Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore is an island country and the smallest country in Southeast Asia. It is located on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, south of the Malaysian state of Johor, and north of the Indonesian Riau Islands. It lies 137 kilometres (85 miles ) north of the Equator.

The site of several ancient port cities and a possession of several empires in its history, Singapore was a Malay fishing village when it was colonised by the United Kingdom in the 19th century. It was further occupied by the Japanese Empire in World War II, and was later part of the merger which established Malaysia. When Singapore acquired independence, having few natural resources , it was sociopolitically volatile and economically undeveloped. Foreign investment and rapid government-led industrialisation has since created an economy which relies on exports of electronics and manufacturing primarily from its port .

According to the quality-of-life index assembled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Singapore has the highest standard of living in Asia, and is ranked 11th in the world. In the United Nations Human Development Index, Singapore holds the 25th place, behind only Japan, Hong Kong, and Israel in Asia. Measured by GDP per capita , Singapore is the 22nd wealthiest country. The geographically small nation has a foreign reserve of S$197b (US$119b).

Eighty-three percent of Singapore's population lives in housing estates constructed by the Housing Development Board and nearly half use the public transport system daily. As a result of efforts to control motorised traffic, the maintenance of natural greenery, strict regulations on industrial locations and emissions, and other pro-environmental initiatives by the government and the private sector, Singapore has been able to control its pollution levels to well within World Health Organization standards. The Constitution of the Republic of Singapore established the city-state as a representative democracy

Education in Singapore

Primary education is compulsory in Singapore and as such the literacy rate is 95%. The standard for the school curriculum is set by the Ministry of Education with a mix of private schools and public schools. There is no strict public-private dichotomy: the degree of autonomy in regard to the curriculum and student admission, government funding received, and tuition burden upon the students is determined by a more specific classification system that includes classifications such as "government-run", "government-aided", "autonomous", "independent", and "privately-funded". Some schools have more than one classification. In addition, there are international schools catered to expatriate students, though they have some local students.

After primary education, students take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). Their performance in the examination is the main criteria in determining whether they enter their desired secondary schools. There have also been complaints about excessive educational streaming at a young age; a popular local film, I Not Stupid, highlights the competitiveness of the system and social stigma that students struggling with studies have to face. After secondary education, a further set of examinations are taken which determine which kind of tertiary education they pursue, such as junior college, a precursor for entry into public universities such as National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University . Other post-secondary institutions include polytechnics, where students will graduate with a diploma and may choose to move into the workforce or pursue higher education in public universities such as those mentioned above. The polytechnics include Temasek Polytechnic , Singapore Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Nanyang Polytechnic and Republic Polytechnic. Other institutes include a teaching college to train teachers, various management institutes, and vocational education institutes such as the Institute of Technical Education (ITE).

Singapore students took first place in the 1995, 1999 and 2003 TIMSS Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. They used Singapore Math Primary Mathematics series. The national textbooks have been adapted into a series which has been successfully marketed in North America as a rival to Saxon math and an alternative to controversial standards-based mathematics curricula which many parents complained moved too far away from the sort of traditional basic skills instruction exemplified by Singapore's national curriculum.