, inclusive development, shared prosperity and decent work, 1.1.1 employed population below international poverty line. age 15+., 1.3.1 proportion of population above statutory pensionable age receiving a pension., 8.5.2 unemployment rate. age 15+., social protection, poverty and freedom from violence, stigma & stereotypes, 1.3.1 proportion of mothers with newborns receiving maternity cash benefit., 2.1.2 prevalence of severe food insecurity in the adult population (%)., 3.1.1 maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births)., 3.7.2 adolescent birth rate (per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years)., literacy rate, age 15+., rate of out of school children. primary and lower secondary education., 5.2.1 proportion of ever-partnered women and girls subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months. age 15-49., 5.3.1 proportion of women aged 20-24 years who were married or in a union before age 18 (%), before age 15. before age 18., 5.4.1 proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic chores and care work. all locations., political participation, accountability and gender-responsive institutions, 5.1.1 legal frameworks that promote, enforce and monitor gender equality (percentage of achievement, 0 - 100), area 1: overarching legal frameworks and public life, area 2: violence against women, area 3: employment and economic benefits, area 4: marriage and family, proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (% of total number of seats), proportion of elected seats held by women in deliberative bodies of local government, proportion of women in managerial positions, proportion of women in senior and middle management positions, 5.c.1 proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women's empowerment., environmental, environmental conservation, protection and rehabilitation, 3.9.1 age-standardized mortality rate attributed to household air pollution (deaths per 100,000 population)., 6.1.1 proportion of population using safely managed drinking water services, by urban/rural., 7.1.2 proportion of population with primary reliance on clean fuels and technology., gender-specific indicators.

Women’s rights: why Singapore wants to change the way we think about gender equality

• In a bold new approach to women’s rights the city state wants to ‘re-tune’ the mindsets of a new generation so ‘every girl and boy imbibes gender equality’
• Why now, what took so long, and what should be done while we wait for enlightened young minds to grow up?

The announcement was lauded by women’s rights advocates in the country of 5.7 million. The NGO Aware, which has been in operation for 35 years and was formerly known as the Association of Women for Action and Research, said it was “most exciting” that there was an “approach to review the underlying values and cultural mindset towards women and gender equality, instead of looking only at issues in the short-term”. It suggested gender equality be enshrined in the constitution and urged reviewers to look at all issues, not just those that “only affect privileged women”.

Soon, other activists also announced their wish lists. Those ran the gamut from fixing the gender pay gap and ageism towards to women, to having more women on boards, legislating against gender discrimination, improving sex education, promoting gender-neutral language and even requiring women to do national service like the men (who must do two years).

Wong, who is also an adviser at the S.R. Nathan School of Human Development at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, said inequality in Singapore was mostly behind closed doors.

“It’s in more personal and private spheres, in the home, in your relationship with your husband, with your relatives and so on, that traditional norms, values and expectations still exist,” she said.

Wong Jia Yun is the chairperson of Young Women’s Leadership Connection (YWLC), a community organisation under the network of statutory board People’s Association. She said there were certain cultural values that shaped society’s expectations of women in Asian societies.

Wong, a regional business development manager at Visa, asked: “Why do words like ‘ambition’ and ‘aggressiveness’ take on unnecessarily negative connotations for women in certain contexts?”

ONE MAN’S VIEW

This review was announced by K Shanmugam, a cabinet minister wearing the dual hats of Home Affairs and Law. He has fronted the implementation of controversial policies including a fake news law but is also a known advocate for animal welfare and women’s rights. Last year, he moved amendments to the Penal Code to remove marital immunity for rape and to the Protection from Harassment Act to ensure intimate but unmarried partners could also get protection orders. He also often weighs in on pet adoption issues.

Having Shanmugam announce the review and spell out the philosophy behind it, said Aware president Margaret Thomas, meant “you’re laying the foundation for all the little changes that are needed in government policy”.

“Over the years, he has been hawkish in some areas but on women’s issues, he is wonderfully supportive,” she said.

The minister told This Week in Asia he wanted to look beyond the matrices of women’s access to education, health care, legal protection, or how well they do in jobs. “I wanted to go further and say, if we start in schools, it would become something deeply ingrained in the mindset of young boys and girls, right from a very early age, that this is one of the fundamentals like filial piety – there are number of things that you accept as basic,” he said.

“It is only right. Women form half the population, they have as much right as anybody else and that has to be recognised in a significant way. It’s basic, but it’s just the right thing to do.”

The minister said it was a string of voyeurism cases that had got him thinking about how the problem could be fixed beyond stiffening penalties. “I felt that we can go further and not just look at increasing penalties, but can we intervene to change mindsets? That means intervening when they‘re three, four, or five years old, preschool, primary school, so that they understand.”

The minister was referring to a spate of offences against women that outraged the Singapore public recently, as the sentences the male perpetrators received were seen as too lenient.

Last year, National University of Singapore (NUS) student Monica Baey became a household name when she sparked a national debate on sexual harassment. She had been filmed in the shower by fellow student Nicholas Lim, and felt he got away too lightly when he received a conditional warning from the police and a one semester suspension from the university. She aired her frustrations on Instagram Stories to draw attention to how NUS handled cases of sexual misconduct.

In July, news that dentistry student Yin Zi Qin – who broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house and tried to strangle her and pressed his thumb against her eye – was handed community-based sentences and a school suspension sparked public outrage. The judge had thought Yin was not at high risk of reoffending and cited his youth, rehabilitative prospects and lack of previous convictions as reasons for community based-sentences rather than a jail term.

The dentistry student case drew a rare press release from the PAP’s Women’s Wing, who said they were “dismayed that the sentence appears disproportionate to the offence” and that they had taken their concerns to Shanmugam.

Said Shanmugam: “There is a fundamental problem, the solution must be a fundamental change in psyche.”

He said this could be done through the education system, though he declined to go into specifics, saying he was not an education expert and that it would tie the hands of the committee of three female lawmakers – Minister of State Low Yen Ling and Sun Xueling and Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu Mahzam – tasked with the review.

Their review will incorporate public feedback and culminate in a white paper of recommendations to Parliament, that will serve as a road map for progress towards a gender equal Singapore.

“You start working backwards from the principle that has been set and say how are we going to achieve it, what is necessary? I think certainly the way schools operate would be a part, I would assume of the solution,” he said.

“How you interact with girls, how you interact with boys, what you tell them about their possibilities, how boys should treat girls – those are all things that society as a whole has to impart. It also starts with the family, don‘t underestimate the family responsibility.”

What Shanmugam would say was that the committee could look at the representation of women on corporate boards and listed companies – the top 100 companies listed on the Singapore Exchange had women forming 7.5 per cent of boards in 2013, then 16.2 per cent last year – and how to help balance the caregiving duties at home.

In comparison, a Reuters poll found that about one-fifth of Japanese companies had no women managers and at most women accounted for less than 10 per cent of management.

Women canvassed by This Week in Asia questioned the timing of the review even as they praised it. Michelle Ho, assistant professor of feminist and queer cultural studies at NUS, said “many non-profit and non-governmental organisations like Aware” had long called for more attention on gender issues but the review was being led by the government and was not in collaboration with these organisations.

After Baey’s case came to light, students who felt there was a glaring lack of support for victims of sexual misconduct started a group called Students for a Safer NUS. It has since grown to 40 students and has helped the university’s newly launched victim care unit with their survey on sexual misconduct and safety on campus.

The student community also provides support to students through a hotline and use their social media platforms to educate students on sexual misconduct and violence.

But Thomas said she chose to hope that “the review and the white paper will be the definitive step forward that we’ve been waiting for decades”.

Added Constance Singam, who joined Aware in 1986 and served as its president for three terms: “It is always good that people are looking at these issues which have plagued us, not just as women, but as society for so long.”

Singam, like other women This Week in Asia spoke to, cited the improvements in women’s rights that Singapore had made through the decades. All mentioned the Women’s Charter, that was passed in 1961 and made men and women equal in marriages and banned polygamy for non-Muslims. Thomas called it “progressive” and sociologist Aline Wong said it was not like things stalled after the Women’s Charter. Singam added she was grateful for the opportunity for education and employment.

Wong said many unequal measures had been “righted” over the past few decades. She cited how the government had removed the one-third quota on women in medical schools – although this quota was announced by the government in 1979, when as Thomas pointed out there was an all-men parliament with no woman to argue against it – allowed the overseas-born children of Singaporean women to get citizenship, and removed barriers to women’s participation in the labour force.

“It is not true when people say, ‘Finally’, or ‘At last’. All these decades we’ve been talking and doing,” said Wong, adding that since the 1990s when she was at the education ministry, she had asked officers to make sure school textbooks did not depict stereotypes of male and female occupations.

Copywriter Michael Cheng, 40, said he had only positive feelings about a move towards greater gender quality: “Folks in my office are very dear to me. If the review leads to changes that leaves the women better off, that works for me.”

One question that has emerged is whether there are political undertones to the review, with the ruling party seeking to showcase that its politicians can cater to a growing desire for diverse views in parliament.

While the PAP has consistently fielded women – 25 out of 93 candidates were female this year – women from the opposition had captured the public’s attention in the run-up to the polls, including the Workers’ Party’s He Ting Ru, a lawyer, and Raeesah Khan, an activist. Both women, who have young children, ended up entering Parliament after winning seats in Sengkang, a constituency dominated by young families. A survey of more than 4,000 citizens above the age of 21 by the think tank Institute of Policy Studies after the election found the WP’s credibility among women of voting age had improved since the 2015 election.

Asked if politics was a motivating factor behind the review, Wong said: “You may not be wrong, but it is not very much a factor.”

