What is the Difference Between International School and National School?

School education is vital for the all-round development of a child. It is the best present for kids that parents can gift, being the ideal catalyst in shaping their personality and setting a strong foundation for their career. Every child is blessed with some or other natural talent. You can discover this talent only in a competitive environment such as a school, where there are experienced teachers with the necessary skills to identify and nurture your child’s talents in both academic and co-curricular activities. Therefore, to take your child’s talent to the next level, it is imperative to enrol him/her in a secondary school where the child’s natural skills are honed, and necessary encouragement is provided to pursue it as a career in the future. Moreover, the age between 12 and 16 is a crucial phase in a student’s life, as this is when they understand their interests and choose a career path that can lead to success later on.

Fortunately, parents and their children living in Singapore are lucky to have numerous choices when selecting a top-notch secondary school. Parents can go to a national or an international school for Singapore secondary school admission. But this can be a tricky decision as both offer different benefits. Most international schools follow the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education), a very popular curriculum across the globe. In contrast, national schools offer a less general curriculum in other countries. Hence, we need to weigh all the differences between international and national schools before taking the final call on the school choice for Singapore secondary school admission. Here are 5 crucial differences.

Top 5 Differences between International and National Schools for Singapore Secondary School Admission

1. Curriculum

International schools mostly follow popular globally accredited curriculum programs, such as the Cambridge IGCSE program or the International Baccalaureate, which makes students self-learners and curious about their surroundings. Along with offering various subjects and languages, the IGCSE curriculum following international schools in Singapore teaches students to be more responsible, develop empathy, and build strong ethics, making them role models in society. These international schools’ values make students so professional that they can manage and succeed in whichever country they choose to build their careers and lead a quality life. On the other hand, national schools only offer a curriculum strictly followed as per government recommendations and valuable only within the country.

2. Facilities

International schools have students’ state-of-the-art facilities and a top-notch IGCSE curriculum. Here, students will get an opportunity to use Olympic-size swimming pools, smart classrooms, skating rinks, world-class libraries, and international standard laboratories. All buildings have good ventilation and are equipped with educational tools that assist students in learning better. In addition, every student will have access to hi-tech technologies for advanced learning. On the other hand, National schools are usually financed by the government; hence, students cannot expect to have facilities that match or surpass international schools.

3. Multicultural and Inclusive Learning

International School Singapore secondary school admission will enable students to learn from various cultures. Students will not be limited to one particular cultural exposure. Multicultural and inclusive learning will help students to become global citizens and think broadly. They will also respect all types of cultures as they will be familiar with the practices and values of each culture. National school education focuses more on offering good academic education, which is not bad but not enough to make students learn other things like empathy and respect towards different ethnicities and cultures.

4. Global Training

International schools’ IGCSE curriculum and teaching system create an academic environment that allows students to become global citizens with all the required skills to survive in any country. Hence students passing out from international schools get relatively easier admission to foreign universities like Oxford, Harvard, etc. Moreover, the syllabus prescribed in the IGCSE curriculum greatly aligns with the excellence required of foreign universities, making Singapore secondary school admission internationally worthy. As national schools do not offer an international curriculum, students’ chances of admission to foreign universities are reduced.

Language Study

Singapore secondary school admission to international schools will include international language subjects in the curriculum. Students can master languages like French, Japanese, German, Spanish, etc., with considerable ease. They recruit language expert teachers who train your child to master various foreign languages in speech and writing. On the other hand, National schools do not typically offer such foreign language subjects as part of the curriculum.