[lg policy] Debate on Chinese education in Singapore rages on

[Harold Schiffman]

Debate on Chinese education in Singapore rages on
November 26, 2009 by admin

Written by Our Correspondent

Following the admission of MM Lee Kuan Yew that he had made a
“mistake” in Singapore’s bilingual language policy, the debate on the
state and direction of Chinese education in Singapore has continued to
rage on in cyberspace and even in a Malaysia-based Chinese forum.
During a speech made at the official opening of the Singapore Centre
for Chinese Language, Lee said:  “We started the wrong way. We
insisted on ting xie (listening), mo xie (dictation) – madness! We had
teachers who were teaching in completely-Chinese schools. And they did
not want to use any English to teach English-speaking children Chinese
and that turned them off completely.”

The Straits Times Forum have since received a deluge of letters on the
issue with six alone today. While netizens are mostly critical of
Lee’s mistake of closing down Nanyang University and to abolish the
use of dialects in Singapore in the 1970s, the response from readers
of Straits Times are more muted and restrained. Liew Kai Khuin felt
that “it is wrong to attribute personal inadequacies in learning
Chinese entirely to Chinese language teachers who work diligently,
particularly in predominantly English-speaking schools where Mandarin
is regarded as uncool and parochial.”  He opined that Singapore has
already established a relatively concrete education structure in
teaching Chinese as a second language and while it should be
constantly reviewed to reflect currents, the principles of hard work,
committment and discipline should not be diluted.

Arthur Lim wrote that there is a need to prevent Chinese Language
scores from forming a critical component of PSLE scores next year
because the poor mark his son may score in Chinese has “no bearing on
whether he has the aptitude to become a surgeon or accountant or any
other key professional.”  Tan Ying Hong find it disturbing that many
English-speaking families cite Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s remarks
about mistakes in the bilingual policy to justify their inability or
that of their children to cope with the Chinese language.  She is of
the view that “lowering standards time and again is not the way to
pique interest in the language as all Mandarin-speaking students
experienced the madness of ting xie (spelling) and mo xie (dictation)
during English lessons too because this is a necessary stage when
learning a language; there is no short cut.”

As Malaysian Chinese newspaper Sin Chew Daily puts it succinctly:

“Singapore used to be a Chinese educational bastion for Southeast Asia
with the most comprehensive Chinese-language educational system. But
the deviation of its educational policy had changed everything in just
two to three decades. Nanyang University, a leading Chinese university
in Southeast Asia for 25 years, became part of the history in 1980. As
nearly 100% of students were enrolled in English stream primary
schools, English became the first language for all primary and
secondary schools in Singapore. Since then, Chinese education had
basically disappeared from Singapore, leaving only Chinese language
teaching.”

Lee has to take responsibility for the decline in the standards of the
Chinese language in Singapore today. Being an English-educated Straits
Chinese, Lee could not speak mandarin or hokkien in his younger days.
He picked up the language only later due to a need to reach out to the
Chinese-speaking electorate. After he became Prime Minister of
Singapore, Chinese language schools and newspapers were closed down on
suspicions of being hotbeds of communist activism.  Singapore’s
leading Chinese university Nantah was merged with University of
Singapore to form NUS in 1980. English became the medium of education
in all government schools and Chinese was relegated to become a second
language.

When Lee finally realized his folly following the rise of China in the
1980s, it is too late – an entire generation of ethnic Chinese
Singaporeans have lost their cultural roots.  Chinese education is
more than just learning the language. It involves knowing and
understanding Chinese culture, history and literacy as well. With
China poised to become an economic powerhouse in the next decade, it
may be too late for Singapore to salvage its Chinese education and
nurture another group of Chinese intellectuals and elite from the
scratch.

http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/11/26/debate-on-chinese-education-in-singapore-rages-on/

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