Every staffroom knows it privately: the charismatic student everyone recalls from assembly is not necessarily the one who can be trusted to keep a deadline. Ask any selection panel who they would rely on to lock up after a late CCA session, and the name that comes back is often not the name on the badge. Schools default to charisma as a proxy for capability, because charisma is visible and capability is not.

Every year, thousands of Singapore students complete financial literacy programmes with strong quiz scores and flawless worksheets. And every year, the same gap appears two weeks later: the money is spent, the budget is forgotten, and the knowledge did not produce different behaviour. This article examines why — and what a formation-focused approach actually looks like in practice.