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Singapore Education and Singaporean Identity
More clearly than any other social institution, the
school
system expressed the distinctive vision of Singapore's
leadership,
with its stress on merit, competition, technology, and
international standards, and its rejection of special
privileges
for any group. Singaporeans of all ethnic groups and
classes came
together in the schools, and the education system affected
almost
every family in significant and profound ways. Most of the
domestic
political issues of the country, such as the relations
between
ethnic groups, the competition for elite status, the plans
for the
future security of the nation and its people, and the
distribution
of scarce resources were reflected in the schools and in
education
policy. Many of the settled education policies of the
1980s, such
as the use of English as the medium of instruction, the
conversion
of formerly Malay or Chinese or Anglican missionary
schools to
standard government schools, or the attempted combination
of open
access with strict examinations, were the result of
long-standing
political disputes and controversy. In the determination
of
families and parents that their children should succeed in
school,
and in the universally acknowledged ranking of primary and
secondary schools and the struggle to enroll children in
those
schools that achieved the best examination results,
families
expressed their distinctive values and goals. The struggle
for
achievement in the schools, which often included tutoring
by
parents or enrollment of young children in special private
supplementary schools to prepare for crucial examinations,
also
demonstrated the system of social stratification and the
struggle
for mobility that characterized the modern society. It was
in the
schools, more than in any other institution, that the
abstract
values of multiracialism and of Singaporean identity were
given
concrete form.
* * *
The Information Division of the Ministry of
Communications and
Information produces useful and informative annual volumes
and
monthly journals, such as Singapore 1988,
Singapore Facts
and Pictures 1988, Mirror, and the Singapore
Bulletin. The Department of Sociology of the National
University of Singapore and the Institute of Southeast
Asian
Studies both publish social science and historical
research on
Singapore's society. Maurice Freedman's Chinese Family
and
Marriage in Singapore and Judith Djamour's Malay
Kinship and
Marriage in Singapore, both based on field research
conducted
in 1949-50, provide a baseline for assessing subsequent
social
change. Cheng Lim-Keak's Social Change and the Chinese
in
Singapore analyzes the associations and economic
organization
of the Chinese-speaking community, a topic not covered in
government reports. Janet W. Salaff's State and Family
in
Singapore, which concentrates on Chinese families, and
Tania
Li's Malays in Singapore both analyze family
structure in
the context of economic growth and modernization. Although
somewhat
dated, the essays in Singapore: Society in
Transition,
edited by Riaz Hassan, provide a good introduction to
major aspects
of Singapore society. Some of the flavor of life in
Singapore is
conveyed in Tan Kok Seng's autobiographical Son of
Singapore
and in the fiction of Philip Jeyaretnam, such as First
Loves
and Raffles Place Ragtime. The Far Eastern
Economic
Review regularly covers events and trends in
Singapore,
sometimes illuminating topics such as religious change
that are not
treated in official publications. (For further information
and
complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1989
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