TIME TO RETHINK? SAP SCHOOLS AND CHINESENESS: THE MILLENNIAL EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools were established by the Singapore government in 1979 with the goals of nurturing bilingual students and preserving traditional Chinese culture and values. In recent years, there has been growing concerns about the relevance of SAP schools today, with critics arguing that they no longer fulfil their stated goals, and instead perpetuate social inequality and racial segregation. To examine whether the SAP system is tenable and still has value in our future society, I seek to examine the effectiveness of SAP schools in fulfilling their stipulated objectives, and understand the ways in which the SAP system shaped the lives and identities of millennial students who have graduated from the SAP system, particularly that of ‘Chineseness’. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews with graduates from Dunman High School, I argue that the Chineseness SAP schools seek to cultivate is based on a static understanding of language proficiency and cultural practices, which is becoming unrelatable to younger generations of students as it fails to cater to the heterogeneity and non-static nature of Chineseness. While the SAP system was originally established to preserve Chineseness against Westernization, to strengthen ethnic roots in bid to maintain multiracialism in Singapore, it has evolved to neglect the original goal of preserving Chinese culture and language within the calculus of multiracialism. Instead of preserving multiracialism, SAP schools are now arguably seen as threatening it. My thesis will discuss the consequences of this contradiction, and how it has impacted the lives and identities of millennial students.