She said the Women’s Wing always campaigned for change internally, not publicly, and thought its July statement was more in reaction to the series of cases than responding to political pressure.

But in reference to voters’ inclination for more political diversity in Parliament, leading to a record-high opposition presence this time round, Wong said: “Maybe within the next five years, the government must be seen to be more responsive to people’s demands and have diversity in representation, and go into various issues that previously were not so prominent.”

GENERATIONAL CHANGE

Shanmugam told This Week in Asia his aim was to “re-tune society as a whole from a young age” and he thought the results would take at least a generation to show.

But given that this inculcation of the fundamental value could take one to two generations, what happens in the meantime? For YWLC’s Wong, it comes down to a regular review of policy. “Till such values can be embedded consistently in everyone’s consciousness, there will still need to be a set of laws and policies – reviewed regularly – in place to cover that which is not covered by ‘good values’,” she said.

What was crucial for the review to work, said Aware and YWLC, was to take into account diverse voices. Aware listed “more marginalised groups, like transnational spouses, women from religious and ethnic minorities, women with disabilities, domestic workers and sex workers”.

YWLC’s Wong wanted the voices of minority women also to be represented. She said: “While women as a whole now have more platforms to champion gender equality and address other women’s issues, accessibility is not evenly spread out within the women population.”

Men, too, must be co-opted into this conversation. YWLC’s Wong said men must become allies at the workplace. “In some industries, for instance, being a man affords certain advantages intentionally or not, and it is important that men in these situations are aware of this privilege and do what they can to uplift others within reasonable boundaries.”

Women’s voices alone would not go far if the aim was to change social attitudes, added Aline Wong.

Shanmugam said the government would consult and take in a variety of viewpoints, but cautioned that not every request would be viable. “Both because of the nature of our country and the nature of our economy and the nature of our society, some things will be doable and some things will not be doable. And you then have to explain why we think certain things are not doable. It’s always a cost-benefit analysis, I don’t mean in money terms, but what is doable and not doable.”

California’s lion-dancing women reinvent a Chinese tradition

While the representation of women on listed companies’ boards is at only 16.2 per cent – because “it was always a boys‘ club”, said Trina Liang Lin, the past president of UN Women Singapore and Financial Women’s Association – Liang Lin and Aline Wong said women in Singapore were doing well professionally compared to Asian counterparts who may have more women on boards.

Liang Lin and Wong said the women on boards in other Asian countries tended to be there because they were members of the family owning the company, but in Singapore they tended to be senior professionals well known in their fields.

Liang Lin, also the managing director of Templebridge Investments, said she saw many women starting businesses now. “And you’re going to see many more with the dearth of jobs or internships. The low interest rate environment could make entrepreneurship a more viable option,” she said.

Singam, who hoped the review would also cover the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, said parents and teachers must buy in to equality as a value. “It is a revolutionary change in attitude, change in mindset, change in approach by the political leaders and policymakers – it’s a revolutionary way of thinking,” she said.

Stay at home mother-of-four Nur Ain Binte Hamid, 32, for example, said she struggled to get her son, 9, to help out for household chores or the kitchen duties because of perceived gender roles. “He keeps saying, ‘I’m a boy, I don’t have to do these things.’ I tell him, ‘Have you seen chefs who are men? Who says men cannot cook?”

And it is not just men’s attitudes that need to change. Thomas said: “For every Aware-type of person, there are maybe two, three, four, or five women who don’t agree, who are caught up in that kind of patriarchal thinking and contributing to its continuation, who are just not able to see why it is wrong.”

Liang Lin said advocates must reach out to those people who aren’t already proponents of gender equality. “There is already a strong chorus of voices for gender equality in Singapore. I tend to see the same faces at the same events. The issue is to identify and get to the segments of society who have not had a mindset change – not just if they are decision makers.”

If Singapore could pull off this societal transformation where gender equality becomes a fundamental value, Aline Wong said, it would be the first Asian society to do so. Even Chinese communism, which talked about women holding up half the sky, did not manage to get rid of patriarchal attitudes, she said.

Her hope for the review is for it to find a balance between equality and preserving Asian values. “I don’t say that Asian values mean the men must dominate. I think it‘s really a Yin and Yang relationship. You cannot just be equal, but it’s just really complementing, accommodating, finding a balance, finding harmony, so that everything works out without too much conflict.”

.css-1phnis3{display:inline;white-space:nowrap;} Singapore .css-531lza{display:inline-block;line-height:1em;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;color:currentColor;vertical-align:middle;width:var(--chakra-sizes-4);height:var(--chakra-sizes-6);margin-left:var(--chakra-space-4);}

Disparities

.css-1d7uxy9{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;vertical-align:top;cursor:pointer;position:relative;margin-right:var(--chakra-space-2);}.css-1d7uxy9:disabled,.css-1d7uxy9[disabled],.css-1d7uxy9[aria-disabled=true],.css-1d7uxy9[data-disabled]{cursor:not-allowed;} .css-r1w0cv{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;width:var(--chakra-sizes-4);height:var(--chakra-sizes-4);transition-property:box-shadow;transition-duration:var(--chakra-transition-duration-normal);border:2px solid;border-radius:var(--chakra-radii-full);border-color:inherit;color:var(--chakra-colors-white);pointer-events:none;}.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true],.css-r1w0cv[data-checked]{background:var(--chakra-colors-telegram-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-telegram-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true]:hover,.css-r1w0cv[data-checked]:hover,.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true][data-hover],.css-r1w0cv[data-checked][data-hover]{background:var(--chakra-colors-telegram-600);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-telegram-600);}.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true]:disabled,.css-r1w0cv[data-checked]:disabled,.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true][disabled],.css-r1w0cv[data-checked][disabled],.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true][aria-disabled=true],.css-r1w0cv[data-checked][aria-disabled=true],.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true][data-disabled],.css-r1w0cv[data-checked][data-disabled]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-500);}.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=true]::before,.css-r1w0cv[data-checked]::before{content:"";display:inline-block;position:relative;width:50%;height:50%;border-radius:50%;background:currentColor;}.css-r1w0cv:indeterminate,.css-r1w0cv[aria-checked=mixed],.css-r1w0cv[data-indeterminate]{background:var(--chakra-colors-telegram-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-telegram-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-r1w0cv:disabled,.css-r1w0cv[disabled],.css-r1w0cv[aria-disabled=true],.css-r1w0cv[data-disabled]{background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);}.css-r1w0cv:focus-visible,.css-r1w0cv[data-focus-visible]{box-shadow:var(--chakra-shadows-outline);}.css-r1w0cv[aria-invalid=true],.css-r1w0cv[data-invalid]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-red-500);} All

