SINGAPORE: Mr John Tan, the founder of Doyobi and Saturday Kids and a leader in educational technology, announced that he is “giving up on Singapore.”

“The education system in Singapore is too deeply entrenched. Parents cannot look beyond PSLE. I cannot change this,” he added in a March 16 (Thursday) LinkedIn post.

“Even my peers in tech who are highly educated and affluent are caught up in the high stakes exam rat race. I have spent the last ten years trying to change parents’ mindset about how to prepare their kids for the future. I’ve come to the realisation this is not possible.”

Mr Tan, a father of five and an Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific Leader who sits on the board of Ninja Van and ErudiFi, also wrote, “Rather than wasting another 10 years on Singaporean parents who refuse to accept change, I’m bringing Doyobi to the rest of the world.”

At coding school Saturday Kids, which he co-founded in 2012, thousands of children were taught programming, electronics, digital art, and design thinking, and at Doyobi, whi...