Civic Education In Singapore's Model Of Civic Education

The most basic feature of citizenship involves the distinguishing between members and aliens. To put simply, there is a need to set in place a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion so as to explicitly identify who are considered citizens and this subsequently aids in the conferment of rights to the legitimate individuals. Since modern understanding of citizenship exists within the boundaries of a nation-state, nation building naturally involves the shaping of a collective identity and sense of belonging. While the citizenship discourse is relatively straightforward when considered in terms of the different goods individually and in insolation from one another, complexities and tensions arise when different conceptualizations co-exist within

In Singapore, students are placed under divergent civic education curriculums based on their educational track, according to the principle of meritocracy. The implication is the assignment of differentiated citizenship roles, where supposedly “equal” citizens understand their responsibilities and duties to the nation-state differently. The most “talented” ones are often associated with future leadership roles while those who are less academically-inclined are imbue with values to ensure social stability and uncritically accept the status quo. (Ho et al., p. 211) This means that despite being granted equal formal political rights in the form of voting, citizens in the society are ironically still politically unequal, segmented and ranked hierarchically. Without equal access to civic education opportunities, students in the vocational track are essentially excluded from the political decision making process because they are under-equipped with the necessary knowledge and critical reasoning skills to effectively exercise their political rights as citizens. (Ho et al., p. 203) In addition, this reinforces feelings of inferiority amongst them and entrenches a mindset where they are “lesser” citizens than their “talented” peers especially since they lack confidence in their ability to effect change. This is problematic because those who are of less merit are subjected to different treatment, or in this case education, and seemingly relegated to a secondary role in society, in contrast with the perspective of citizenship which advances that every member of the society should be viewed as equals. (Ho et al., p. 229) In spite of this, Ho et al.’s findings revealed a docile population which not only shared a collective sense of