.css-k6fjkn{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;width:var(--chakra-sizes-4);height:var(--chakra-sizes-4);transition-property:box-shadow;transition-duration:var(--chakra-transition-duration-normal);border:2px solid;border-radius:var(--chakra-radii-full);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);border-color:#d65560;}.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true],.css-k6fjkn[data-checked]{background:var(--chakra-colors-cardinal-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-cardinal-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true]:hover,.css-k6fjkn[data-checked]:hover,.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true][data-hover],.css-k6fjkn[data-checked][data-hover]{background:var(--chakra-colors-cardinal-600);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-cardinal-600);}.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true]:disabled,.css-k6fjkn[data-checked]:disabled,.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true][disabled],.css-k6fjkn[data-checked][disabled],.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true][aria-disabled=true],.css-k6fjkn[data-checked][aria-disabled=true],.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true][data-disabled],.css-k6fjkn[data-checked][data-disabled]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-500);}.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=true]::before,.css-k6fjkn[data-checked]::before{content:"";display:inline-block;position:relative;width:50%;height:50%;border-radius:50%;background:currentcolor;}.css-k6fjkn:indeterminate,.css-k6fjkn[aria-checked=mixed],.css-k6fjkn[data-indeterminate]{background:var(--chakra-colors-cardinal-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-cardinal-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-k6fjkn:disabled,.css-k6fjkn[disabled],.css-k6fjkn[aria-disabled=true],.css-k6fjkn[data-disabled]{background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);}.css-k6fjkn:focus-visible,.css-k6fjkn[data-focus-visible]{box-shadow:var(--chakra-shadows-outline);}.css-k6fjkn[aria-invalid=true],.css-k6fjkn[data-invalid]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-red-500);} gender, .css-163y35i{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;width:var(--chakra-sizes-4);height:var(--chakra-sizes-4);transition-property:box-shadow;transition-duration:var(--chakra-transition-duration-normal);border:2px solid;border-radius:var(--chakra-radii-full);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);border-color:#d36900;}.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true],.css-163y35i[data-checked]{background:var(--chakra-colors-deepsaffron-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-deepsaffron-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true]:hover,.css-163y35i[data-checked]:hover,.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true][data-hover],.css-163y35i[data-checked][data-hover]{background:var(--chakra-colors-deepsaffron-600);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-deepsaffron-600);}.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true]:disabled,.css-163y35i[data-checked]:disabled,.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true][disabled],.css-163y35i[data-checked][disabled],.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true][aria-disabled=true],.css-163y35i[data-checked][aria-disabled=true],.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true][data-disabled],.css-163y35i[data-checked][data-disabled]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-500);}.css-163y35i[aria-checked=true]::before,.css-163y35i[data-checked]::before{content:"";display:inline-block;position:relative;width:50%;height:50%;border-radius:50%;background:currentcolor;}.css-163y35i:indeterminate,.css-163y35i[aria-checked=mixed],.css-163y35i[data-indeterminate]{background:var(--chakra-colors-deepsaffron-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-deepsaffron-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-163y35i:disabled,.css-163y35i[disabled],.css-163y35i[aria-disabled=true],.css-163y35i[data-disabled]{background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);}.css-163y35i:focus-visible,.css-163y35i[data-focus-visible]{box-shadow:var(--chakra-shadows-outline);}.css-163y35i[aria-invalid=true],.css-163y35i[data-invalid]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-red-500);} location, .css-10mhy94{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;width:var(--chakra-sizes-4);height:var(--chakra-sizes-4);transition-property:box-shadow;transition-duration:var(--chakra-transition-duration-normal);border:2px solid;border-radius:var(--chakra-radii-full);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);border-color:#70ad1a;}.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true],.css-10mhy94[data-checked]{background:var(--chakra-colors-yellowgreen-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-yellowgreen-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true]:hover,.css-10mhy94[data-checked]:hover,.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true][data-hover],.css-10mhy94[data-checked][data-hover]{background:var(--chakra-colors-yellowgreen-600);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-yellowgreen-600);}.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true]:disabled,.css-10mhy94[data-checked]:disabled,.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true][disabled],.css-10mhy94[data-checked][disabled],.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true][aria-disabled=true],.css-10mhy94[data-checked][aria-disabled=true],.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true][data-disabled],.css-10mhy94[data-checked][data-disabled]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-500);}.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=true]::before,.css-10mhy94[data-checked]::before{content:"";display:inline-block;position:relative;width:50%;height:50%;border-radius:50%;background:currentcolor;}.css-10mhy94:indeterminate,.css-10mhy94[aria-checked=mixed],.css-10mhy94[data-indeterminate]{background:var(--chakra-colors-yellowgreen-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-yellowgreen-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-10mhy94:disabled,.css-10mhy94[disabled],.css-10mhy94[aria-disabled=true],.css-10mhy94[data-disabled]{background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);}.css-10mhy94:focus-visible,.css-10mhy94[data-focus-visible]{box-shadow:var(--chakra-shadows-outline);}.css-10mhy94[aria-invalid=true],.css-10mhy94[data-invalid]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-red-500);} wealth, .css-mps4ru{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;width:var(--chakra-sizes-4);height:var(--chakra-sizes-4);transition-property:box-shadow;transition-duration:var(--chakra-transition-duration-normal);border:2px solid;border-radius:var(--chakra-radii-full);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);border-color:#ed43ac;}.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true],.css-mps4ru[data-checked]{background:var(--chakra-colors-magentadye-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-magentadye-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true]:hover,.css-mps4ru[data-checked]:hover,.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true][data-hover],.css-mps4ru[data-checked][data-hover]{background:var(--chakra-colors-magentadye-600);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-magentadye-600);}.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true]:disabled,.css-mps4ru[data-checked]:disabled,.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true][disabled],.css-mps4ru[data-checked][disabled],.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true][aria-disabled=true],.css-mps4ru[data-checked][aria-disabled=true],.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true][data-disabled],.css-mps4ru[data-checked][data-disabled]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-200);color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-500);}.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=true]::before,.css-mps4ru[data-checked]::before{content:"";display:inline-block;position:relative;width:50%;height:50%;border-radius:50%;background:currentcolor;}.css-mps4ru:indeterminate,.css-mps4ru[aria-checked=mixed],.css-mps4ru[data-indeterminate]{background:var(--chakra-colors-magentadye-500);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-magentadye-500);color:var(--chakra-colors-white);}.css-mps4ru:disabled,.css-mps4ru[disabled],.css-mps4ru[aria-disabled=true],.css-mps4ru[data-disabled]{background:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);border-color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-100);}.css-mps4ru:focus-visible,.css-mps4ru[data-focus-visible]{box-shadow:var(--chakra-shadows-outline);}.css-mps4ru[aria-invalid=true],.css-mps4ru[data-invalid]{border-color:var(--chakra-colors-red-500);} speaks language at home.

GEM Report Home

Terms and Conditions

Government agencies communicate via .gov.sg websites (e.g. go.gov.sg/open) . Trusted website s

Look for a lock ( ) or https:// as an added precaution. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Gender Equality

What is Read to be SURE?

Is there more to the World Cup than football?

Higher Education

Work Revolution

RTBS Debate: Metaverse – A Welcome Possibility or Unrealistic Utopia?

Perspectives / Poll / Evacomics / Recommended Resources

Today, over 70% of women in Singapore agree that gender discrimination exists in the workplace. However, men face challenges too. Locally, male pre-school teachers make up only 1% of the total pool of early childhood educators .

How much do you know about gender equality? Test your knowledge in the video below.

Can you do better? Try the Gender Equality Quiz now!

So, can gender equality be achieved in Singapore?

[ Back to top ]

Gender discrimination affects both men and women

In Singapore, women earned 4.3 percent less than men in 2020. Women also face various types of physical, sexual, and online harm. A 2021 survey showed that 2 in 5 workers encountered some form of workplace sexual harassment in the preceding five years. Such harassment has extended to the online space as well, with 163 new cases of technology-facilitated sexual violence against women reported in 2021.

Women in the modern economy cope with a “triple shift”: apart from work, there is raising kids and caring for elderly parents. A Mckinsey study found that the ‘double shift’ of housework and childcare on top of work is increasing for women and mothers are three times as likely as fathers to do most of the housework and caregiving. Locally, we have higher labour-force participation rates from women and Singapore’s full-time female employment rate has been rising steadily over the past 10 years, but women still bear the bulk of the caregiving burden , at the expense of their careers, income and savings.

In female-dominated fields like nursing, male nurses face stigma , while female nurses still struggle with a gender pay gap even though they make up the majority of staff.

Stay-at-home fathers in Singapore face stigma. Family policies in Singapore continue to signal that childcare is a woman’s responsibility and reinforce gender stereotypes.

Let’s hear our guest speakers weigh in on this issue:

Poll: Your views matter!

If you are unable to view the embedded form below, please click here .

What does gender equality look like to you? Join the discussion in Evangeline’s Instagram and Facebook now!

Here are some experiences shared by others:

Recommended Resources

Explore the resources below to find out more about gender equality.

CNA. (2022, March). Gender Equality Starts at Home: Masagos Zulkifli. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

CNA Insider. (2022, March). Women in Asia Defy Norms In Gender Equality Strive. CNA Correspondent. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

TEDx Talks. (2022, June 28). Risks of the Gender Equality Business Case . Pascal Kornfuehrer . TEDxIntlSchoolDüsseldorfWomen . Retrieved 2022, July 27.

Harvard Business Review. (2019, September 24). When Will We Reach Gender Equality? Retrieved 2022, July 27.

TEDx Talks. (2019, September 13). Why Gender Equality is Not Just About Women . Caroline Strachan . TEDxFolkestone. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

Global Gender Gap Narrowing, But Still 132 Years to Reach Parity Global Gender Gap Narrowing, But Still 132 Years to Reach Parity. (2022, July). International Women’s Day. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

Ten Things to Know About Gender Equality Krishnan, Mekala, et al. (2020, September 21). Ten Things to Know About Gender Equality. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

Commentary: What’s Behind Varying Attitudes About Gender Equality in Singapore Mathews, Matthew. (2021, October 3). Commentary: What’s Behind Varying Attitudes About Gender Equality in Singapore. Institute of Policy Studies. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

Sexual Violence in Singapore: A Crisis Sexual Violence in Singapore: A Crisis. (2021, September 8). Kontinentalist. Retrieved 2022, August 10.

Reviewing Essential Feminist Book Titles with Amanda Chong Something Private. (2022, February 17). Reviewing Essential Feminist Book Titles with Amanda Chong. Retrieved 2022, August 10.

Episode 18: Dismantling Patriarchy – Close Encounters and Imperfect Strategies Batliwala, Srilatha, et al. (2021, August 11). Episode 18: Dismantling Patriarchy – Close Encounters and Imperfect Strategies. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

Breaking Bias to Build a More Gender-Equal World Lagarde, Christine, & Shafik, Minouche. (2022, March 5). Breaking Bias to Build a More Gender-Equal World. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

How COVID Deepened Gender Inequality Radio Davos. (2021, March 31). How COVID Deepened Gender Inequality. Retrieved 2022, July 27.

YWLChats Young Women’s Leadership Connection. (2022). YWLChats playlist. Retrieved 2022, August 22.

Dealing with two paradoxes of Singapore's education system

Advertisement.

There is no contradiction between meritocracy and fairness, nor reducing inequality and raising Singapore’s collective standards, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said on Wednesday (July 11), adding that this is why the Republic should continue its efforts to uplift those at the bottom. Speaking in Parliament during a debate on a motion on "Education for our future", he added that it is important for Singaporeans to have broad agreement around these fundamentals in developing an education system to better prepare children for the future. Below is an excerpt of his speech.

Mr Ong Ye Kung says there are so many opinions on education because it is close to Singaporeans' hearts and it affects the closest people in our lives – our children.

Ong Ye Kung

There is no contradiction between meritocracy and fairness, nor reducing inequality and raising Singapore’s collective standards, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said on Wednesday (July 11), adding that this is why the Republic should continue its efforts to uplift those at the bottom.

Speaking in Parliament during a debate on a motion on "Education for our future", he added that it is important for Singaporeans to have broad agreement around these fundamentals in developing an education system to better prepare children for the future. Below is an excerpt of his speech. 

Last week, Mr David Brooks (New York Times columnitst) wrote a piece called ‘The paradox of the gender divide’.

He observed that in the Nordic countries, where gender equality is the highest, many women exercise their choice and opt out of the corporate rat race.

So, the greater the gender equality, the fewer the number of female corporate managers. And that’s a paradox.

In education, we encounter similar paradoxes too. There are at least two. The first paradox is that of meritocracy.

Meritocracy recognises talent and ability, over wealth and circumstances of birth. It motivates society to work hard, it encourages us to develop our talents, and put our talents and strengths to good use.

