Why O-levels, not A-levels, is the right exit point, and what it actually costs
Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li's The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China makes an argument that applies directly to Singapore, even though the book is about China. Their claim: the best age for a Chinese student to leave for the US is around 15, neither earlier nor later. Leave too early, and the child has not yet absorbed the discipline instilled by China's exam-driven system. Leave too late, and the child has spent so many years optimizing for a single test that they struggle to function in an American classroom built on discussion, initiative, and open-ended work. Fifteen is the point at which the discipline is already in place, and the capacity to unlearn a narrow test-taking mindset remains intact. Singapore does not have the Gaokao. It has the O-levels. The structural...
