MM Lee admits “mistake” made in his education policy

MM Lee admits “mistake” made in his education policy
November 18, 2009

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew admitted that his insistence on bilingualism in the early days of education policy was “wrong” as it caused students in the younger generations to give up learning the Chinese language.

During a speech made at the official opening of the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, MM 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.”

Singapore has established close trading links with China and today, Chinese is becoming more important as a linkage with the Chinese speaking world.

During the early days of Singapore’s independence, many Chinese schools were closed down on suspicions of being breeding ground for communism. Though they were later re-opened, English had replaced Chinese as the medium of education leading to a decline in the standard of Chinese in Singapore schools over the years.

While most ethnic Singaporean Chinese can read and write in Chinese, English remains the lingua franca used in work. Many are also ignorant of Chinese culture, history and literature.

Besides the language policy, Lee had made a few notable mistakes during the course of his political career such as the “Stop at Two” policy in the 1970s which contributed partly to Singapore’s declining birth rate today.
With more and more mainland Chinese flocking to work and live in Singapore, English-educated Singaporeans may have to relearn the language in order to communicate with these newcomers and to “re-integrate” into Singapore society.