This approach has uplifted many families over the decades. Many members of the House have benefited from this approach and this philosophy.

And as families do well, they believe in meritocracy and therefore, they spare no effort investing in the next generation, including enrichment classes from a very young age.

Hence, children today from more affluent families are now doing better that those from lower income families in school.

Unlike the first generation of Singaporeans where students are mostly from humble backgrounds, the next generation is pushing off blocks from different starting points, with students from affluent families having a head start.

So, meritocracy, arising from a belief in fairness, seems to have paradoxically resulted in systemic unfairness. And that’s a question we all ask ourselves.

There’s a second paradox and that is of inequality. When I was young, most of my classmates, including myself, we were all from humble backgrounds.

So, just by the sheer law of probability, some of us ended up as top performers in schools. But that’s sheer law of probability.

Today, the percentage of students from similar backgrounds are much smaller, and it continues to shrink.

Ten years ago, about 20 per cent of our employed households had an income of S$3,000 or less, at $2017. Today, that has gone down to well below 15 per cent, and I think it will continue to shrink as we continue to uplift families.

So, this is a happy outcome. But as we successfully uplift more poor families, the smaller group of families that remain poor are facing increasingly difficult challenges.

Their challenges are also translated to their children’s performances in school.

So, as we uplift poor families, the greater the achievement gap between the rich and poor in school. And that’s the second paradox.

As we confront these paradoxes, we question if our policies and approaches have run their course, and perhaps it is time to slaughter some sacred cows and take a fundamentally different approach.

It depends on which cows you are thinking of slaughtering. For some, ‘maybe’, for some the answer is ‘no’.

Paradoxes make us think hard about our challenges and our choices. But we can resolve these apparent contradictions.

You take the gender divide debate in Nordic countries. They provided more equal opportunities to men and women, but women chose not to be like men, and so there is no contradiction in both greater equality and fewer female corporate managers.

NEVER LOSE FAITH IN MERITOCRACY 

How do we deal with the two paradoxes I mentioned – that of meritocracy and that of achievement gap? Let’s start with meritocracy, which is in danger recently of becoming a dirty word.

A couple of education-related controversies arose in the US recently. The first was a law suit was filed against University of Harvard for systemic bias against Asians over the years.

It was alleged that Asians who tend to score highest in the admission tests for Harvard, they were marked down by the University on soft criteria, such as personality.

So, it’s not just Singaporeans who are ‘kiasu’ and study a lot. Asians overseas, in the US, they too study very well and aced their exams. Apparently, Harvard did this to preserve ethnic diversity in the University.

The second controversy was the mayor of New York recently suggested to scrap the highly competitive admission examinations for eight of the city’s specialised public high schools.

Sixty two per cent of the students in these schools are Asians, who tend to perform well in these examinations. So, this move by the mayor of New York will reduce the number of Asians, and increase the number of black and Hispanic students being admitted into the high schools.

Some ideas that we have come across in recent weeks – not in this House – but what we read are along the lines of what the US schools are doing.

There was a suggestion that we set a quota for low income students in popular schools. I am not in a position to comment on the admission policies for US schools.

But Singapore’s circumstances are different and unique, and we cannot assume that we will have to eventually do what other countries like the US have done.

Many of our popular schools are already making extra efforts to attract eligible students from low income families, encouraging diversity amongst the students and mingling of students from different backgrounds.

And we should encourage them to do more and try even harder.

But setting a quota sends the wrong signal. I don’t think it is aligned to our societal ethos. And it can even be seen as patronising.

Another common suggestion that was raised is to scrap the PSLE, one of the sacred cows.

I will admit that PSLE is far from a perfect system and it does add stress, a lot of stress sometimes, to some parents and students, and the Minister too.

But it happens also to be the most meritocratic, and probably the most fair of all imperfect systems.

If we scrap it, whatever we replace it with to decide on secondary school postings, I think is likely to be worse.

I came across two alternate systems recently. The Swiss – I was in Switzerland last month – do not have the equivalent of PSLE.

But neither do students have a choice on what secondary school to go to or to work towards to go to – they are simply assigned to the school nearest to their homes.

I visited one of these schools and spoke to the students, and they all go home for lunch, because they say it’s 10 minutes’ walk, five minutes’ walk, different directions, and they come back to school.

They didn’t have a choice where to go to. However, in Switzerland, the affluent have a choice, because they can pay for their children to attend private schools.

And in Switzerland, 7 per cent of students attend private schools today.

(There is) another system in Hong Kong, which I visited earlier this year.

Some years ago, they did away with its equivalent of PSLE. But in its place, Hong Kong uses the school examination scores in Primary 5 and 6 to decide on secondary school postings.

Because the primary schools have different standards, they devised a tool to harmonise and normalise the scores. So the stress is somewhat transferred upstream.

And like the Swiss, there is also a thriving private school sector in Hong Kong, which accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the student intake.

The Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC), a self-help group, has a Supervised Homework Group programme.

Here, young volunteers spend several hours a week tutoring and helping students from low income families with their homework.

On the surface, this is to help them with their homework, but the unspoken objective is for the volunteers to act as role models for the kids.

I thought the volunteers would be a very suitable group who should have their opinion heard, and so I asked if they think PSLE should be scrapped.

They have no vested interests, have gone through the education system themselves, and they are now helping poor students cope with schoolwork.

So, I thought, let’s hear their opinions. On the education system as a whole, they have many different views, but on PSLE, the great majority disagreed with scrapping it.

Why? The common reason they cited was that they felt that PSLE can in fact motivate these poorer students to work hard, and there are resources to support poorer students.

One expressed frankly that we can complain that PSLE favours the rich, but the rich are better poised to prepare their children in whatever alternate system that is in place.

They said support the weaker students more, but don’t take away PSLE.

So, I think it’s not a straightforward matter. This sacred cow survived for some very valid reasons.

But what I think we need to do, we must do, is to reduce the stakes of this examination.

Make it a less a do or die examination that is so important as if it will determine your whole life, which it doesn’t.

And there must be many other ways that we can do this, to reduce the stake of this examination.

One way I always talk about is to ensure a broader definition of merit.

One that does not focus too narrowly on past academic scores, but recognises a broad meritocracy of skills, given the various strengths and talents of our people. That, at the core, is the objective of SkillsFuture.

That is why pedagogy is changing in schools. It is more experiential, more applied and more exploratory.

There are many more pathways in the higher education sector, leading into lifelong learning.

We can’t change the fact that the starting points of each child is different, but our system can ensure that all of them can run a good race and finish well.

LIFTING THE BOTTOM

Now let’s talk about the second paradox, which is that of the achievement gap.

The easiest way to close the gap is to actually cap the top. Some of the suggestions raised in public, such as banning tuition and enrichment classes, redistributing resources from popular to less popular schools, are pointing in that direction.

Excessive tuition to the point of causing undue stress and killing the joy of learning is not good for the child.

But I don’t think capping achievements and limiting opportunities is the right approach either. It runs against a very fundamental philosophy of our education system.

As the educators in MOE will say in Chinese – 保底不封顶 – don’t cap the top, uplift the bottom.

Indeed, a good proportion – about 7.5 per cent – of students who live in one to three-room HDB flats emerge as top PSLE performers every year.

And there are many others with great non-academic strengths and talents and we must continue to strive to help them develop their strengths to the fullest.

MOE’s resourcing of schools reflect this approach.

The highest level of funding, about S$24,000 per student goes to the Specialised Schools – Crest Secondary School, Spectra Secondary School, NorthLight School and Assumption Pathway School.

The next highest levels of resourcing, about S$20,000 and S$15,000 per student, goes to Normal (Technical) and Normal (Academic) streams respectively.

A student in other courses in Government and Government Aided schools, and in Independent Schools, attracts under S$15,000 of resources per student.

In addition, MOE regularly rotates and ensures that our good performing teachers and principals are well spread across different types of schools.

Beyond resourcing of schools, further assistance is granted to students from lower income households.  They come in the form of financial assistance schemes, bursaries, school meal programmes, and the Opportunity Fund.

The Public Service Commission (PSC) also reaches out to students from different schools, in a quest for diversity amongst Government scholars.

It has been paying special attention to applicants from lower income families.

Students from two JCs – RI and Hwa Chong – used to dominate the scholarships awards. But the situation is improving.

In 2007, over 80 per cent of PSC scholars were from these two JCs. In 2017, the percentage has come down to 60 per cent.

The PSC is also adjusting its interview techniques.

They recognise that students from poorer backgrounds tend to be less articulate, so the Commission is assessing candidates beyond their communication skills, but instead looking at the substance of what they say, their ideas and thinking.

As a result, we continue to see President’s Scholars who come from humble backgrounds or outside of the most popular JCs.

In 2016, LTA Natasha Ann Lum Mei Seem became the first President’s and SAF Scholar from Pioneer JC. She is now studying in the US and she is an AirForce C3 Officer.

At last year’s President’s Scholar award ceremony, I sat next to Mr Lee Tat Wei and his parents. His father is a taxi driver and his mother is a part-time sales assistant. Tat Wei is also studying in the US and will be joining the Foreign Service.

MORE OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE FOR ALL

Our approach of lifting the bottom has other significant outcomes.

First, what we used to regard as opportunities only available to students from more affluent backgrounds are now broadly accessible.

For example, most schools now organise overseas learning experiences.

Schools are offering a wide variety of CCAs – Tanglin Secondary School has fencing as a CCA, Kent Ridge Secondary School offers sailing, North Vista Secondary offers string ensemble and NorthLight School has for many years run an equestrian programme.

The Junior Sports Academy (JSA) is another example. It is a two-year free sports development programme for talented and interested P4 and P5 students.

