The 2015 Singaporean General Election (GE), held on 11 September, signified a political revitalisation of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) as it won 70% of the votes. This result came after the ‘watershed’ 2011 GE, where the PAP received the lowest number of votes (60%) since Singapore’s independence in 1963. Associate Professor Weiyu Zhang […]

What are the effects of exposing children to languages and dialects during infancy?   A recent study by NUS researchers led by Associate Professor Leher Singh (NUS Department of Psychology), “The impact of foreign language caregiving on native language acquisition” (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2019), showed that a language or dialect heard during infancy […]

On 6 August 2019, the Parliament of Singapore passed the Point-to-Point Passenger Transport Industry Bill, which mandates that all ride-hail and street-hail service providers with a fleet size of more than 800 vehicles will have to be licensed from June 2020. In essence, the government is making moves to exercise oversight and regulation over such […]

On 7 September 1979, the Singapore government launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign, an initiative which aimed to improve proficiency in proper Mandarin and unify various Chinese dialect groups. This focus on Mandarin proficiency, alongside an emphasis on fluency in English during the foundational years of Singapore’s independence, was part of a bilingual language policy that […]

For island nations like Singapore, the impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather and rising sea levels, are amplified. Traditional methods of protecting Singapore’s shorelines include concrete seawalls or increasing land reclamation heights. In an editorial in The Straits Times, Associate Professor Daniel Friess (NUS Department of Geography) suggests supplementing such methods by leveraging […]

In August 1992, the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act came into effect, with the intention of preserving religious harmony and ensuring that religion is not used to instigate any political causes or to organize any subversive activities in Singapore. A similar piece of legislation is Section 298A of the Penal Code, which states that one […]

Professor Wei-Jun Jean Yeung (NUS Department of Sociology), in an editorial in The Straits Times, talks about the need to counter ageism and integrate the silver workforce better amidst the National Day Rally announcements to increase the retirement age and re-employment age to 65 and 70, respectively, by 2030. Prof Yeung believes the changes are […]

Little research has been done on pre-colonial Singapore’s Malay warriors – the Orang-orang Diraja and Pendekar – who were central to the military and political activities of the region’s pre-colonial rulers. To change that, Dr Mohammed Effendy Abdul Hamid (NUS Department of Southeast Asian Studies) is leading a two-year National Heritage Board (NHB) heritage research […]

World Senior Citizens Day will be celebrated this year on 21 August. The day raises awareness of the social and physical issues that affect the elderly and recognizes their contributions to society. Singapore, like many other countries, is currently encountering a growing elderly population, with the United Nations estimating that 38% of Singaporeans will be […]

On Singapore’s National Day, Associate Professor Albert Lau (NUS Department of History) published an opinion piece questioning Singapore’s search for its national identity. Instead of Singapore’s (“modern”) history beginning in 1819, A/P Lau’s ‘Singapore Bicentennial: Whither the Singapore identity?’ critically examines the revised narrative of Singapore’s 700 years of history, and how that plays a […]