Controversy over the idea of a bicultural elite

Review-Insight, The Straits Times, 20/11/2009

IN SEPTEMBER 2004, then-Minister of State for Education Chan Choo Sen announced that the Bicultural Studies Programme (BSP) would begin at three Special Assistance Plan schools – Hwa Chong Institution, Nanyang Girls' High School and Dunman High School.

This came three months after then-Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew spoke of the need to groom a new Chinese bicultural elite to keep Singapore engaged with China in the future.

"To ride on China's growth, Singapore needs a core group with a deep understanding of contemporary China. This means bilingual as well as bicultural groups of key players.

"Bilingualism gets us through the front door, but it is only through biculturalism that we can have deep understanding of China and the Chinese people, and work with them," he said at a conference at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

He also spoke about Singapore's deep links to the Islamic world, as well as the need to engage India.

The idea of such a "bicultural elite" created a controversy, with sceptics asking what this group could do in China that a bilingual Singaporean could not.

Some saw it as a tacit admission of the limits of 40 years of bilingualism while others questioned the elitist connotations of such a programme and whether minorities would feel alienated.

But its supporters said that given Singapore's strategy of pragmatic survival and attempts to make itself relevant to the world, the programme would reap economic benefits from one of the fastest-growing and largest economies in the world.

Dr Goh Nguen Wah, adjunct professor of NTU's Master of Public Administration programme, said: "Will the programme breed elitism? Well, it should not because it is not just designed to groom government leaders and public service officials alone."

Dr Goh, who is the former associate editor of Lianhe Zaobao, added: "It is about broadening students' intellectual horizons and creating a more balanced outlook of the rapidly changing world. People in a tiny city-state like Singapore can't afford to be frogs in a well."

The BSP is now conducted in the Chinese language. But students who are interested in China but do not speak Mandarin can take up China Studies in English at the A levels, although they will not qualify for BSP.

Currently, there are no Ministry of Education bicultural programmes in other languages or in the study of countries like India, but schools like Raffles Institution offer bicultural programmes covering India and the Middle East region, in addition to the China programme.

Under Raffles Institution's India programme, introduced in 2006, students are sent on trips to Chennai and Mumbai.

The Middle East programme, started in 2007, is business-oriented and requires students to learn conversational Arabic. Students go to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain on immersion trips.