The Academy does not scout for high performing sportsmen and sportswomen.

They look for raw diamonds – students with good motor skills and hand-eye coordination abilities, and then help them develop their sporting skills through professional coaching.

Since 2017, we have doubled the capacity of the Programme to about 800 a year.

Some students from the Programme have gone on to gain places in secondary schools through the Direct School Admission system and they did not have to go to those expensive coaches with high rates.

It’s done by the JSA, free of charge. MOE is now in the initial stages of developing a similar programme for the Arts.

It is a good example of the alternate system we discussed and what will happen if we don’t have the PSLE.

You have an alternate system, DSA is an alternate system.

Mr (Ganesh) Rajaram has accurately pointed out that the affluent, they always have a way, whatever system it is, to make better use of it.

But in this case, that system also serves those from humble backgrounds and we are able to train them to enter the top and popular schools.

So, we ask ourselves, are we better off with or without this alternate system.

And I think we may well be better off having this system that enables students from humble backgrounds to enter popular schools, notwithstanding that affluent students will also be able to make use of it.

WHEN CLASS SIZE MATTERS

The second significant outcome is smaller class sizes for the weaker students.

The additional resources for Specialised Schools and students in Normal Streams come partly in the form of additional teaching resources.

In Crest Secondary School, Spectra Secondary School, NorthLight School and Assumption Pathway School, the typical class size is 20.

In lower primary, Learning Support Programmes are done in groups of 8 to 10.

Many Normal (Technical) classes are now taught in sizes of 20 or in a class size of 40, but with two teachers.

In many Junior Colleges, consultations between students and teachers are often one-to-one.

For sessions with an education and career guidance counsellor, students meet one-on-one or in small groups.

There is sometimes still the perception that students study in one class and it is of a certain size.

The reality, and the living experience of students, is that they now regularly move around and join different groups and there is no single class size.

Let me put MOE’s position on this straight: with good teachers, smaller class sizes help the students. Our teachers can attest to that through first-hand experience.

In fact, there was a suggestion by Ms Kuik Shiao-Yin to do a study. Actually, we are convinced. With good teachers, smaller class sizes help the students. It’s quite clear.

Why then is MOE cautious on the issue of class size? Because how it is implemented makes all the difference. Let me cite you the results of a few studies to illustrate this.

They are done in overseas context, but nevertheless these are scientific studies and we should take note of the results.

In 2009, Hong Kong did a Study on Small Class Teaching in Primary School.

It put about 700 classes through an experiment over three years, varying their class sizes along the way.

The study found that however they vary the class sizes, there were no significant differences on performances compared to the territory-wide averages.

What Hong Kong did find was that where an experimental school or class did significantly better, it was because the principal was more experienced, took an active role in developing the curriculum, developing the teachers, and involved parents in the education.

Those were the key drivers of better performances.

Another study was done by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel and results was published in their 2016 Annual Report.

Unlike the Hong Kong study, the Taub Center did not conduct an experiment.

They gathered a large volume of data on students’ results, and did a multivariate analysis on the key determinants of the results, with a specific focus to find out if class size made a difference.

The conclusion was in the first page of the report on the study, which said “No significant relationship was found between class size and achievement.”

However, the study did find that for learning of Hebrew, the larger the class size, the better the results!

The third study was done in 2011 by the Center for American Progress, and the results were particularly insightful and shed light on the results of the two studies I just cited.

The US study observed that smaller class sizes was a popular idea, but after tens of billions of dollars were spent across states, particularly in California and Florida, it did not affect results in a statistically significant way.

One reason was that in the US’ context, smaller class sizes meant hiring of many new teachers, who were inexperienced and yet to be effective in the classroom.

The report said “The evidence on class size indicates that smaller classes can, in some circumstances, improve student achievement if implemented in a focused way. But class size reduction policies generally take exactly the opposite approach by pursuing across the board reduction… (They are) also extremely expensive and represented wasted opportunities to make smarter educational investments.”

When I was in Finland earlier this year, I visited a secondary school, and Finland has a very good education system.

I asked the teachers for their opinion on class sizes.

They told me that different political parties in Finland and each one has a position on the issue of class size and they all have different class sizes.

And whoever is elected would then legislate that class size and put it into law.

The teachers said ‘We would rather not have that rigidity. Grant the school the teaching resources, and give them the flexibility to configure class sizes for different groups of students, for different subjects.’

This is what Singapore has been doing.

Let me summarise. Earlier generations of Singaporeans have worked very hard to uplift their lives, and education played a major role.

But success creates new problems. The doubts of many Singaporeans – whether meritocracy still works, whether inequality is worsening – are paradoxically the results of our policies succeeding and improving the lives of Singapore families.

That is why I said tackling inequality is unfinished business.

But I stress there is no contradiction between meritocracy and fairness, nor reducing inequality and raising our collective standards.

Instead, we should double up on meritocracy, by broadening its definition to embrace various talents and skills.

We should not cap achievement at the top, but try harder, work harder to lift the bottom.

I wanted to set out these fundamentals, because it is important to have broad agreement around them.

If we have, we are in a much better position to develop the education system to better prepare our children for the future.

As to what exactly we need to do in terms of programmes, initiatives and policy reviews, MOE will take in all the views and suggestions raised inside and outside of this House and consider them. Some we will implement, some we will take time to implement.

Others involve trade-offs and we may decide not to implement them for the time being.

The Speaker asked two questions – he asked what is the most important school you attend and who are the most important teachers.

And my answer is this: The most important school is family, the most important teacher are our parents.

Of course, it takes a village to raise a child, but the home, the parents, is one of the most important education experience all of us will have.

So, imagine if a family is a school, and parents are the teachers, it makes the job of MOE complicated.

Because between the parents and the child is a complex relationship.

As parents, we know that.

There are expectations, love, respect, hopes, fears, worries.

It’s a complex relationship and MOE is in the middle of it.

But it also means that being an educator is a great privilege, because you get to educate a child, which is the most cherished, valuable to the parents.

Mr Darryl David mentioned that being a teacher is unlike all other professions, unlike a lawyer or a pilot, where nobody questions you how you do your job.

But when it comes to teachers, parents will question, because parents too are the most important teachers to the child.

And it’s a complex relationship between a mother and child, father and child.

There are so many opinions on education because it is so close to our hearts because it affects the closest people in our lives – our children.

It also means discussions on education can be frustrating and sometimes end up in a stalemate.

Parents will say ‘MOE, you better change; MOE says ‘Parents need to change’. 

Sometimes, we point fingers at each other.

The children don’t say it, but they look at you and probably think – “you both better change.”

The truth is, we are all in this together, as partners to build a better future. I feel optimistic and hopeful, because through all the speeches made today, we may appear like we have different views, but I think underlying all that, there’s consensus on the direction ahead.

I don’t think we ever had such a strong chorus of voices in the House, emphasising on the importance of joy of learning and cautioning against excessive tuition and relentless chasing of academic results.

I believe this is a view that will reverberate beyond this Chamber.

MOE and all our partners, we will work together.

It’s not an easy job, but MOE with the resources, with the policy levers, we will be the initiator of the changes.

We can be the system integrator. Work together, bring about improvements and change.

All of us cannot fail the young people of Singapore, and we cannot fail our society.

Read more of the latest in

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.

Recent Searches

This browser is no longer supported.

We know it's a hassle to switch browsers but we want your experience with TODAY to be fast, secure and the best it can possibly be.

To continue, upgrade to a supported browser or, for the finest experience, download the mobile app.

Upgraded but still having issues? Contact us

My Feed has moved! Go to More > My Feed Go to Menu > More > My Feed to follow your favourite topics

• Society ›

Demographics

Industry-specific and extensively researched technical data (partially from exclusive partnerships). A paid subscription is required for full access.

Global Gender Gap score in educational attainment Singapore 2014-2023

Singapore's global gender gap score for educational attainment from 2014 to 2023.

To access all Premium Statistics, you need a paid Statista Account

• Immediate access to all statistics
• Incl. source references
• Download as PDF, XLS, PNG and PPT

Additional Information

Show sources information Show publisher information Use Ask Statista Research Service

2014 to 2023

there was no report for 2019

The Global Gender Gap Index measures the gap between men and women across four fundamental categories (subindexes): Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment. The index value ranges between 1 (parity) and 0 (imparity). Data prior to 2020 found in previous reports. Figures have been rounded.

Other statistics on the topic

• The global gender gap index 2023
• Total fertility rates APAC 2021, by country
• Adolescent fertility rate APAC 2020, by country
• Crude birth rate SEA 2023, by country

To download this statistic in XLS format you need a Statista Account

To download this statistic in PNG format you need a Statista Account

To download this statistic in PDF format you need a Statista Account

To download this statistic in PPT format you need a Statista Account

As a Premium user you get access to the detailed source references and background information about this statistic.

As a Premium user you get access to background information and details about the release of this statistic.

As soon as this statistic is updated, you will immediately be notified via e-mail.

… to incorporate the statistic into your presentation at any time.

You need at least a Starter Account to use this feature.

• Immediate access to statistics, forecasts & reports
• Usage and publication rights
• Download in various formats

* For commercial use only

Basic Account

• Free Statistics

Starter Account

• Premium Statistics

The statistic on this page is a Premium Statistic and is included in this account.

Professional Account

• Free + Premium Statistics
• Market Insights

1 All prices do not include sales tax. The account requires an annual contract and will renew after one year to the regular list price.

