Education policies as means to tackle income disparity: the Singapore case

The Singapore economy maintained a 9-10 per cent growth rate in terms of per capita real GNP during the period 1980-1990; the Asian financial crisis, however, lowered the growth rate to some extent after 1995-1996. The incidence of inequality in Singapore, however, is quite high compared to other similar industrialised countries. The government has gone to a great extent to be fair in terms of educational opportunities to the poorer section of the society. This paper has examined the education policies of the Singapore government and showed that some of the schemes are reasonably biased towards the high and middle income class people.