| TITLE: EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SINGAPORE, SOURCE OF GROWTH, CRISIS AND PERSPECTIVES | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I would like to express my gratitude first for all who visit my site.This site and its links are all some of my "idle" creations,and the essay below is actually one of my term research paper in my first year introductory Political Science,which I'm taking at King's College,the University of Western Ontario.Since the paper itself is like 14 pages in standard essay format,I wouldn't expect many of you to really finish reading it.BUT should anyone of you happen to have somehow finish reading my paper and think that you've some comments,criticisms,judgements,recommendations or whatever to tell me.Do feel free to email me at the email address provided below.I'll be most grateful for any feedback whatsoever.Finally,wish all of you "happy reading" and learning,and do (out of curiousity) try out the links too.Adieu. Political Science 020E Mok Chwan Yee London,Ontario 20.03.99 1219AM | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Thesis: Once a potential next "Cuba" with a twisted trait of the former Yugoslavia(due to its multi-ethnic demographic make-up), Singapore has not only been able to sustain decades of economic growth of 8-10% of its GNP since its expulsion of the Federal States of Malaysia(F.M.S) in 1965, but has also remain in relative savoir-faire in the face of the recent regional financial crisis(in contrast to its much dishevelled neighbours, including Malaysia). While the polity's anti-gravitational maintenance of its stability and prosperity in a sea of chaos may seems enviable to many. It is also a blessing that its leaders have not thus become over-complacent about their relative achievement, but had seized the chance of the crisis to instil the values of continual self-improvement, diligence, perseverance, racial harmony, and national identity, showing the young and untested members of its society of the omnipotent extinction of the country's relevance in the greater world of competition. After all, the living examples of the abrupt reverse of fortunes of the Asian 'Miracles' would have been more than sufficient in the conveyance of the omnipotent vulnerability of countries(especially an self-insufficient and small island-state like Singapore). It is therefore the aim of this essay to study how has Singapore been able to harness its human capital through the vehicle of education towards the achieving of national advancements, while being able to prevent the overspills of growth to de-stabilise the country under strains. We will also attempt to explore the implications of the financial crisis for Singapore, and to take a speculative glimpse at the growth possibility frontiers for the polity. Synthesis: In view of education as the vehicle for growth in Singapore, one not only needs to be acutely sensitive to the potentially dynamic undercurrents along its racial, linguistic, and cultural faults, but also to be able to perceive the triple functions of education in the achieving of progression, cohesion, and harmonisation. With these in mind, it will certainly serve to the purpose of facilitating our better-understanding of the educational development and functions for the city-state. In the development of the educational system in Singapore, we will study how has the system come to be what it is today. Moving to the functions of education, we will look into the role of education in the achieving of social progression, social cohesion, and social(racial) harmony. Finally, we will attempt to establish the casual relationship between education and the growth prospects of Singapore in the post-Crisis era. Development: Critical parameters had restraint the earliers efforts in the developing of the educational system in Singapore. In the colonial-merger periods of the polity, education had been mainly funded by the different communities(along cultural, racial, and religous lines) for their respective youngs, with a few exception of colonial-funded schools. There was basically no one unified and consistent educational system in place, due to the disinterest of the commerically-interested colonial administration. This was to sow the seed of conflicts in a highly-stratified polity, with the various communities remaining fiercely loyal to their respective 'parent' countries(China for Chinese, the Malay Archipelago and the Middle East for Malays, and India for Tamils), where even the young, Singaporean-borned students were much attached to these parent states(as realistically, it would not appear to be logical for the Chinese-descent or Malay-descent to identify themselves with a colonial administration whose real interests laid with the trade interests of the polity and not the people's welfare). By the early 1960s, education was entailed with a new significance with the pending retreat of the British. With the intent of fusing the tiny island state into the F.M.S(potentially then along with Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei) in a political bid to stem the potential attempt by the Soviet-backed Indonesia from re-claiming the void of British presence in the Malay Archipelago, the elevation of Malay into the lingua franca status within its educational system in practice(since it already was in concept prior to this, but was otherwise in practice) for the island-state became meaningful to serve the dual-function of one, a move of determination made by the state towards its eventual merger with the already-independent F.M.S; and two, a symbolic recognition of the political status of the minority(but indigenous, arguably) Malays in Singapore. This political adaptation was consequently reiterated in the ruling People's Action Party(PAP)'s 1964 "Manifesto." However, with Singapore's rapid separation with the F.M.S in the ensuing months of the post election racial riots, all previous considerations were to be re-tabulated. With the bloodshed of the riots yet fresh in mind, and the island's size and population taken into considerations, survival became the immediate concern . The LKY administration had realised that the re-adapting(to suit its needs) of the educational system was essential for the achieving of any conceivable progression, cohesion, and harmonisation for the polity. Hence, the government's pursue of