Statistics on " Women in the Asia-Pacific region "

• Average gender gap closed worldwide 2023, by region
• Number of years until gender gaps are closed worldwide 2023, by region
• Female population share APAC 2022, by country
• Number of male births per female births APAC 2021, by country
• GPI for primary school enrollment APAC 2018-2021, by country
• GPI for secondary school enrollment APAC 2018-2021, by country
• GPI for tertiary school enrollment APAC 2018-2022, by country
• Female primary school completion rate APAC 2022, by country
• Female lower secondary completion rate APAC 2019-2021, by country
• Female tertiary graduation ratio APAC 2019-2022, by country
• Female labor force participation rate APAC 2022, by country
• Female to male labor force participation rate APAC 2022, by country
• Female unemployment rate APAC 2021, by country or region
• Share of companies with female top managers APAC 2022, by country
• Share of parliament seats held by women APAC 2011-2020
• Share of ministerial positions held by women APAC 2008-2020
• Crude birth rate East Asia 2023, by country
• Crude birth rate South Asia 2023, by country
• Mean age of first-time mothers APAC 2015-2020, by country
• Female life expectancy East Asia 2022, by country
• Female life expectancy SEA 2022, by country
• Female life expectancy South Asia 2022, by country

Other statistics that may interest you Women in the Asia-Pacific region

• Basic Statistic The global gender gap index 2023
• Basic Statistic Average gender gap closed worldwide 2023, by region
• Basic Statistic Number of years until gender gaps are closed worldwide 2023, by region
• Premium Statistic Female population share APAC 2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Number of male births per female births APAC 2021, by country
• Premium Statistic GPI for primary school enrollment APAC 2018-2021, by country
• Premium Statistic GPI for secondary school enrollment APAC 2018-2021, by country
• Premium Statistic GPI for tertiary school enrollment APAC 2018-2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Female primary school completion rate APAC 2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Female lower secondary completion rate APAC 2019-2021, by country
• Premium Statistic Female tertiary graduation ratio APAC 2019-2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Female labor force participation rate APAC 2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Female to male labor force participation rate APAC 2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Female unemployment rate APAC 2021, by country or region
• Premium Statistic Share of companies with female top managers APAC 2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Share of parliament seats held by women APAC 2011-2020
• Premium Statistic Share of ministerial positions held by women APAC 2008-2020
• Premium Statistic Total fertility rates APAC 2021, by country
• Premium Statistic Adolescent fertility rate APAC 2020, by country
• Premium Statistic Crude birth rate East Asia 2023, by country
• Premium Statistic Crude birth rate SEA 2023, by country
• Premium Statistic Crude birth rate South Asia 2023, by country
• Premium Statistic Mean age of first-time mothers APAC 2015-2020, by country

Life expectancy

• Premium Statistic Female life expectancy East Asia 2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Female life expectancy SEA 2022, by country
• Premium Statistic Female life expectancy South Asia 2022, by country

Further related statistics

• Premium Statistic Alpine skiing participation in U.S. high schools 2010-2022, by gender
• Basic Statistic Hours per day spent on leisure and sports in the U.S. by level of education 2009-2022
• Basic Statistic Mobile internet use via laptops in Great Britain 2019, by demographic
• Basic Statistic Employment to population ratio in 2012, by region and gender
• Premium Statistic Ratio of private to total health expenditure in Southeast Asian countries 2007

Further Content: You might find this interesting as well

• Alpine skiing participation in U.S. high schools 2010-2022, by gender
• Hours per day spent on leisure and sports in the U.S. by level of education 2009-2022
• Mobile internet use via laptops in Great Britain 2019, by demographic
• Employment to population ratio in 2012, by region and gender
• Ratio of private to total health expenditure in Southeast Asian countries 2007

• Sustainability
• Latest News
• News Reports
• Documentaries & Shows
• TV Schedule
• CNA938 Live
• Radio Schedule
• Singapore Parliament
• Mental Health
• Interactives
• Entertainment
• Style & Beauty
• Experiences
• Remarkable Living
• Send us a news tip
• Events & Partnerships
• Business Blueprint
• Health Matters
• The Asian Traveller

Trending Topics

Follow our news, recent searches.

Commentary commentary

Commentary: Can education fix inequality in Singapore? If not, what can?

Advertisement.

commentary Commentary

As a mature, high-income and slow-growing economy, Singapore cannot expect rapid growth to mask the economic effects and social challenges of rising inequality, says Linda Lim and Pang Eng Fong.

A family walking in Singapore. (Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)

SINGAPORE: Combating inequality has been declared a “national priority” in Singapore. 

This makes sense, given the pernicious effects that persistently high inequality can have on economic growth, political stability, social cohesion, quality of life, and even national security.

The 2016 Brexit and Trump votes occurred in the two major developed countries with the greatest income inequality — the UK and US respectively. Studies suggest that socio-cultural as well as economic divides resulting from inequality contributed to these electoral results, which have since led to populist and protectionist policy proposals that will slow growth in the long run.

Inequality itself also directly lowers economic growth through under-realisation of scarce talent, and weaker consumption demand — both are of particular concern to Singapore given our small labour force and market size. 

As an already mature, high-income and thus slow-growing economy, we can also no longer expect rapid growth to mask the economic effects and social challenges of rising inequality, as it did in previous decades.

Instead we need to boldly confront the root causes of inequality, which lie in how our economic and social institutions actually work. Focusing on education policy as the main solution can actually worsen inequality.

HOW DOES EDUCATION CONTRIBUTE TO INEQUALITY?

In developed economies like the UK, US and Singapore, income inequality increases with average incomes because growth increasingly derives from the application of capital and skills, rather than labour, to production, as comparative advantage and technology shift in a capital- and skills-biased direction.

This raises the returns to capital (profits and rents) and skills (PMET salaries) more than it does the returns to labour (wages). Education, especially university education, contributes to the widening skills premium (excess of skilled over unskilled labour income), and parents and students naturally clamour for more of it.

This is where education and inequality are mutually reinforcing. Higher-income families invest more in private tuition for academic subjects, extracurricular enrichment activities, and parental attention. 

This enhances their children’s school performance and chances of getting into “good” (elite, brand-name) schools and universities, thus achieving credentials that employers value and reward with “good jobs” and high salaries. 

Employers are known to use educational certification and school reputation as “screening devices” that differentiate between job candidates, and as proxies for behavioral characteristics and social networks they believe enhance employees’ contribution to the enterprise.

Expansion of higher education has been accompanied by a widening “college premium” — or gap between graduate and non-graduate incomes — even as the supply of graduates increases.

Recent studies in the US and UK suggest that this is due to losses to non-graduates, as well as gains to graduates, as employers start requiring degrees for work that did not need it 30 years ago.

And as university degrees become more common, institutional reputation becomes more important, intensifying competition for places at the most selective institutions, and widening their graduates’ salary premium over graduates of less selective institutions.

READ:  The relentless pursuit of university rankings is leading to a two-track system, a commentary .

READ:  Is academic competition really necessary to be the best we can be? A commentary .

CAN EDUCATION REFORMS REDUCE INEQUALITY?

Policy-makers in developed countries have focused on reforms in education to reduce inequality. In some countries, particularly the US, unequal resource allocation between “rich” and “poor” school districts is a major factor contributing to unequal educational, employment and income outcomes. 

This is less of a problem in Singapore, given the Ministry of Education’s worthy efforts to equalise the allocation of resources — including the “best” teachers and administrators — between “neighbourhood” and “elite” schools.  But it is hard to improve already high-performing, well-resourced schools.

More importantly, as we noted in the New Nation in 1976: ”The effect of any school variable which can be manipulated by decision-makers is small relative to other determinants of student performance … Family background is a very important variable affecting educational performance and earnings of individuals ... changes within the school system itself will not necessarily bring about more equal performance of students in school or greater income equality among them when they are employed.”

Recent, separate research by NTU associate professor of sociology Teo You Yenn, and NUS associate professor of social work Irene Ng, confirms the dominant impact of family circumstances on student performance in Singapore today.

The PISA test which we regularly top shows that 15-year-old students in Singapore on average perform better than those in OECD countries, but here the gap between the top and bottom scorers is wider and the dependence on parents' socio-economic status higher.

Another popular policy is to increase lower-income students’ access to more selective schools, including through priority admissions, as Singapore plans to do in Primary One and post-PSLE student assignments to elite schools.

But at best this can cater to only a small subset of low-income students, probably those already best qualified. This could widen the student performance gap between elite and neighbourhood schools, and subject more families to “exam stress”. 

Since school performance is heavily dependent on family resources, lower-income children could underperform relative to higher-income classmates in elite schools, reinforcing stigmatisation from priority admission, and lowering self-esteem which research shows is a major determinant of individual performance.

Priority admission for lower-income children would also intensify competition among higher-income students for “fewer” elite school places, thus worsening the “education arms race”. 

In the US, such competition has worsened inequality and increased social stratification by increasing home values (hence family wealth) in residential neighbourhoods in the top public school districts.  

Tweaking Singapore’s education system will not reduce inequality because it does not change the underlying unequal socio-economic structure to whose incentives families of all income levels rationally respond.

Parents naturally seek for their children entry into secure, well-paid employment in large corporate and government bureaucracies, and cartelised high-earning professions, which still use traditional academic credentials to screen candidates and remunerate employees.  

READ:  Is there an education arms race? A commentary .

READ: Are we missing the point of education? A commentary .

OUR ECONOMIC MODEL GENERATES HIGH INEQUALITY

Despite Singapore’s rapid growth in economic output and average incomes, income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient has increased since the late 1970s, and is high relative to other developed countries, before taxes and transfers.

The Gini also counts only income from work, which in Singapore is under half of national income, a very low ratio by international standards. It does not consider wealth or property, which everywhere is more unequally distributed than income, especially in expensive dense cities.

High inequality reflects several features of our economic development over the decades. 

