Many Challenges Faced by Chinese Immigrants

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The Chinese community in Singapore can be divided into two clusters that is, the Chinese migrants from China that still regarded China, as their “home” as well as the Straits Chinese who mostly did not consider themselves as citizens of China rather, they were British citizens that considered Singapore their home. Straits Chinese or the Queen’s Chinese was not bothered about the politics in China and were mostly educated in English schools. This paper will therefore discuss the challenges in education faced by the Chinese community, more specifically the China-born Chinese migrants, in postwar Singapore.

During the period of colonial rule, the Chinese community received the least amount of support from the colonial government from an education perspective. Teachers and students alike were subjected to biased treatments for example, Chinese school teachers received a lower remuneration as compared to English school teachers and Chinese middle school graduates also found themselves with the predicament of no employment opportunities. This is consistent with the newspaper article titled, Education in Chinese that says, “Yearly, there are thousands of Chinese schools passing out from vernacular schools who are left jobless and ramble up and down the streets of the Federation because they have no bilingual qualifications.” The Chinese community had to finance their own schools as well as the employment of teachers from China.3 Predictably, the teachings in Chinese schools here, correspondingly modeled that as in China: with textbooks being imported from there.3 Students were taught “compilations that were vehicles of Confucianism” and materials that reiterated lessons of filial piety and loyalty towards one’s land.3 Chinese schools in...

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...n system came at the expense of the language and identity of the Chinese community. Furthermore, the Chinese community was at a rather disadvantage with them facing the predicament of no employment opportunities, no avenue for furthering their studies between 1952 – 1956, unequal treatment as well as a lack of financial resources. However, the colonial government cannot be blamed entirely for the challenges faced by the Chinese community as the uniformity in the education system was targeted at shaping a common identity for the people. Furthermore, it was not indisposed to helping the Chinese community but rather could not allow them the upper hand in the education system. In 1959, education remained fragmented along languages; it is therefore not difficult to imagine why such systems of education using foreign teachers and text could not lead to a unified citizenry.

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