common education (Integrated School Concept) for all children of eligible age, the high emphasis on national identity, and racial harmony(with the latter two achieved through compulsory flag-raising ceromony, singing of the national anthem, reciting of pledge of allegience to the country in schools daily, in conjunction with the teaching of subjects such as Moral and Civics, History, etc). Throughout the post-Independent era till the early 1970s, the educational system was seen to converge into a single English-medium stream, with the government's high emphasis on the practicality(commercially as the language of trade and in public life) of the language. Attached with the complemental function to produce graduates with the right skills as demanded by the investing industries from its schools, the educational system was also tending towards the direction of high emphasis on the sciences over the humanities. Meritocracy, or upward social mobility was also rigged against the academic achievements/qualifications, coherent to 'from each his economic best, to each his economic worth.' However, by 1976, the defects of such an intensely growth-oriented educational system became apparent. At one end of the competitive(and at times 'cruel') system, persistent trend of high educational wastage rate(of every 1,000 children who enrolled Primary 1, only 440 managed to reach Secondary 4 after 10 years) was becoming worrisome, with the high unemployability of the school dropouts and the potential social problems they might posed(29% of attrition rate), notwithstanding the unrecoverable investments the government had devoted on their education. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, the government had spotted a group of academic high-flyers without any allegience either to the country or to the people, due their pre-matured exposure to the novel western concepts of individualism, liberal-democracy, and freedom(among others). The years of immersing in a highly competitive system had undoubtedly hardened these presumed elite of the society, and resulting in their being "selfish, willing to exploit friendship for personal gain, and reluctant to cooperate with classmates" as Dr. Robert Balhetchet noted. Potentially, the society was facing a crisis with the lower end disadvantaged by a merciless meritocratic system, and the cream of the crop fully exploiting the system to their personal advantage(an educated group without ingrained values can be more dangerous than a totally uneducated group--LKY). Seeking to rectify the situation, the Goh Keng Swee Report had proposed the re-modification of the educational system with one, the intensification of streaming exercises from Primary School level; two, a compromised standard of students' cultural language(Mother Tongue, MT) for most students; three, with double emphasis of English and MT for the high-flyers(top 10% of the Primary School Leaving Examinations, PSLE's students) in the bilingual Special Assistance Programme(SAP); four, the incorporation of MT instruction in the teaching of Eastern value system. Summarily, the Report had recommended for the retention and re-grouping of weaker students into re-modified(to suit their abilities) streams with compromised syllabus instead of losing these human capital to school attrition; English as First Language(as examinable under the Cambridge Examination Syndicate's Advanced and Ordinary Levels) for all students; Chinese as Second Language(compromised level of difficult for Chinese students with difficulty with their MT, quizzically) for most students; Chinese as First Language(presumably at an arbitary level of difficulty with English) for the top 10% of the students; and the teaching of values of diligence, perseverance, collectiveness over individalism(translated roughly into noblesse oblige), and racial harmony for all students. As observable, this period was marked by the government's attempt to rectify a disequilibrium of social cohesion or collectiveness due to the rapid economic growth throughout the 1970s. But the main themes of progression, cohesion, and harmony of the society have consistently reigned the educational agenda, only to be fine-tuned to varying degrees as the need arises. Source of Growth: To provide a clearer view of the transformational value of education as a function of growth in Singapore, we will now try to look into the practical applications of education in the growth process, especially in its economy and the binding of its society. In Singapore's aggressive pursuing of industrialisation in the 1970s, the educational system was rendered the task of producing students equiped with the right skills as demanded by the investing foreign industrialists. Heavy startup investments by the government was devoted to the creation of almost all of the existing polytechnical and vocational institutions standing today by 1972. With the goal to serve as the labour threshold for the industries, these institutions were to produce graduates who could integrate immediately into the workforce with their technical and mechanical training. Thus, the market demand of labour and labour productivity were kept in constant tab by the government. The extent of the economic relevance embedded within polytechnical and vocational education was only too apparent, with the government going as far as to bring in companies' advice and consultation during the process of curriculum-formulation, and coordination of these schools. However, with the emergence of new cost-competitors(i.e. Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc) by the early 1980s, it became apparent that Singapore's labour-intensive economy which brought it into the ranks of the Newly Industrialised Economies(NIEs) was economically-capped with further growth due to its diminishing marginal product of labour. Implicitly, the economy had to transit towards a higher value-adding and increasingly capital intensive one, so as to further expand its production function, and consequently to make any further growth sustainable. Education was once again seen and employed as the vehicle towards this end. Since higher investments in high-value adding industries was needed for this transition of its economy, the economy had also to reciprocate sufficient quantity and quality of skilled labour to the market. Hence, the intensification of the value-adding processes to its human capital-- the students in schools. Amongst others, biotechnological industry, and highly-technical(hi-tech) industries were being aggressively wooed by the government to relocate their research and development(R & D) facilities in the country. Concurrently, the government held promises of being able to provide the potential investing industries with highly-skilled and highly-specialised human resources with the expansion and upgrading of its educational system. By that time, the second university, the Nanyang Technological University(NTU), was established to cope with the task of producing high value-adding competent technocrats to the capital-intensifying economy. While the polytechnics were also to step up its curriculum from the lower(value-adding) mechanical and technical training, into diversifying and higher(value-adding) ones such as (mechanical, chemical, biological, etc) engineering, accountancy, business, and legal studies among others, so as to produce its diploma-holding graduates for the expanding economy. Towards the 1990s, the rapid-setting in of the Information and Technology(IT) era, has once again deemed the previous economic plans obsolete, with expansion and re-modification of its education system necessary once again. As observable from the Republic's Fiscal Year 1999(FY99) Budgetary Expenditure, 19% of the budge expenditure(second only to defence spending) is devoted to education, despite the financial downturn of the country. In conjunction of the IT development, a progressively greater amount of the country's education budget has also been channelled into the computerising of the curriculum where possible, with a shrinking student per computer ratio across the schools in the bid to "start the young early" to fit in ahead of the race in the IT world. As the Finance Minister, Richard Hu, pointed out in his Annual Budgetary Speech to the Parliament, "as the future of Singapore will depend on the quality of our human resources, we will continue to invest more in education" despite the country's first deficit-running year since the 1985-86 recession. Thus, the significance of education in the defining of the economic prospects of Singapore cannot be over-emphasised. Often overlooked in the education agenda is however the education function to propagate social cohesion and racial harmony which the government has wisely pursue, and reaped its "fruits" in the recent financial crisis by keeping the country insulated from the socio-political turmoils that plagued nearly all its neighbours. Though reasons to the unwavering social cohesion under the current economical strains varied, the core factors remain the same. Learning its lessons from the racial bloodshed earlier in its history, Singapore has long been convicted to the preventing of the recurrance of such incidents, and has since Independence incorporated the propagating of social cohesion, racial harmony, and collectivism to its populace. Integrating the singing of the national anthem, reciting of loyalty pledge in schools every morning for students and staffs alike; the creating of Moral and Civics education, aiming to instil national identity and to enable the character-building of the students; the preparing of historical and social studies' texts providing the early immigrant settlement from the different perspectives of the various (races) immigrants, are the key ingredients of constructing a socially-cohesive, and racially-harmony society. As S. Gopinathan commented "the key characters in these texts(the history textbooks) are the immigrants, the key values, the virtues of hard work, perseverance, and the rewards that follow, financial prosperity and security," the ethno-lingual cleavages to be minimised, the common values to be magnified, the national identity to be instilled, and the fundamental(ancestry) values to be preserved. With the notions of economical-competitiveness and social-cohesion(and a sense of noblesse oblige and collectivism among others) working in countering directions, it is therefore certainly a delicate and arduous task in the balancing of the two pre-conditions towards stability, prosperity and harmony-- a task which the country has proven to undertake with much impressive results under the most recent test though. Crisis and Perspectives: The balance of payments and business cycle crisis which triggered the financial meltdown in Asia undoubtedly raised serious questions to the future growth prospects of Singapore. With the last of the low-skilled jobs exiting the economy with the economic slowdown, the dipping of the export-market demands, and diplomatic winter for the city-state, it is certainly a trying time for both the people and the government of the country alike. Based on the economic fundamentals of high export propensities and the current decrease in export demands, the vulnerabilities of the polity's economic prospects are amply magnified, with the fleeing of the low-skilled industries and the jobs, leaving a potential structural unemployment problem to the society. Meanwhile, on its diplomatic front, the country has to juggle with the "offensive" initiatives from its immediate neighbours(Malaysia and Indonesia) in their bids to create "foreign-diplomatic-shows for restless domestic audience." Fortunately, the cool-headedness(or knowing of its limits) of the Republic's leaders is not lost with the tremendous pressures from all fronts. While it is also at this juncture when the years of education to its populace on stability considerations, and harmony come in useful to prevent the outbreak of the potential populist demand for diplomatic retaliation against the provokers, which could be deadly for such a tiny island(afterall). Meanwhile, the attempt by the government to work towards the educating of its young to positively political-socialise with their "provoker" countries to localise the tension between government instead of between people has also serve to create a win-win situation for all, with Singaporeans continuing to shop in the neighbouring Malaysia and work as expatriates in Indonesia despite the tensions among leaders and the so-called social unrest(many of which are quite exclusively western media fabrication) in these countries, instead of shunning these countries altogether, which could further aggravate the situation for all. Finally, the crisis has also enable