Synopsis: Join host and correspondent Natasha Ann Zachariah every Thursday, as she unpacks the latest current affairs with guests.
Podcaster: Natasha Ann Zachariah
Executive producer: Danson Cheong
A podcast by The Straits Times, SPH Media
S1E113: $8000 mortgages and double tuition for the same subject: the cost of Singapore’s education arms race
Parents have long complained that the education system in Singapore is too stressful for children.
To address their concerns, the Ministry of Education has made policy changes over the years, including scrapping PSLE T-scores and removing weighted assessments and examinations at certain levels.
But have these measures worked?
A recent survey by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) showed that parents are more stressed than 10 years ago, and they are spending more on tuition and enrichment classes.
The Straits Times also reported that some property agents now explicitly market themselves as Primary 1 strategists or consultants, and advise their clients to plan ahead so their children can get into the school of their choice.
If the system has been easing up, what’s driving parents to continue taking part in the education “arms race”? And are the tuition and property industries capitalising on their anxiety?
In this episode, Natasha chats with:
• Jacqueline Ho, assistant professor of sociology at the Singapore Management University, who researches the Singaporean education system, and
• Prab Nathan, a property agent and former school teacher, and a father of two. His eldest daughter will be in Primary One next year.
Highlights (click/tap above):
3:46 Are property agents feeding parents’ anxiety?
9:18 Is it smart to move for a school?
11:45 School status should not be a priority: Prab
25:42 Why parents get FOMO over extra tuition
28:30 Are parents who send their kids for tuition really kiasu?
34:00 Is being a “relaxed parent” a luxury?
43:39 What’s wrong with having a shadow education system?
49:50 Parents strategise to cope with inequality
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24 Sept 2026
S1E112: Is AI going to kill us? We talk to an AI safety researcher
Will AI eventually be able to kill us, or are AI doomsayers being alarmist?
Recently, employees at AI frontier companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have voiced serious concerns - and made doomsday predictions - about the technology getting out of control.
What made people pay attention: Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly quit the AI giant in September, writing on X that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”.
His warning comes after the high-profile OpenAI-Hugging Face incident: OpenAI models broke out of an isolated testing sandbox and hacked into Hugging Face, an AI model repository.
In this episode, Natasha speaks with Clement Neo, a research advisor at SASH, a non-profit organisation that looks at policy-relevant governance work.
He also founded Neo Research, an independent AI safety evaluation lab, and was previously a research engineer with the Singapore AI Safety Institute under NTU Digital Trust Centre, which looks at AI models and figures out how to reduce the risks they pose.
We talk about why AI models are being trained to be relentlessly “persistent”, if we should stop assigning human-like qualities to a software programme, and what’s the worst that could happen?
Host: Natasha Ann Zachariah (natashaz@sph.com.sg (mailto:natashaz@sph.com.sg))
Read Natasha’s articles: https://str.sg/iSXm (https://str.sg/iSXm)
Follow The Usual Place podcast on IG: https://str.sg/8KNT (https://str.sg/8KNT)
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Filmed by: Studio+65
Edited by: Eden Soh & Amirul Karim
Executive producer: Danson Cheong
Producers: Natasha Ann Zachariah, Elizabeth Law & Zachary Lim
Follow The Usual Place Podcast and get notified for new episode drops every Thursday:
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17 Sept 2026
S1E111: True Fitness collapse: Why do big gyms keep closing in Singapore?
If you’re a customer with a pre-paid package with a business and it closes, will you ever get your money back?
True Fitness and True Yoga customers and employees were left in the lurch last week after the businesses shuttered. Many have unused memberships, packages and services, and members have reported losses of more than $609,000.
And it’s not just gyms. Prepayment packages are common at nail salons, spas, interior design and renovation firms, and bridal studios.
When these businesses close, what happens to consumers’ money, and are there ways consumers can be better protected?
In this episode of The Usual Place, Natasha chats with:
• Jeremy Ko, a fitness entrepreneur who has opened 25 fitness gyms and three climbing gyms, and had to close three of them, and
• Debby Lim, a senior partner in Dentons Rodyk’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution Group. She was also affected by the recent closure of True Fitness, having been a member since June 2025.
Highlights (click/tap above):
2:08 What’s happening with the fitness industry?
6:44 Red flags that customers could possibly look out for
10:17 Is this the end of the “mega-gym” concept?
14:11 Why are True Fitness and True Yoga under “provisional liquidation”?
18:25 Why Jeremy’s gyms don’t offer prepayment packages
21:15 The hard-selling vs just saying no
26:08 Law reform needed to “save us from ourselves”?
30:10 Why aren’t more businesses signing up for CaseTrust accreditation?
34:39 Is consumer protection anti-business?
Host: Natasha Ann Zachariah (natashaz@sph.com.sg (mailto:natashaz@sph.com.sg))
Read Natasha’s articles: https://str.sg/iSXm (https://str.sg/iSXm)
Follow The Usual Place podcast on IG: https://str.sg/8KNT (https://str.sg/8KNT)
Follow Natasha on LinkedIn: https://str.sg/v6DN (https://str.sg/v6DN)
Filmed by: Studio+65
Edited by: Eden Soh & Hadyu Rahim
Executive producer: Danson Cheong
Producers: Natasha Ann Zachariah, Elizabeth Law & Zachary Lim
Follow The Usual Place Podcast and get notified for new episode drops every Thursday:
Channel: (https://str.sg/5nfm?ref=inline-article)https://str.sg/5nfm (https://str.sg/5nfm?ref=inline-article)
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Who has been a guest on The Usual Place
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Michelle Lee
Zildjian Garcia
Elisha Tushara
Meliani Lee
Arthur Tong
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
459,929,262
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Spotify
4.2 / 5
11 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
55
Social presence
0
YouTube
93
Engagement
60
Contact The Usual Place
Guest appearances
Does not typically book guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
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