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.
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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.
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