us to see the undiminished role of education as the function of growth in Singapore, as apparent from its FY99. At the same time, we see the reflexive propagating of job-training, self-improvement, and further education for the unemployed, the employed, and the students all alike, with the aim to constantly upkeep its bid towards an 'intelligent' city. With the government efforts put into such venues of further development of its human capital largely through education and further education in order to enable higher flexibility to its populace in a high job creating and destructing economy, instead of handing out social insurance and welfare-distribution, the government has done the country and itself a great favour of averting the potential discontent in future bid to stop such transfers and the disincentives for its people to work, either of which is potentially fatal to the country's growth prospects(since its smallness, and inability to sustain years of deficits for welfare states like the larger western democracies). But Singapore, like most of its South East Asian counterparts, faces the bleak prospects, should F. Gerald Adams and Heidi Vernon's predictions on the shift of the geographical gravity of development in Asia from the more advanced but smaller countries(including Singapore) to China be materialised, since then the struggle towards its former rapid expansionary growth path will be an ever-more taxing task. Given the enormous unexplored growth potential, human capital, relative labour cost-competitiveness, and a larger shock-absorpent base of China, it is highly improbable for Singapore to outbid the former in any direct competition. However, being an advanced economy by now, Singapore, unlike the other lesser-developed counterparts of itself(who have miss the growth tide in a sense), will be in a better position at the resumption of growth, due to its developed education system(relative to the undeveloped education system in Indonesia and Malaysia) and higher-value competency of its human resources. It will also be in a high-value adding partner position with most of its trading partners and hence will not be in the danger of being crowd out by China in any direct competition. On the contrary, as shown by the recent trends, the blocs such as China, India, and the Indochina(Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos etc), will in certain sense become the "junior" partners in development, in the endeavours to develop their largely undeveloped countries. And this naturally will require the constant ability of the Republic to upkeep with its educational development, the upgrading of its human capital, the sustaining of its forefront position in technological changes and human resource development, in order to maintain the expertise-exporter status among its less-developed partners. Conclusion: With three decades of impressive growth under its belt, Singapore's growth is one which has perhaps been unnecessary mythified by the impressed but ignorant(of how Singapore worked) as the East Asian model of growth, something which does not exists at all given the distinctiveness of growth paths followed by different East Asian countries(ironically, the term "mircacle" which was once used to term the Japanese model of growth in the 1970s outgrew its initial usage to be further utilised to term Singapore). But the growth of Singapore can certainly be attributed to the high attention paid to the education development by the government, the complemental function of growth and education, the high emphasis on the pre-conditions of cohesion and harmony for growth, and the rule of meritocracy, which are all integrated into its multi-functional education system. Hence, the transformational value of education into economic growth, social cohesion, and racial harmony, is clearly decisive in the future prospects of the nation. Finally, despite of its being one of the high-flyers along the ladder of development, and the speculations by Adams and Vernon of its pending slowdown in growth as it moves into the ranks of the mature economies, Singapore has proven itself to be stunningly reflexive in integrating itself into the the world(and global economy) and at growth-generating. As seen in its recent mobilisation of its entire workforce to upgrade their human capital pro-actively through education, further education, and the upgrading of their skills, the country yet holds much prospects for growth, perhaps unlimited to Adams and Vernon's speculations. The polity's educational development certainly holds much grounds for debates on its high market-orientation and values-instilling tendencies(some may criticise the overlooking of the education for knowledge aspects, while others may argue that the system is modelling on a Confucian state model). However, if growth is to be measured in terms of social progression(economic growth, zero starvation, a increasingly educated populace), social cohesion, and racial harmony, the country has probably achieved all these, will be one of the first Asian economies to rebound from the regional financial crisis, and continue to remain as one of the important actors in a more competitive world. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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REFERENCES | R.S. Milne, and Diane K. Mauzy. Singapore: The Legacy of Lee Kuan Yew. Westview Press. Boulder, San Francisco, & Oxford. 1990. Riaz Hassan. Singapore: Society in Transition. Oxford University Press. Kuala Lumpur, London, New York, and Melbourne. 1976. Cheng Lim-Keak. Social Change and the Chinese in Singapore: A Socio-Econoomic Geography With Special Reference to Bang Structure. Singapore University Press. Singapore. 1985. Kernial Singh Sandhu, and Paul Wheatley. Management of Success: The Moulders of Modern Singapore. Westview Press. Singapore, Colorado(USA). 1989. F. Gerard Adams, and Shinichi Ichimura. East Asian Development: Will the East Asian Growth Miracle Survive? Praeger Publishers. Westport, Connecticut, and London. 1998. Singapore English Newspaper. The Straits Times. Daily. Located at http://www.straitstimes.com.sg/ Updated daily with 7-day archives available online. Singapore's Fiscal Budget 1999 from The Straits Times. Monetary Authority of Singapore's website. Located at http://www.mas.com.sg/
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