I refer to the 11 Jul 2014 Straits Times report “Govt committed to helping S’poreans master mother tongue”.
PM Lee claims that schools in the 1950s either taught in English or in Chinese but not both. That is not true. Mr Lee Kong Chian had already introduced bilingual education to the Chinese High School in 1949 and also proposed bilingual and trilingual education for the country in 1953 before PAP was founded:
• 1934 – 1955: Served as chairman of the management committee of Chinese High School. In 1949, he convinced the principal to introduce bilingual education.
• 1953: Proposed introducing bilingual and trilingual education, and equal treatment for schools of all language streams. His proposals were accepted by the colonial government and included in the White Paper on Education Policy that introduced a unified education system for Singapore.
[http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_978_2006-06-16.html]
PM Lee has the cheek to say that it was government policies that safeguarded the Chinese language in Singapore when in the first place it was the PAP that many authors pointed to as the culprit that destroyed Chinese schools in Singapore.
• PAP systematically undercut Chinese education as it saw the Chinese educated as both political and cultural threats
• PAP set about neutralising Chinese schools, which were powerful auxiliaries to labour unions and the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce which is the major funding and controlling body for Chinese education in a bid to control education
• PAP, through government policies, strengthened social and economic forces that reduced the number of Chinese schools
[Carl A. Trocki, Singapore: wealth, power and the culture of control”, page 150]
• PAP sought to destroy Chinese education, page 81
• Racial integration policy was a cover for an all-out attack on Chinese education, page 84
• PAP undermined Chinese education autonomy while attempting to win Malay support by appearing to be multiracial, page 85
• The 1969 bilingual policy, while appeasing Chinese public opinion, completed the demolition of the Chinese education system, page 89
• The government being the largest employer in Singapore could have given better job opportunities to the Chinese educated but refused to, page 79
[Christopher Tremewan, The political economy of social control in Singapore]
• PAP promised equal treatment for all language streams but not equal employment opportunities for people from non-English streams
[Tong Chee Kiong, Identity and ethnic relations in Southeast Asia: racializing Chineseness, page 62]
PM Lee maintains that Speak Mandarin and bilingualism has allowed the younger generation to communicate in both Mandarin and English today. But the younger Malaysian generation who can speak Mandarin, English, Cantonese and Malay shows there is no need to suppress dialects to promote Mandarin or English.
I refer too to the 11 Jul 2014 Straits Times report “PMO responds to Zaobao editorial on Chinese language”.
PMO cites Hong Konger’s inability to master three languages to support its view that most people cannot master English, Mandarin and dialect at the same time. But Malaysians have shown that it is possible to achieve conversational fluency in English, Mandarin, Malay and Cantonese without compromising written proficiency in English.
PMO rejects blaming the bilingual policy for falling Chinese standards and instead states its belief that without it, Singaporeans would not understand, speak or write Chinese. But as explained above, many authors believe that it was the PAP government that actively brought down Chinese schools and Chinese education in the first place. The blame must fall squarely on the PAP government.
PMO views as extreme and unjust Zaobao’s assertion that the Speak Mandarin campaign and bilingualism divided the pioneer generation from their grandchildren leading to loss of Chinese values and hastening of Westernization. PMO’s defense is the similar shifts in values and attitudes in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
• PMO should not deny the disconnection between generations when grandparents only speak dialect while grandchildren do not.
• PMO should not deny that Singapore is the most westernized amongst China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
PMO is of the opinion that Speak Mandarin strengthens, not weakens the younger generation’s sense of belonging. PMO should not deny that the damage had already been done long before the Speak Mandarin campaign.
Like the stop-at-two policy, the government will never admit to any wrongdoing.
Thank you
Ng Kok Lim
Straits Times, Govt committed to helping S’poreans master mother tongue, 11 Jul 2014
PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong has addressed concerns that Mandarin standards are slipping in a speech to mark the 75th anniversary of Chung Cheng High School, one of the first here to teach both English and Chinese at first-language level.
He also stressed that the Government remains committed to its goal to help all Singaporeans master their mother tongue to the best of their ability.
Speaking in Mandarin, Mr Lee said it was not appropriate to compare today’s social and linguistic environment with that of the 1950s, when schools taught either in English or Chinese but not in both languages.
He also highlighted the critical role of the Government’s language policies in safeguarding the learning and use of the Chinese language.
