WRONG, under The Compulsory Education Act pased in 2000 requires all Singaporean children to complete six years of primary education in national schools before they turn 15.
I checked before, it was 10 years of compulsory education on the MOE website.
It appears you're both wrong.
The most relevant law is the
Compulsory Education Act. It's written in some strange ways.
First of all, let's look at the ages. Under this act, the government has the power to compel a child's school attendance when that child is at least 6 years old (has reached his/her 6th birthday). Of course many children are nearly age 7 when the school year starts in January, in practice. Then, when the child celebrates his/her 15th birthday, the government loses its power of compulsion. If you tally up the number of years, it's 8.X. There are 8 years counting the child's 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th years of age, plus the portion (0.X) of the year during the child's 6th year when the school year starts. The law doesn't provide for 10 years of compulsion. Hypothetically the government would be within its power to compel a child, every child, to attend "national primary school" starting on his/her 6th birthday, exactly. In practice the government doesn't do that, but as far as I can tell the law, as written, gives the government that power if it ever wants to have a system of rolling school admission instead of annual school admission.
OK, then there's some confusion about what "primary" means. The law is confusing, frankly. It defines "national primary school" not in the way we commonly think of primary school (P1 through P6). It does seem to allow secondary schools (and other schools) within that definition. And the law doesn't say that 6 years of primary education (P1 through P6) is all that's required. It certainly seems to grant the government the power to compel schooling at any/all grade levels it deems appropriate, even beyond P6, as long as the child is within the law's age range and not granted a discretionary exception.
Interestingly this law only compels citizen children residing in Singapore to attend a "national primary school." (Reminder: "National primary school" is not limited to P1 through P6.) This law does not apply to Permanent Resident or foreign children, and it does not apply to Singaporean children living outside Singapore. Those are remarkable, even distressing, omissions. Maybe another piece of legislation concerns itself with the welfare of other children (non-citizen children in Singapore, and Singaporean children outside Singapore), but this particular one does not.
This law does not compel any children to complete P1 through P6, or any particular grade levels. It only compels attendance (of a "national primary school," which again is not the same as a school teaching one or more grades from P1 to P6), and until the child celebrates his/her 15th birthday. Which makes sense, of course, because it's impossible to compel a specific, minimum educational attainment in terms of learned material, test scores, grade level, or whatever. Actual attainment can be under P6 minimum (even well under), well over, or anywhere in between. "Actual results vary," in other words. The law also doesn't compel parents to help their children with homework, for example.
