The government believes that by doing this, they will benefit the primary school students by reducing their 'language load'. Singaporeans are split on the issue, one group support the government, while the other group opposing it.
The opposition of the government's move believes that it would cause socio-economic problems, such as children strong in Mother Tongue, coming disadvantaged families, being possibly kept out of the best secondary schools.
While it is true that a child who is strong in the Mother Tongue and weaker in the first language may have issues getting into certain top secondary schools, it is definitely untrue that it is not possible to get into a good secondary school with a strong background in Chinese. A large number of Special Assistance Plan (SAP) Schools, schools which cater to students who are academically strong in their Mother Tongue, are top-notch institutions in Singapore, for example, Anglican High School, Hwa Chong Institution, Dunman High School, just to name a few. A student who excels in Chinese will have the same chance of getting into a top secondary school as a student who excels in English.
Singaporeans against the government's move also believe that it undermines the importance of the Mother Tongue, which should be equally important as English.
In Singapore, and in every country, there is always a dominant language which all the citizens use to communicate,called the First Language. Singapore's official first language is English, and most of the citizens in Singapore use English as their mode of communication. Even those who come from families that speak in their mother tongue usually know how to speak English too. If the government was to make the Mother Tongue just as important as English, it would result in a huge social and cultural gap between the English speaking families and the Mother tongue speaking families.
No comments:
Post a Comment