September 7, 2021

Bilingualism has often been touted as the cornerstone of Singapore’s language policy. The original aim of Singapore’s bilingual education was for citizens to gain access to knowledge of the West via English and to understand themselves via their mother tongue. However, the formation of bilingual policy was never properly established, causing for intense debate both within and outside of Parliament regarding the appropriate level of proficiency for both English and the mother tongue.

In ‘Singapore bilingual education: One policy, many interpretations’ (Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 2020), Associate Professor Lee Cher Leng and Associate Professor Phua Chiew Pheng (NUS Department of Chinese Studies) explore the case of Chinese language (Mandarin) education to show how “bilingual” education in Singapore has undergone significant changes over the years, contrary to the popular assumption that Singapore has always maintained a consistent stand on bilingualism.

From 1959 to 1979, Hokkien functioned as the lingua franca among the Chinese population. English and Mandarin were effectively foreign languages for most children, with the 1957 census showing that only 1.8% and 0.1% of the population spoke English and Mandarin as mother tongues. At that time, there was a great divide between English-speaking and Chinese-speaking schools. The first attempt to integrate English and Chinese streams of education was through the establishment of Integrated schools, where classes were held in two different languages simultaneously. However, this system was generally considered unsuccessful since students from the Integrated schools did not end up more linguistically competent than those from single-language schools.

In 1960, the study of a second language was made compulsory for all primary schools. English became the ‘first language’ in English-medium schools while Mandarin remained the ‘first language’ in Chinese schools.  The study of a second language was also made compulsory for all secondary schools in 1966, with it becoming a compulsory examination subject in the GCE O-levels in 1969. This ensured the continued learning of second languages and provided an incentive for students to be proficient in them. However, the failure rate among secondary students was high, with only 10.6% of students successfully completing bilingual education in 1974.

In 1963, in the face of falling enrolment in Chinese schools, the first language was given double weightage of marks as compared to Mathematics and Science at the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), and in 1973, the same was done for the second language. Language Exposure Time (LET), the amount of time a student is exposed to their second language while at school, was implemented in 1972, with a goal of 40% LET by 1975.

The mismatch between home languages and the language of instruction at school led to the introduction of streaming in 1979. With English becoming the main medium of instruction for all schools in 1987, streaming served as a ‘differentiated’ kind of bilingual education where students would no longer receive the same type of bilingual training. The Chinese ‘B’ syllabus and an elective Chinese language programme were introduced in 1999 and 2020. Streaming lowered the general level of proficiency for Mandarin for most, if not all, Chinese students.

Finally, the Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC) was launched on the 7^th of September, 1979, in the same year that Mandarin was reduced to a single subject in schools due to the termination of the LET. It was aimed at increasing Mandarin at home to counter the drastic drop in the Chinese requirement and exposure time in schools.

Read the article here.