Educating All Children in Multicultural, Multilingual Singapore: The Quest for Equity Amidst Diversity

Abstract

In the span of a few short decades in its post-independent era, Singapore has moved from a relative unknown, to being “one of Asia’s great success stories” (OECD: PISA 2009 results: overcoming social background—equity in learning opportunities and outcomes, vol. 2. Author, Paris. doi:10.1787/9789264091504-en, pp 159, 2010). Singapore’s achievements seem remarkable given the absence of natural resources other than her people—who represent a diverse mix of racial groups, cultures, languages, and origins. As a city-state, Singapore constitutes an urban nation, or urban city-state—and an urban school system—that is employing educational policy to successfully enhance social cohesion and advance social mobility among its multicultural citizenry. In this chapter, we look at the universal goal to “educate all children” or to “educate other people’s children,” using Singapore as an illustrative case. We begin with a brief history of Singapore to establish a baseline, and then go on to outline the journey Singapore has taken to ensure quality education for all children, regardless of race, language, religion, culture or economic background. We offer two illustrations that allow us to ground our narrative in concrete contexts as we examine specific policies and practices that have had an impact on Singapore’s aim to achieve equity amidst diversity. We then move from the specific illustrations to a look across the two in order to surface possible lessons or principles that could be educative to other systems regardless of local particulars. We end with reflections about the priorities that should be focal in the continuing quest for educational equity and social justice—whether in Singapore or elsewhere in our world.