When conversing with Shaf, she describes how her sister grappled with choosing a secondary school post-PSLE, realising her choices were limited by the fact that most of the “good schools” she was considering were all SAP schools. This a real life example of how the presence of SAP schools can genuinely limit the opportunities of the non-Mandarin speaking.

And yet, we previously agreed to accept the premise that SAP system has certain inherent benefits, so it can’t exactly be abolished. (Not like that’s likely to happen anyway)

This is a pretty radical suggestion, but hear me out: maybe Chinese schools shouldn’t only be for Chinese students.

Preethi provides an interesting perspective. She says, “If SAP schools are really so important and learning Mandarin yields so many practical benefits, why are we limiting the entry of these schools to ethnic Chinese?”

She believes that many Malay or Indian students would appreciate the opportunity to learn and hone their skills in Mandarin. What better way to do that than to immerse in the rich cultural appreciation that Chinese schools boast?

Shaf shares the sentiment: “Even my immigrant parents understood how important it was, and made sure I took four years of Mandarin under the third language programme.”

Unfortunately, the current education system currently erects an impossibly high barrier of entry for students without any degree of Chinese parentage.

MOE’s website states, “Students are required to offer an official Mother Tongue Language (Chinese, Malay or Tamil) in school. Students of Chinese, Malay and Indian ethnicity offer their respective MTLs”.

According to the MOE helpline, when entering primary school, Singaporean children are automatically assigned their mother tongue based on their ethnicity. If they are of mixed parentage, they can choose between their two mother tongues.

In cases where two Malay parents would like to opt for their child to take, say, Chinese instead of Malay, they would have to fill out a special application and submit it to their child’s primary school, who then forwards it to MOE. All in all, it’s quite a convoluted process, and their application may not even be approved.

In addition, students can only take one mother tongue at the primary school level. Realistically, this means only full-Chinese or mixed students with one Chinese parent are able to gain entry to SAP schools.

I’m sure when the MTL programme was first initiated it probably just made more sense to designate children to their respective mother tongues, since our ethnic communities were still largely segmented. But it’s been several generations since, and I can’t help but wonder if this CMIO classification is too rigid and outdated for our current day society.

Other than opening up the opportunity and lowering the barrier of entry for more non-Chinese students to attend SAP schools, we should also ensure Chinese students are properly sensitised to non-Chinese customs. Though Chinese culture might be the most dominant culture in Singapore, it should not edge out the other cultures.

According to Sangeetha,* a university student who currently stays on campus in a largely Chinese-dominated Residential College, “For minorities, it’s natural for us to pick up on things and be sensitised to the Chinese culture, since the majority of the population is Chinese. But this exposure is typically very one-way.”

When she celebrated Deepavali last year, most people in her college weren’t even aware it was happening (despite it being a major public holiday in Singapore) and questioned why she and another Indian friend were placing mithai or sweets in the common pantry.

“When the segmentation happens at such a young age and it carries through all the way till university, it begins to show when they begin to interact with people outside their own race,” Sangeetha reflects.

To her,