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WHEN people talk about Singapore’s education miracle, they normally think of rows of clever young mathematicians. The hair-design and beauty-therapy training centres at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) are rather different. The walls are covered with pouting models, L’Oréal adverts and television screens. There is a fully fitted-out spa and a hairdressing salon. It all seems rather more “Sex and the City” than Asian values, though the manicurists, pedicurists, cosmetologists and hairdressers toil diligently.
Asked whether he wants to go to university, the holy grail of most Asian families, a young barber called Noel replies that he would rather open a hairdressing salon. Mei Lien wants to set up her own beauty salon Shuner would like to work in hotels abroad.
Until recently ITE—dubbed “It’s The End” by ambitious middle-class parents—was the dark side of Singaporean education. The city state streams pupils rigorously and is unashamedly elitist: one school claims to send more students to Ivy League universities than any other secondary school in the world. But such a system also produces losers—and many of the bottom third who do not make it to university come to ITE.

A. 어휘
bureaucrat 관료. miracle 기적. normally 보통.
rows of 많은, 줄지어 있는. therapy 치료. pouting 입을 삐죽 내밀고 있는.
adverts 광고물. fitted-out 필요한 물건을 잘 갖춘. spa 온천.
“Sex and the City” 뉴욕의 젊은 여성들의 연애행각을 다룬 영화.
pedicurists 발톱미용사, 발 치료사. cosmetologists 미용사.
toil 애써서 일하다. the holy grail 聖杯(성배), 追求(추구)의 대상.
dub 별명을 붙이다. streams 학생을 능력별로 편성하다.
rigorously 엄격하게. unashamedly 부끄럼 없이, 염치없이.
Ivy League universities 미국의 동부에 있는 명문대학들.
secondary school 중등학교.