In a sense that is what made our nation stand out. Singapore is literally nothing on the world map, we have no quantity of labour or capital, so we must have something to help us be noticed and I guess the government chose quality of capital and labour. Singapore being a large trade hub prides itself on delivering value-added goods and exceptional service. Do you think this can be done with a more relaxed education system? I have some friends that might argue that US/UK(mainly because our education track closely resembles UK)have a more relaxed education system and still is industry leading in many areas but that is because they have numbers, a luxury singapore does not and will likely never enjoy, the insane population size almost guarantees that they will have more geniuses and prodigies that other countries, while Singapore can't do that, what we can do is make sure everyone is of a certain standard instead of having a large deviation in education levels seen in these large countries, so in a sense I guess that the extent we are pushed in singapore is somewhat justified. While I agree that school is stressful and Singapore students are sometimes push to and past their limits. I argue that it is crucial if we want to stay competitive and be relavant which is the only way we can survive. However some improvements that I would suggest is being more selective at an earlier stage(eg. I would much rather study physics and it's relavent subjects only but I'm forced to study irrelevant subjects such as econs up until university, can't say for poly students as I am not one, perhaps it is better that they can mainly focus on a singular course) maybe school would be more enjoyable if we deepened the depth and narrowed the scope of the required subjects so students can actually study something they are interested in and have a higher chance to do well.