Institutionally incorporated, symbolically un‐remade: state reform of Chinese schools in postwar Singapore

Abstract

When Singapore underwent decolonization after World War II, its government—keen on constructing a Singapore‐centered identity—sought to replace Chinese schools, which taught a China‐centered worldview. This attempt provoked tough resistance from the local Chinese. Succumbing to this pressure, the ruling regime accommodated Chinese schools as part of the state education system. Afterward, the authorities, eager to make sure the now‐incorporated Chinese institutions would not unleash symbolic effects detrimental to their position, endeavored to transform the curriculum of Chinese schools into a locally centered one. This attempt, however, failed, because the state was unable to curb influences from non‐local pedagogic agents and, without a strong indigenous intellectual tradition, the Singapore authorities found it difficult to produce a genuinely local curriculum. This historical case suggests that we should consider the incorporation and remaking of subordinated culture as two distinct processes of hegemonic strategies necessitating analytical distinction. It also urges us to differentiate conceptually the institutional and symbolic dimensions of culture when using a theory of hegemony to examine education and power.

Acknowledgement

The research project for this article is funded by the National Science Council of Taiwan (project number 93‐2412‐H‐001‐036).

Notes

1. See Giroux (1983) for a review on the earliest stage of critical education studies.

2. In 1947 Singapore had a total of 154 registered Chinese schools, only 49 of which received financial aid from the government. Chinese schools obtained much less assistance than English schools: in the same year, pupils attending English schools got an average of S$75.5 from the British, while those in Chinese institutions received only S$6.4 (Singapore Government, 1947b, p. 24). Although after the Ten‐Year Program more Chinese schools obtained grant‐in‐aid, they continued receiving much less money than English institutions.

3. Minutes, the Ninth Commissioner‐General’s Conference, 22–23 January 1949, declassified confidential file CO 717/162/52746.

4. Translation, Freedom News, issue 23, 15 June 1951, declassified confidential file CO 537/7288; and Appendix B, Report on a Vernacular Publications Bureau, 13 June 1951, declassified confidential file CO 825/90/7.

5. In 1949 the British forecast that by 1959 there would be 217,000 children in the 6–12 age group (Department of Education, Singapore, undated, p. 118). Four years later, however, they had to revise their prediction to 258,129 (Singapore Government, 1953b, B320).

6. After the 1955 election, internal affairs became predominantly the jurisdiction of the popularly elected government. Four years later, in 1959, when the PAP won the general election, Singapore became a completely self‐governing state. During that time, however, London still appointed a governor and controlled the sovereignty of Singapore. The small island became independent from London in 1963, when, together with Sabah and Sarawak—two territories in Borneo—it joined the Malay Peninsula and became part of Malaysia. Singapore became a sovereign nation itself in 1965, when it broke away from Kuala Lumpur.

7. Leaders of the LF were mostly businessmen and professionals. Although many of them were ethnic Chinese, they, being culturally and linguistically Anglicized, were not genuinely sympathetic to the Chinese masses’ campaign for Chinese education.

8. In the 1955 General Election the LF won only 26% of the votes and 10 positions out of the 25 contested seats. They became the majority in the Assembly only because the fledging PAP entered only four candidates, and the Progressive and Democratic parties split the conservatives’ votes and lacked strong followings among the Chinese masses (Yeo & Lau, 1991).

9. During that time, there were two kinds of state financial supports for Chinese schools—the partial and full aids. Some Chinese schools preferred to receive only partial assistance because they feared that they would subject to more state control after getting full aid (Legislative Assembly, Singapore, 1956, p. 8).

10. The table of contents of this history series appears in Nan Chiau Girls’ High School, Singapore (1967), Special Issue for the Twentieth Anniversary of Nan Chiau Girls’ High School, 1967, pp. 108–110 [in Chinese].