1959 to 1978: Survival-Driven Education
I recently published a book review of the Oxford Handbook of the History of Education in the Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching. It reminded me of my attempt at writing up the history of Singapore’s education system for my dissertation. I will serialise that particular chapter in the blog.
The first instalment delineated the transition from vernacular schools to colonial education system and the ensuing imbalance in accrual of cultural capital. Part Two below looks at the early years when Singapore was mired deep in the struggle to survive as a new independent nation-state.
1959 to 1978: Survival-Driven Education
The year was 1959. Singapore gained self-governance and the People’s Action Party (PAP) came into power at the elections. The territory was in dire condition after a little more than a century of colonial neglect. There was no cohesion amongst the people and economic survival was uncertain at best. The challenge was to have the education system pull together a pluralistic and fragmented populace.
However, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s young government inherited a dysfunctional education system that was segregated along language fault lines.
...our society and its education system was never designed to produce a people capable of cohesive action, identifying their collective interests and then acting in furtherance of them... - Lee Kwan Yew, 1966
[Education was] socially divisive, separating the English- and the vernacular-educated, widening the gap between the different communities except at the highest level, accentuating racial, cultural, and linguistic difference and stressing the rift between rich and poor. - Turnbull, as cited in Gopinathan, 1991
Founding nation-building on education was near impossible (Sharpe & Gopinathan, 1996).
In a bid to mend the language fault lines, the four official languages (English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil) were accorded equal status and rights after the adoption of the White Paper of 1956. Meanwhile, a common curriculum that emphasised science, mathematics and technical studies replaced the diverse language-based ones so that the people could be equipped for the changing economic activities. (Yip et al, 1997). Trading in raw materials was gradually giving way to industrialisation. However, I would contend that attention was simply diverted away from earlier tussle over language and the dominant/dominated divide remained unaddressed.
In this difficult period, the significant increase in access to education garnered legitimacy (hence symbolic capital) for the PAP government as it successfully addressed a critical need of the people – better pay that comes with better jobs that come with increased and improved education. In this “survival” phase of educational development, it could be said that the “supply side of the educational equation” was adequately addressed (Yip et al, 1997, p. 14). This success would bring about new difficulties; a curriculum designed to meet the needs of the economy during a fight for survival would inevitably be susceptible to misrecognition.
1979 to 1996: Efficiency-Driven Education
In the years preceding 1979, the burning issue was national survival and for education, how could it do just that. Little attention was turned on “the nature and purpose of education and the intrinsic worth of what is taught and learnt” (Yip et al, 1997, p. 14). Public/ social discourse went absent (Chan, 1976). It simply is not efficient. In its place an efficient, highly centralised and standardised system emerged that unified the preceding fragmented inheritance. In this climate of absent political contest, the PAP government was able to define the field, hence formalise behaviour – a codification. Legitimacy garnered in the preceding years made this possible. Misrecognition continued as the people chased qualifications for better jobs hence better pay and gave up their choice of an alternative. The dominated accepted its own domination and consented to the condition, misrecognising their position as a result of something neutral and objective such as ability; thereby escalating potential symbolic violence...
<to be continued>
References:
Chan, H.C. (1976). Politics in an Administrative State: Where Has the Politics Gone? Occasional Working Paper, Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore.
Gopinathan, S. (1991). Education. In E. Chew & E. Lee (eds), A History of Singapore, pp. 268-287. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Sharpe, L. & Gopinathan, S. (1996). Effective Island, Effective Schools: Repairing and Restructuring in the Singapore School System. International Journal of Educational Reform, 5 (4), pp. 394-402.
Yip, J.S.K., Eng, S.P. & Yap, J.Y.C. (1997). 25 Years of Educational Reform. In J. Tan, S. Gopinathan & W.K. Ho (eds), Education in Singapore: A Book of Readings, pp. 3-32. Singapore: Prentice Hall.
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