“If we did not introduce the bilingual policy, promote Mandarin and start Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools, Singapore today might be a completely English-speaking society,” he said.
Given an environment where English is the lingua franca and working language, it has not been easy to maintain Singaporeans’ Mandarin standard at the level it is today, he added.
Mr Lee had also addressed this concern in an interview for a book marking the 35th anniversary of the Speak Mandarin campaign.
In that interview, released last week, he said that while Chinese standards may have slipped, he remained optimistic that Singapore could achieve about 95 per cent of its desired outcome in mastering the language.
Yesterday, he elaborated on this further, pledging that the Government would continue to work hard and do its best to help Singaporeans achieve their highest potential in their mother tongues.
Besides the support given to SAP schools, it has also extended resources to all schools to help more students excel in Mandarin.
Last year, 30 per cent of Chinese students took Higher Chinese at the O levels, almost double the rate in 2000, he noted.
And some 100,000 teachers, parents and students take part in programmes by the Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning every year.
These examples show that the Government’s multi-faceted efforts to promote Mandarin have been effective, he said.
It aims to “ensure that all Singaporeans stay rooted in their mother tongue and culture, have good values and do not forget their roots”. These are values that Chung Cheng has always taught its students, and were why SAP schools were set up, he said.
But at the start, it was not clear if SAP schools would succeed, said Mr Lee. It was a challenge for students to master Chinese and English at first-language level given the environment then. Many parents also wanted their children to study English instead of Chinese, as the former was perceived to have more economic value.
But the Government put in resources, teachers and students worked hard, and parents gave their support.
“All SAP schools submitted a beautiful report card in the end. You could say they all passed,” said Mr Lee.
Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Seng Han Thong, who is Chinese-educated, said the bilingual policy aimed to counter the trend of parents sending their children to English-language schools, and help every student speak his mother tongue, at least at a basic level.
The policy’s “net gain” is that the younger generation can communicate in Mandarin and English, rather than each group speaking its own dialect, as in the past.
Last night, banker Wee Cho Yaw, who has chaired the Chung Cheng school management committee for almost 20 years, announced that the gala dinner had raised some $2 million to be used for bursaries and the school’s future development.
Straits Times, PMO responds to Zaobao editorial on Chinese language, 11 Jul 2014
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has responded to an editorial in Lianhe Zaobao that called for more space for dialects and for the social standing of the Chinese language to be raised.
In the reply published in the Chinese daily yesterday, the PMO said the reasons for launching the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979 remain relevant today as most people would not be able to master English, Mandarin and dialect at the same time.
The PMO also defended the bilingual policy, saying it is not to blame for falling Chinese standards and that without the policy, there would be a generation of Singaporeans who cannot understand, speak or write the language.
The Zaobao editorial was published on Monday, two days after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong launched the 35th anniversary celebrations of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The editorial highlighted the price exacted by the campaign and the bilingual policy. The urgency with which the campaign had been rolled out had turned the use of Mandarin and dialects into a “zero-sum game”, it said.
It created a divide between the dialect-speaking pioneer generation and their mainly English- speaking grandchildren, leading to the loss of traditional Chinese values and hastening the Westernisation of society, it said.
In the letter, which was signed by the Prime Minister’s press secretary Chang Li Lin, the PMO said this view was extreme, not objective and “does not do justice to the Government”.
The editorial omitted to mention that similar shifts in values and attitudes are taking place even in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the PMO said. Singapore upheld Mandarin to strengthen the younger generation’s knowledge of their mother tongue and culture rather than to weaken their sense of belonging as the editorial argued, it added.
As for dialects, they have not been expunged but the young should focus on English and Mandarin. Hong Kong’s experience with three languages shows Singapore’s pragmatic approach is necessary and has worked, the PMO said. And without the bilingual policy, today there would be a generation of Singaporeans who cannot understand Chinese, speak Mandarin, or even read Chinese newspapers and entertainment news, it said.
The PMO also rebutted the argument that the language issue had largely lost its political hue as Singaporeans have internalised the importance of inter-racial, inter-religious harmony and that English is the lingua franca.
Ms Chang said this was a misperception. Singapore cannot be complacent about the need to treat race, language and religious issues with care, she said, citing the furore over the use of Mandarin in MRT station announcements and a New Year’s Eve countdown. As the majority ethnic group, Chinese Singaporeans have a responsibility to remember Singapore is multi-racial. “We must never make non-Chinese Singaporeans feel marginalised in their own country.”