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Firstly, the education system must ensure that students attain a certain level of basic knowledge. Not only must students be able to understand facts and commit them to memory, they must also be able to apply what they have learnt in simulated real life scenarios. Only with repeated trials and testing of these knowledge and application of knowledge, students are then able to apply what they have learnt during school to their working life. .
As to this aspect of equipping students with basic knowledge, any self-respecting education system would try to ensure this criterion is met. This is even more so for Singapore's education system. Being a pragmatic society, our successes and failures are always measured against a nearly scientific scale, easy to quantify and easy to remedy if there is any fault. This can also be applied to our education system, where the plethora of examinations and tests in every student's life serve as an accurate means to judge a student on his mastery in a certain subject. .
There might be some people lamenting on the deplorable state of the education system in Singapore, saying that our education system is too examination-oriented, I tend to differ. The system of examinations is really in fact an excellent system of checks and balances in which students are pressured or should I say, strongly encouraged to study the subject well. The results of our premier education system can be seen in the excellent grades of Singaporean students in the "O" and "A" level examinations as well as the high standard of performance in the International Olympiads for the Sciences and Humanities. Therefore, I believe that any good education system would have at least satisfied this criteria of equipping students with basic knowledge.
Indeed, I agree the system of teaching students might not be perfect, but it is by far the best system we have now. For example, students might complain that they face an information overload from teachers in school, and that they have no time for relaxation.