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Education as an Instrument of Policy in Southeast Asia: The Singapore Example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

H. E. Wilson
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Extract

The cultural and ethno-linguistic diversity, of Southeast Asia as a whole is reflected in the heterogeneous character of the populations of the individual states of the region, and everywhere problems associated with multi-lingualism and multiculturism challenge the authority of centralised governments. Modern education has increasingly come to be used as a means to confront and overcome these problems. Governments have sought to inculcate an acceptance of and a compliance with prevailing political systems, to detach disparate communities from their distinctive cultural affinities, and to promote a sense of national identity through formal public instruction. The purpose of this paper is to place modern education in Southeast Asia within its historical context, and to consider the ways in which several governments have used public instruction to achieve political ends.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 75 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1977

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References

1 Ich, Vu Tam, “A Historical Survey of Educational Developments in Vietnam,” Bulletin of the Bureau of School Service, 32, 2 (December 1959), 39–40Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 Fitzgerald, Frances, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), pp. 22–23 and passimGoogle Scholar.

4 Ibid., pp. 15–16. Probably the best account of education in traditional Vietnam is to be found in Woodside, Alexander B., Vietnam and the Chinese Model (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 181–194CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Furnivall, J. S., Educational Progress in Southeast Asia (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1943), pp. 13–15Google Scholar. A valuable account of traditional education in Burma, which was similar in many ways to education in Siam, Laos and Cambodia, is provided by Kaung, U, “A Survey of the History of Education in Burma before the British conquest and after,” Journal of the Burma Research Society, 46, Part II (December 1963), 9–33Google Scholar. See also Mendelson, E. Michael, Sangha and State in Burma (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1975), pp. 150–157Google Scholar. An illuminating first-hand account of traditional Burmese education is to be found in Yoe, Shway, The Burman: His Life and Notions (1882; rpt. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1963), pp. 14–20Google Scholar. The nature of education in traditional Malay society is suggested by Roff, William R., The Origins of Malay Nationalism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 84–85Google Scholar, and by Seng, Philip Loh Fook, Seeds of Separatism: educational policy in Malaya 1874–1940 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 11–12Google Scholar.

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8 According to the Annuaire Statistique de I'lndochine, 1941–1942, only 4·4% of the total Indochina government budget was spent on education. In 1938, the last pre-war year for which complete records are available, approximately 6·9% of total government expenditure was devoted to education in the Straits Settlements, according to the Annual Departmental Reports of the Straits Settlements for the year 1938, vol. II, 312, 646. Amry Vandenbosch noted, in The Dutch East Indies (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1941), p. 216Google Scholar, that the proportion of funds set aside for educational purposes in the Archipelago amounted to 5% of estimated total expenditure for 1939.

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10 See, for example, Saihoo, Patya, “Education and Society,” in Education in Thailand: Some Thai Perspectives, ed. Tapingkae, Amnuay (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), pp. 23–30Google Scholar.

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12 Doubts concerning the social and developmental value of educational policies adopted by the governments of post-colonial Southeast Asian states have recently been voiced with increasing frequency; see, for example, Hanf, Theodor, Ammann, Karl, Dias, Patrick V., Fremerey, Michael and Weiland, Heribert, “Education: An Obstacle to Development? Some Remarks about the Political Functions of Education in Asia and Africa,” Comparative Education Review, 19, 1 (February 1975), 68–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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14 In 1918, a total of (Straits Settlements) $365,159 or 2·3 per cent of the budget was spent on education in the Colony, which included Penang and Malacca. This figure rose to (S.S.) $2,827,569 or 6·9 per cent of the annual budget in 1938. The corresponding figures for Singapore alone were: 1918, (S.S.) $288,678 and 1938, (S.S.) $1,789,442. These figures include sums spent by the Public Works Department on the construction and maintenance of school buildings, and have been compiled from the Financial Statements appended to the Annual Departmental Reports for the years 1918 and 1938.

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16 Ibid., pp. 33–34.

17 “Draft of Plan for Establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” 27 January 1942, marked “Top Secret” and prepared by the Total War Research Institute, cited by Steinberg, David Joel, Philippine Collaboration in World War II (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1967), p. 46Google Scholar. An analysis of this document was prepared by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (November 1948) as document 2402.

18 These were the views of Dr Okawa as expressed in his works: Sato Shinen's Ideal State (1942) and Asia, Europe and Japan (1925), and in the principles adopted by a society, the Kochisha, which he organised. His views appear to have been widely accepted by members of the Japanese Armed Forces, see International Military Tribunal for the Far East, vol. II, Part B (1948), 525Google Scholar. 19 See Syonan Times, 25 March Koki 2602 [1942] and succeeding issues. This general situation was confirmed to the author by the former Director of Education, Mr Mamoru Shinozaki, during an interview in Singapore, 4 November 1972.

20 Wilson, H.E., Educational Policy and Performance in Singapore, 1942–1945 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Occasional Paper No. 16, 1973), pp. 20–23Google Scholar.

21 Report of the All-Party Committee of the Singapore Legislative Assembly on Chinese Education (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 5Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 13.

23 Boo, Tan Peng, Education in Singapore (Singapore: Educational Publications Bureau, Ministry of Education, 1970), p. 30Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., pp. 30–31. (There have been fluctuations in policy on second-language usage-Ed.)

25 “Statistical Bulletin: Statistics on Schools, Pupils and Teachers” (Singapore: Ministry of Education, 30 June 1970) (Mimeo)Google Scholar, n.p. See also Singapore 72 (Singapore: Ministry of Culture, 1972), p. 149Google Scholar.

26 Far Eastern Economic Review, 26 December 1975, p. 24.