Only someone within MOE with direct involvement in this matter can explain why. My take on this is that they probably assumed (wrongly) that this move would assure them more votes in the coming elections, and were surprised by the backlash.

3Boys:

Why on earth did they take so long to clear the air though? If they did not want to move on the weightage, why burn so much political good will? Such faux pas are usually corrected within hours, let alone weeks. I still get the feeling they wanted to test the reaction on the ground.......

3boys,


I appreciate snideness as far as the next man...and I think you misunderstood what I meant in my post. I did not state that Chinese/Mandarin was only 55 years old. I was addressing your point on migration and culture being intertwined, and the fact that suppositions in argument are ultimately pointless.

To be honest, I simply believe that learning a language itself is necessary and helpful in opening one up to the cultures of that speakers of that language. Linguists would know that Langauage restricts as well as form perceptions/blinders to the users. Learning another langaage, and mastering it to certain level of competence helps faclitate that entry into another world.

There are conflicting views on the issue of reduction in weightage mainly because people percieve the reduction in weightage to be equivalent to a reduction in importance. This is the case because of our emphasis on academic mastery in not just languages, but in all examinable subjects as a whole. It may be that a reduction in weightage may spur some to enjoy the language (MT) more because it is no longer so stressful. The cynic in me believes otherwise. Unless a overhaul of the entire educational system takes place, piecemeal measures targeting a specific subject would just push students to focus on the more \"ïmportant\" subjects.

A fair question to you would be: What would you do, if MOE decides to reduce the weightage of MT in PSLE? Would you still encourage your kids to study it as conscientously and excel in it as with other subjects? Having read somewhere that you are not a kiasu parent of course.

3Boys:

nan.nan,
thank you for taking such a long time time to craft your extensive reply. It is very thoughtful and I appreciate it. You get about 90% of what I am trying to say. Where we differ is in the cultural aspects (emphasis on it) and how we set examinable standards.

So I ask this question. If you take a long posting/migrate to the US or Europe, are you culturally rooted as a Singaporean, or are you culturally rooted as a Chinese? How you answer this question comes from deep down inside your guts and will colour how you see this issue to some extent. Since it is a gut reaction, there is no point really trying to have a rational discussion on it, simply too emotive.

People keep setting up straw-men, so as to knock them down. Don't know how many false depictions of my positions are out there, and I am too weary to go correct them all.

To me its deja-vu, not much has changed in 30 years.

3Boys:

Let me elaborate further to nan.nan


Does it not seems farcical to you that whether someone qualifies to be a Chinese is on account of a political act of the communist party of China in 1955? The 4000 year old history of the country does not count then? What if the KMT had won the war in the 1940s? Would Hokkien be the official lingo of Chinese then? Actually I think Tang poetry would sound really nice in Teochew, its got a beautiful sing-song quality to it (and at least I could speak it)

What if the Brits never left Singapore, and we have no need for this MT education? What if World War 2 was won by the Axis and Singapore remained as Syonan-To? What if your ancestors never migrated to Singapore? What if...? You get the picture...

Everything is defined by some event in the past. It is useless to argue based on what ifs and what should have beens....We have to deal with the realities here. We are what we are because of a certain MT policy set up eons ago...To be frank, it is virtually impossible to disassociate one from his ethnicity based on the argument that we rae a migrant nation. Ask the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans who migrated to the States...3 generations down, some semblance of the ethnic identity remains. Language itself is one of those which holds this shared sense of identity. And no, blaming it on the communists is too cliche an argumentative strategy.