EDUCATION IN METHODIST MISSION SCHOOLS: NEGOTIATING BETWEEN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND THE METHODIST CHURCH’S AGENDA FROM 1955-1989

Abstract

Prior to the mid-twentieth century, Singapore’s education system was largely divided along ethnic lines, with different language-medium schools administering education based on their respective communities’ needs. However, with the establishment of the Ministry of Education in 1955, Singapore’s previously fragmented education scene began taking a wholly different directive. It started becoming more unified and was now geared towards the aim of nation-building to establish a people that embodied national loyalty and consciousness. These new policy changes that the MOE enacted had repercussions on many schools in Singapore; among them were a significant body who had to implement systemic adjustments to their curriculum to conform to the national agenda—these were the Methodist schools. The Methodist schools wanted to ensure that while they adhered closely to MOE’s new educational policies, they did not compromise their Christian-focused aims of education that the early missionaries had first pioneered in Singapore.

In this thesis, I will study the challenges the Methodist schools faced while integrating into the national education system, the way they overcame these challenges, and how they faithfully preserved their distinctive Christian practices between the years 1955 and 1989. Drawing upon the Methodist Church’s publications, as well as documents from the Anglo-Chinese School and the Methodist Girls’ School, this thesis argues that the schools were neither passively compliant nor resistant to the changes they had to make, but successfully adjusted their systems in order to fulfill the educational agendas of both the MOE and the Methodist Church. I will also demonstrate that during this thirty-year period, the Methodist schools managed to design and continually refined a consistently applicable and enduring framework of carrying out religious instruction. This framework safeguarded the Methodist mission of education and ensured that Christian instruction in the schools was not in conflict with the MOE’s agendas.