With regards to the letter Singaporean chutzpah may be justified, I feel that the debate on education is far too simplistic to be outlined as such.

First of all, to debunk the myth, Singapore's 'technical excellence' and 'first mover advantage' are not up to the developed world's standard when compared to America, Japan, Europe or even China in terms of patents, innovations, technology developments or even Nobel Prize winners.

Dr Edison Liu himself is an American, and many Malaysians who are in prominent positions in Singapore are not products of Singapore Incorporated's education. So the republic's claim to have world-class standards and that the US is looking towards it as 'the' alternative is simply disingenuous and laughable.

Not only that, Singapore's most prominent private entrepreneur, Sim Wong Woo, did not emerge from Singapore's elitist educational system. To go further, Singapore Inc itself has admitted that their graduates lack creativity or private enterprise drive.

My proposed solution (for Malaysia) is that there should be a semi-privatisation of national high school education, not based on race and religion but diversified along the lines of culture and curriculum with equal emphasis on maths, science, arts and languages.

This is to ensure that even during the early stages of educational life, students may make a choice based on their developmental needs. The 'one size fits all' approach at the high school stage will only lead to a culture of 'groupthink' and the lack of a pool of human resources to meet Malaysia's varied needs in the future.