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Nanyang University and the Dilemmas of Overseas Chinese Education*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Justus M. Van Der Kroef
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Extract

On December 9, 1963, Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, in presenting a general policy statement of his government for the coming year to the Singapore Legislative Assembly, noted that in Singapore's Nanyang University “a situation is developing which if left unchecked will make it more a University of Yenan than of Nanyang,” and that “Indeed the problems of Nanyang can never be resolved until the political abuse the Communists make of it is exposed and stopped.” Lee's remarks, like his previous ones on the subject of Nanyang University, did not fail to touch on a raw nerve of the University's problems. But as in the past, the raising of the spectre of Yenan has tended to obscure the complex patterns of pride and prejudice and the dilemmas of educational policy confronting the Malaysian Chinese community and indeed the hua ch'iao (Overseas Chinese) of Southeast Asia generally, of which the University is but an expression. Nanyang University's problems today provide an index to the paradoxes and the conflicting appeals as a whole that stir the community whose interests it was originally designed to serve.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 20 , December 1964 , pp. 96 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1964

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References

1 The Straits Times (Singapore and Kuala Lumpur), December 10, 1963.Google Scholar

2 Victor, Purcell, The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London: Oxford University Press, 1951)Google Scholar, pp. 332, 338; Report of the Nanyang University Review Committee (Misc. 1 of 1960), Presented to the Legislative Assembly by the Minister for Education (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1960), p. 1.Google Scholar

3 Where possible in Southeast Asia private Chinese schools seemed to encourage this militancy. One report on a Chinese private school on the east coast of Borneo in the early nineteen-twenties notes how in the school “Many hours are spent in singing lessons, and then mostly (Chinese) national songs are sung. The boys go to school wearing uniform caps and on feast days, like the birthday of Confucius, or the anniversary of the Chinese Republic, they march with toy rifles on their shoulders, accompanied by their teachers”: Bertling, C. T., “De Chineezen op de Oostkust van Borneo,” Koloniale Studien, IX (1925), p. 20.Google Scholar

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16 See, e.g., my “Communism and Chinese Communalism in Sarawak,” pp. of this issueGoogle Scholar; “Malaysia's Problems and Prospects,” Il PoliticoGoogle Scholar (forthcoming); “The Sino-Indonesian Partnership,” Orbis, Summer, 1964.Google Scholar

17 The Straits Times, October 5, 1963.Google Scholar

18 Late in October 1958, the University announced that the Singapore government would grant M$450,000 to the University to cover the deficit for the academic year 1958–59, and that the Government would additionally contribute another M$400,000 as a bursaries fund for needy Singapore students at Nanyang. By early 1959 the first funds were trickling in, but it is not known if the entire sum promised in October was actually received, since shortly after the first government aid was received the opposition to the idea of such aid reached a new height.Google Scholar

19 The Straits Times, December 10, 1963.Google Scholar

20 Early in November 1963, the chief executive officer of the University of Singapore, Vice-Chancellor B. R. Sreenivasan, resigned, a principal reason being that the Singapore government wished to exercise greater control over the entrance of Chinese educated students into the University, “quite a number” of whom, in the Government's opinion, “were also hardcore Communist cadres.” The Government apparently also wished to influence the structure of the curriculum of courses at the University so as to alert undergraduates to Communist methods. Sreenivasan declined to accept these Government proposals which were presented in the context of a discussion of the University's financial needs, with the result that the government declared that Sreenivasan was adopting “the posture of the ostrich.”Google ScholarThe Straits Times, November 1, 1963.Google Scholar

21 Yang, E. L., “A Strong and Healthy Students' Union,” Suloh Nantah, No. 9 (December 1958), pp. 18–20.Google Scholar

22 See, e.g., University Tribune, No. 10, April 1961, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

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24 Lee Kuan, Yew, The Battle for Merger (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1961), p. 89. According to Premier Lee the publication of the University of Singapore's Socialist Club, Fajar, was also used by Communists to articulate their policies.Google Scholar

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26 For details on this amalgamation of front groups see my article, “Singapore's Communist Fronts,” Problems of Communism, September–October 1964.Google Scholar

27 The Sunday Times (Singapore and Kuala Lumpur), February 3, 1963Google Scholar; The Straits Times, February 4, 5, 1963Google Scholar; The Malayan Times (Petaling Jaya), February 4, 5, 1963.Google Scholar

28 The Straits Times, September 15, 1963.Google Scholar

29 The Malayan Times, September 23, 1963. Tan's Malaysian citizenship was subsequently revoked. But he holds British citizenship as well and his property interests have not been affected.Google Scholar

30 The Straits Times, September 24, 1963.Google Scholar

31 Serenda, , “Bloodshed in Nanyang University,” Suloh Nantah, No. 23 (November 1963), p. 2.Google Scholar

32 Malayan Times, September 27, 1963.Google Scholar

33 Cheng Sen Pau (Singapore: Barisan Sosialis Publications Committee), No. 53, October 8, 1963, p. 1 (mimeo).Google Scholar

34 The Straits Times, October 3, 1963.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., October 8, 1963.

36 Malayan Times, October 9, 1963.Google Scholar

37 The Straits Times, November 29, 1963.Google Scholar

38 See my article, “Communism and the Guerilla War in Sarawak,” The World Today, February 1964, pp. 50–60.Google Scholar

39 The Straits Times, December 3, 1963.Google Scholar On the use of English see also “Language and Learning,” Far Eastern Economic Review, May 21, 1964, pp. 391–392.Google Scholar

40 Indicative is the Chinese Communist Party's recent assertion that U.S. reverses in Southeast Viet Nam not only have encouraged revolutionary action in other countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, but that the people in these countries should emulate the Viet Cong because U.S. reverses show that “The people of any country or region subjected to U.S. aggression can win victory, if only they are not overawed by its apparent strength and dare and know how to struggle.”Google ScholarRenmin Ribao, editorial, March 4, 1964.Google Scholar

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42 Thus one may find a leading and Western trained Chinese educator in Hong Kong urging the establishment in the new Chinese University of Hong Kong of a “College of Chinese Medicine,” on the grounds that “Chinese medicine is an indispensable part of Chinese culture. It is inseparable from Chinese culture.” Moreover, it is argued, if adequate training would be offered in Chinese medicine one could achieve the “elimination of quacks” now practising Chinese medicine in Hong Kong. Then, too, one could proceed with the registration of practitioners of Chinese medicine as “is the case with doctors of Western Medicine.”Google ScholarChiu, Vermier Y., “The Chinese University” Hong Kong Standard, December 6, 1963.Google Scholar