May 24, 2021

Associate Professor Daniel Goh (NUS Department of Sociology) examines the changing values of elite education in Singapore, from its initial post-colonial focus on humility and service to a more modern and individualistic character, in ‘Affective identities and the recontextualisation of elite schools for globalisation in Singapore’ (Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2020).

The four elite high schools of St George’s Institution, St Mary’s Institution, South Seas High, and Temasek High form the central basis of analysis, and highlight a very specific type of Singaporean – students who are male and largely Chinese in ethnicity. A/P Goh articulates the vast gulf between these four schools and the rest of Singapore’s education system, with their pedagogical approach trained firmly on cultivating future leaders and titans of industry. According to Eugene Wijeysingha, the former principal of Temasek High, the four schools were to train the next generation of administrative and political elites, who were to be bilingual, multiracial, service-oriented, socially conscious, and indebted to the state.

However, the graduating class of the 1990s and onwards resembled a different vision to the one hoped for by Government ministers and education scholars. In contrast to previous graduating cohorts who viewed humility and service as invaluable parts of their character, the new cohort were instead increasingly emphasising their personality in terms of leadership and individual will, with a much-reduced importance and focus placed on humility and service. A/P Goh considers these changing values as representative of a larger shift in Singaporean society, where the city state’s aim to become a global and modern city has been achieved, and subsequently fostered a next generation elite that is inherently homogenous – male, Chinese, and individualistic – in order to successfully navigate the transnational networks that are expanding between Asian and Western economies.

These mentally confident, emotionally secure, but noticeably less humble elites have consolidated their social and political positions within Singapore. However, the challenges of globalisation and coming into competition with other transnational middle classes will be the real test for this new generation of Singaporean elite.

Read the full article here.