Most significantly, increased output has come mainly from factor accumulation, the employment of more capital and labour, rather than from productivity growth, which has been relatively low, and is necessary for labour incomes to rise.  The long and heavy reliance by business on cheap foreign labour, facilitated by government policy, has depressed wages of the low-skilled.

The rapid increase in population necessary to propel this input-intensive growth model has also raised returns to owners of the scarcest factor in Singapore, land, thereby increasing the inequality that derives from residential home values and monopoly rents.

Compared to other high-income countries, Singapore also has a relatively weak social safety net, lacking public provision for unemployment insurance and guaranteed social security (retirement income) that is almost universally provided elsewhere.

THE IMPACT OF MERITOCRACY 

The Singaporean ideology that we are a “meritocracy” where economic success based on hard work and the right academic credentials justifies unequal returns, poses two problems. 

First, it entrenches hierarchy, and hence a systemic inequality to which social mobility can at best contribute slightly more diverse members at each level of the pyramid. Overall inequality does not decline, and at worst, those who fail to “make it” up the ladder are considered to “deserve” their inferior position on the social as well as income scale.

Beginning with the competitive “streaming” of students by exam results at an early age, such stratification has stigmatising and demotivating effects which limit educational attainment and reduce intergenerational mobility.  

Second, in the post-industrial society to which Singapore is inevitably transitioning, a laddered meritocracy and the social divide it subtends impede further economic progress.

Innovation, and response to the disruption it causes, increasingly hinge on entrepreneurship rather than bureaucracy, risk-taking rather than risk-avoidance, diversity rather than similarity, collaboration rather than competition, imagination rather than instruction, contestation rather than conformity, and bottom-up rather than top-down initiative.

In short, meritocracy as currently construed in Singapore, and served by the educational system, is arguably the problem, not the solution, for both economic development and inequality, as it is in other highly unequal rich societies.  

A UK study shows that students from higher-income families are more likely to go to university, and to more selective universities. They also earn more than students from lower-income families who graduate from the same institutions in the same subjects, and with similar other characteristics. 

In the US, Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits has said

American meritocracy has become ... a mechanism for the dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Meritocracy now constitutes a modern-day aristocracy.

REDUCING INEQUALITY THROUGH REDISTRIBUTION NEED NOT HARM GROWTH

We need to look outside the education system for policies that do work to reduce income and wealth disparities. They include higher tax rates on high income earners, levies on capital gains, estates and inheritance, and a stronger social safety net — all of which Singapore has eschewed, believing these would reduce the incentive to work hard, save and invest, and thus harm economic growth. 

But high-income Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and Germany, have reduced inequality over decades through progressive universal tax-and-transfer systems that included labour market policies, spending on healthcare and social protection while growing at respectable rates and ranking high on productivity and innovation indices — some even while maintaining budget surpluses and strong currencies.  

Some high earners may resent high tax rates, but all citizens benefit from subsidised public services, including health and education, and receive unemployment insurance and retirement pensions. 

Besides reducing economic and social divides, these policies may also encourage savings for growth-enhancing investments in business enterprises (rather than housing consumption, as in Singapore).

Recent improvement in Singapore’s still-high Gini coefficient also results not from educational policy, but from increased social transfers to vulnerable groups — subsidies for low-wage workers, the elderly and elderly poor.

But these have been insufficient to narrow the cumulative wide income and wealth gaps created by past policies and market forces. Our post-tax-and-transfers Gini still ranks with the highest among developed countries (lower than the US but similar to the UK), is much higher than those of other small high-income economies (in Scandinavia), and is unlikely to be fiscally sustainable.

However, we have run large budget and current account surpluses for decades, piling up huge foreign exchange reserves that have been well-invested by our sovereign wealth funds. More of these could be converted into social spending that could both increase productivity and reduce inequality.

Reforming the education system — by equalising resources, eliminating streaming, increasing curricular flexibility and minimising social segregation — can reduce inequality and social stratification, and foster the innovation and entrepreneurship required for post-industrial economic growth, only if the deep-seated institutional roots of inequality are addressed. 

The political will to do this is what matters in the struggle for a more just and equal society that will benefit all of us.

Linda Lim is Professor Emerita of Corporate Strategy and International Business, Stephen M Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Pang Eng Fong is Professor of Strategic Management (Practice) at Singapore Management University.

Sign up for our newsletters

Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox

Get the CNA app

Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories

Get WhatsApp alerts

Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app

Related Topics

Also worth reading, this browser is no longer supported.

We know it's a hassle to switch browsers but we want your experience with CNA to be fast, secure and the best it can possibly be.

To continue, upgrade to a supported browser or, for the finest experience, download the mobile app.

Upgraded but still having issues? Contact us

Gender Equality for Women in Singapore

Equality and Domestic Violence

Singapore struggles with gender equality, with 57% of Singaporeans believing men are the head of the household and should have the upper hand in decision making. However, 52% of Singaporeans expect women to take on household roles such as chores and caregiving. Domestic violence is another issue women in Singapore frequently face. One in 10 women experiences a lifetime of physical violence by men. In addition, 83% of Singaporeans encourage women to stay in violent relationships under some circumstances, including for a child’s sake.

Unfortunately, 71% of women in Singapore who experience abuse from a partner are not likely to make a police report. This leads to six out of 10 Singaporean women suffering repeated victimization. The safety of these women is at risk due to the lack of respect fellow citizens have for women. Regarding sexual assault, 40% of Singaporeans between the ages of 18-39 and 50% of Singaporeans aged 40 and older believe that women who wear revealing clothing are asking to experience assault and should be responsible for their harassment.

The Lack of Sexual Assault Justice

The majority of women in Singapore have not received the justice that the Women’s Charter promises. On January 5, 2021, Minister Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam announced that there were 6,988 reported cases of sexual assault in Singapore. Out of these 6,988 cases, 1,368 led to prosecution, resulting in only 931 criminal convictions. Out of the 1,368 who authorities charged, 1,364 had prior sexual assault convictions.

Minister Shanmugam, a former lawyer and Singaporean politician, discussed flaws within the nation’s system. He admits that “The government does not track the use of alcohol, drugs or prevalence and diagnosis of psychiatric conditions in relation to sexual assault offenders.”

Governmental Changes

In September 2020, Minister Shanmugam announced an evaluation of women’s issues in Singapore, led by three female political officeholders. The convention subsequently occurred in October 2020. Officials discussed handling sexual offenses, potential increases of penalties, criminalization of conduct and factors authorities should consider when assigning sentences.

Shanmugam opens up about the country’s societal views. He states, “I think a whole society mindset change is necessary. The government has got to lead it with the right pieces of legislation.” He adds, “We need men to be part of the mindset shift — to embrace the changing aspirations of younger women as equal economic partners and facilitate their success in the workplace by sharing in household and caregiving responsibilities.”

With the ongoing issue of victimization, Shanmugam reflects, “We need to try and deal with that —  how we encourage, so people report. And, once the report is done, taking action thereafter is easier.”

AWARE Improving Lives

AWARE is one of the many NGOs working on improving the lives of women in Singapore. Its vision is to create a society where there is true gender equality. In this community, people would see both men and women as individuals with the right to make responsible and informed decisions for their lives. AWARE’s mission is to remove all gender-based barriers through its research, advocacy, education, training and support services.

AWARE launched the Sexual Assault Care Centre in 2014 to support survivors of sexual assault. Throughout 2017, the Sexual Assault Centre saw a 57% increase in cases. The NGO also created a Women’s Care Centre, a helpline that provides information and support for Singaporean women in distress. In 2018, the Women’s Care Centre saw 32% more helpline calls and 48% more counseling clients. Furthermore, AWARE has collaborated with police in developing a new training video to help supplement police officers’ understanding of the behavior and feelings of victims and how police and responders impact these victims.

Bringing awareness to the hardships women in Singapore face is crucial. However, with the help of AWARE and Minister Shanmugam, steps are being taken to safeguard the well-being of women.

– Alexis Jones Photo: Flickr

“The Borgen Project is an incredible nonprofit organization that is addressing poverty and hunger and working towards ending them.”

-The Huffington Post

Inside the borgen project.

• Board of Directors

Get Smarter

• Global Poverty 101
• Global Poverty… The Good News
• Global Poverty & U.S. Jobs
• Global Poverty and National Security
• Innovative Solutions to Poverty
• Global Poverty & Aid FAQ’s

Ways to Help

• Call Congress
• Email Congress
• 30 Ways to Help
• Volunteer Ops
• Internships
• Courses & Certificates
• The Podcast

The Straits Times

• International
• Print Edition
• news with benefits
• SPH Rewards
• STClassifieds
• Berita Harian
• Hardwarezone
• Shin Min Daily News
• Tamil Murasu
• The Business Times
• The New Paper
• Lianhe Zaobao
• Advertise with us

Maintaining social and racial harmony, gender equality key themes of S'pore's human rights review at UN

SINGAPORE - Singapore takes a pragmatic approach to human rights, and by doing so, it aims to achieve two things: tangible outcomes while adhering to the rule of law; and a balance between the interests of the individual and the broader needs of society.

In this process, it has had to make difficult policy decisions as a small, multiracial and multi-religious society, said Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee on Wednesday (May 12) during a routine review of Singapore's human rights record by the United Nations.

"We strive to achieve better outcomes for our people in a manner that reflects our national context and realities. Forging a common national identity while maintaining racial and social harmony is therefore of paramount importance."

Professor Chan added that Singapore, like the rest of the world, has been hit by the pandemic, leading to the country's worst recession since its independence in 1965.

This is why it took swift measures to cushion its population, especially the low-income and the vulnerable, from the worst of the impact, she said.

"Given the long-term, structural challenges, we are taking measures to emerge stronger and better in the post-Covid-19 world - by strengthening our social compact, and building a more resilient and sustainable home for our people."

