The Race Against Racism

Singapore – where we are one united people regardless of race. Although this tenet is imbued deep within our national pledge, reality, in the form of our Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools, begs to differ.

These schools are a way of streamlining “elite” students who excel in both English and their Mother Tongue. The catch, however, is that they only cater to those studying the Mandarin mother tongue.

Does this mean that only students who excel in Mandarin are seen as excelling in their Mother Tongue? And what about the historical national language of Singapore, which is in fact, Malay? In response to a question raised at the Singapore Perspectives 2016 conference, Minister for Education Ng Chee Meng explained that SAP schools “were part of Singapore’s history and they enabled students to have a deeper understanding of Chinese culture”. Granted, but surely there are ways to appreciate the Chinese culture without shutting the cultures of other races out.

Having spent six years in an SAP school myself, I can attest to the pernicious effects that such institutions have on racial segregation in our country. Being in a school where you could count the number of non-Chinese students with one hand meant that we barely got any exposure to other ethnicities at all. Any glimpses we had were reduced to activities that were stereotypical at best. And tokenism is certainly not something that should be taken lightly. Even Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself admitted that SAP schools could potentially perpetuate incorrect values, calling for them to “purposefully reach out to non-Chinese communities and expose its students to the richness of our multi-racial societies”. But all this is easier said than done.

When you clam students up in a homogeneous echo chamber, how can they begin to find out about racial cultures other than their own?

I remember an Indian girl in my cohort who would be called names simply because she was different. Derogatory names that she did not deserve. She ended up transferring out. As 14-year-olds, we knew no better. And it seems that our teachers at that time were either ignorant or just plain nonchalant to it all. They allowed racism to breed and, by being bystanders, inadvertently enabled Chinese privilege and supremacy. Imagine a young student, at the impressionable age of 14, being made to feel like there is a race superior to others, or races that are far inferior. These are dangerous beliefs that a country like Singapore cannot afford to have.

Where SAP schools were first set up in the 1970s as a move to preserve traditional Chinese values, their position in today’s society is indeed questionable. Today, parents flock to send their children to SAP schools because of the prestige they bring. The inherent elitism that is encouraged truly begs the question of whether the role of SAP schools should be relooked at.

I am ashamed to say that my six years in the SAP school did nothing to prepare me for a Singapore that, besides being 74.3% Chinese, is also 13.4% Malay, 9.1% Indian and 3.2% Other.

Having a population of such a diverse racial mix, Singapore runs the risk of perpetuating racism with its SAP schools – which are in no way a microcosm of the world out there. We should be moving forward towards racial integration, not backward into the claws of apartheid.

“Regardless of race”, or mere lip service? That is the question we have to answer for ourselves.