Singaporean students in British higher education: the statistics of success

Increasing numbers of students from Singapore are choosing British Universities for their higher education. Most academics would describe these students as hard working, polite and having high expectations both of themselves and also of their teachers. The authors examine the performance of a group of well over 100 Singaporean students who have taken degrees in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Surrey over the past six years. The remarkable success of these students is analysed with worrying messages for the effectiveness of post-16 education in Britain.