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) looks at the human rights records of all 193 UN member states every five years. Singapore's 20-page report submitted to the UN in January covered a wide range of topics, including the country's efforts to advance migrant worker well-being and protect women from discrimination.

The report is usually discussed in person at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. During the process, other member states can pose questions or make recommendations to the country under review.

Singapore's participation this year was in hybrid format, with the permanent representative of Singapore to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Ambassador Umej Bhatia, and his team attending there, and Prof Chan joining virtually from Singapore.

Eliminating racial discrimination

Over a three-hour session, Prof Chan outlined Singapore's approach to promoting and protecting human rights.

She noted that Singapore ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 2017, which was a recommendation made at its second UPR in 2016.

"This underscores Singapore's unwavering commitment to work towards a society free from racial discrimination, and in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 10 on reducing inequality," she said. "While Singapore's multiracial social fabric has been strong, we must not be complacent."

Social policies and gender equality

The Government has increased grants to help more Singaporeans acquire their own homes, paying special attention to low-income families. It has also invested significantly in early childhood education.

"We will continue to work hard to preserve social mobility, so that every Singaporean has a good education and a fair shot at success, regardless of their background. This is fundamental to our meritocratic society," she said.

She stressed the importance of lifelong learning and the need to prepare Singaporeans to cope with structural economic shifts through the SkillsFuture programme.

More social services and social protections have been introduced to support the vulnerable, she said, citing cash supplements to lower wage workers and the elderly; and the SG Digital Office to drive digital adoption.

"We have also enhanced access to quality and affordable care for older persons, including measures that enable them to age comfortably within their communities."

Describing Singapore's efforts to eliminate discrimination against women and enhance gender equality, she cited a series of national conversations on women's development, launched in September 2020.

These conversations will result in a White Paper to be submitted to Parliament in the second half of this year.

Following Wednesday's UPR, an outcome report will be prepared and Singapore may choose to accept the recommendations made.

After its first review in 2011, Singapore supported, in whole or in part, 84 of the 112 recommendations made. And it did so for 125 out of 236 recommendations after the second review in 2016.

In his remarks on Wednesday, Mr Bhatia said Singapore remains committed to the regular review of its policies and approaches to ensure that no one is left behind.

"Singapore has focused on achieving tangible outcomes for our people, while respecting our human rights obligations. Policymaking, however, does not exist in a vacuum and is informed by evolving societal perspectives and circumstances," he said.

"It requires maintaining a dynamic and delicate balance between different segments of our society, while managing demands to privilege one group over others."

Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Human rights
• Foreign policy

Read 3 articles and stand to win rewards

Spin the wheel now

• Tools and Resources
• Customer Services
• Original Language Spotlight
• Alternative and Non-formal Education 
• Cognition, Emotion, and Learning
• Curriculum and Pedagogy
• Education and Society
• Education, Change, and Development
• Education, Cultures, and Ethnicities
• Education, Gender, and Sexualities
• Education, Health, and Social Services
• Educational Administration and Leadership
• Educational History
• Educational Politics and Policy
• Educational Purposes and Ideals
• Educational Systems
• Educational Theories and Philosophies
• Globalization, Economics, and Education
• Languages and Literacies
• Professional Learning and Development
• Research and Assessment Methods
• Technology and Education
• Back to results
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

Gendered concerns of improved female participation in indian higher education.

• Mona Khare Mona Khare Department of Educational Finance, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.451
• Published online: 20 September 2023

Gender gaps in education and training are already shown to be having far-reaching effects on women’s economic participation. These are only likely to grow in the new era of knowledge-centric economies. Specific efforts at mainstreaming women in this new age through their inclusion in higher levels of education and skills training are imperative. The situation in India is more complex given its rising numbers and increasing diversities on campuses, with sociocultural and regional connotations adding to existing biases. The data on the status and trends reveal gender disparity in higher education in India in explicit and implicit forms further reflecting on women’s work participation. The disparities are more explicitly visible when seen through the adverse graduate population ratio, a long-existing adverse female participation ratio more particularly in certain streams/courses and implicitly through their career progression, and an adverse female employment ratio in the majority of Indian states. The policy focus so far has been on gender-targeted initiatives and expenditures to increase female access and enrollment in higher education. As a result, while gender gaps in access have closed, higher education spaces remain gendered with poor and biased labor-market outcomes. The interventions need to be made at three levels: gender equality in technical, vocational, and job-oriented education; gender balance in elite institutions; and gender sensitization and services within and outside campuses. The focus needs to align with equal opportunity initiatives and expenditures. There is also a need for region-specific interventions through spatial mapping at a subnational level and a greater focus on understanding the concepts, issues, and processes of gender balancing in higher education.

• female participation
• higher education in India
• gendered concerns
• hidden adversities
• equal opportunity initiatives
• gender budgeting

You do not currently have access to this article

Please login to access the full content.

Access to the full content requires a subscription

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Education. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 24 June 2024

• Cookie Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility
• [109.248.223.228]
• 109.248.223.228

Character limit 500 /500

This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser. To learn more about cookies, click here .

• get aware news

WOMEN'S HELPLINE

1800 777 5555.

mon - fri, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

SEXUAL ASSAULT CARE CENTRE

General enquiries

[email protected]

• Policy and Position Statements
• History & Strategy
• Constitution & Reports
• Job Openings
• Privacy Policy
• AWARE Annual Report 2023
• Saga: the Podcast
• Participate in Research
• Be A Member
• Support, Partner and Act through Community Engagement (SPACE)
• Growing Up Indian
• Media watch: Your submissions
• Call-Back and Chat Service
• Sexual Assault Care Centre
• Counselling
• Legal Clinic
• FAQ and Feedback
• Contraception
• What Is Family Violence?
• What To Do If You Are Facing Family Violence
• Getting A Personal Protection Order
• Making A Safety Plan
• Violence against women in Singapore
• Relationship Abuse
• What is sexual assault?
• Understanding Consent
• Workplace Sexual Harassment
• Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence
• Legal Rights
• Possible Precautions
• Eating Disorders
• Pregnancy Discrimination
• Sex Ed, Declassified
• Women’s Rights in Singapore
• Migrant domestic workers performing eldercare
• Sexual violence
• Single parents
• Low-Income Mothers
• Gender equality omnibus report
• Reimagining Equality 2021: policy wishlists
• Full-length Reports
• Filter by year/theme
• Corporate Training
• Workshops For Schools
• Birds & Bees: A workshop for parents
• Upcoming Events

Advocacy Theme

• Children and Young People
• Employment and Labour Rights
• Family and Divorce
• Gender-based Violence
• Migration and Trafficking
• Muslim Women's Rights
• Older People and Caregiving
• Poverty and Inequality
• Sexual and Reproductive Health
• Women in Leadership
• Workplace Harassment
• Domestic Violence
• Domestic Workers
• International/Regional Work
• Maintenance
• Migrant Spouses
• Migrant Workers
• National budget
• Parental Leave
• Race and religion
• Sexual Violence
• Sexuality Education
• Single Parents
• Social Support
• Sterilisation
• Women's Charter

We are hiring! Researcher, ARC Team

June 24th, 2024 | Jobs @ AWARE , News , Open Positions

Position : Researcher (Executive/Snr Executive) Department : Advocacy, Research and Communications (ARC) Salary range: SGD$3,500 – 4,000 Term: Full-time Starting date: ASAP

Are you interested in helping to change the society we live in, to further gender equality in Singapore? Do you enjoy doing research and analysis? Do you want to advocate for change? If so, then we are looking for you!

AWARE is hiring an organised and efficient individual with good research, analysis and writing skills to join our Advocacy, Research and Communications team (ARC). The ARC department develops and implements AWARE’s strategies for advocacy for legal, policy and social change.

As the researcher, you will support the operations of the department by carrying out research and policy analysis to support AWARE’s engagement with decision-makers, the public, the media, and other stakeholders on legal, policy, and social reform. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of the cutting-edge work for equality and human rights, which has been AWARE’s mission for nearly 40 years.

Reporting to the Director of ARC, the Researcher will:

• Carry out research, analysis and fact-finding in relation to laws, policies and practices to support ARC’s policy advocacy activities, media work and long-term research projects
• Supporting AWARE’s policy advocacy work through parliamentary monitoring
• Assist in drafting and editing responses to advocacy documents, including responses to government consultations, recommendations and position papers, and communications with policy-makers
• Support the Communications Manager in implementing AWARE’s advocacy, research and communications plan as part of AWARE’s strategic plan, including press statements, op-eds, and media responses
• Help build partnerships and alliances with key stakeholders to achieve AWARE’s goal of building a gender-equitable society
• Participate actively as a member of AWARE’s advocacy team, e.g. through contribution to strategic and operational discussions, representing AWARE at relevant external events and meetings, and organising events related to research and advocacy goals

Preferred Candidate Profile

• Singapore Citizen/Permanent Resident
• Minimum of at least 2 years of related experience, ideally in public policy and research, in project coordination, conducting primary and secondary research and analysis
• Relevant degree, preferably in sociology, economics, history, law, politics, or other public policy-related field
• Excellent research and analysis skills, and understanding of gender-related policies
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English; good communications skills in Malay, Tamil and/or Mandarin are a plus
• Strong understanding of general political and policy environment in Singapore
• Strong interpersonal skills and commitment to being a team player
• Strong sense of initiative with good judgement to solve problems independently
• Strong belief in gender equality, human rights and the values of AWARE

APPLY HERE.

You must read and acknowledge our Privacy Statement  here .

Please note that, due to the large number of applications, only shortlisted applicants will be contacted for an interview. If you have any questions about this position, please email [email protected].