Singapore has four official languages: Modern Standard Chinese, Standard Malay, Tamil, and English. The majority home language of most Singaporeans born around the time of independence was one or another southern Chinese language, with Hokkien being the most common (but perhaps not an absolute majority of the population). Also by no means all of the sizeable minority of Indo-Singaporeans were native speakers of Tamil at that time, but Tamil gained the designation as an official language.
The sole language of instruction in primary and secondary schools supported by public funds in Singapore since independence has been English, with most pupils studying one or more of the other national languages. Singapore shows the lie about excuses for poor educational progress in the United States. Many school officials in the United States whine about the diverse language backgrounds in some United States school districts, but nowhere in the United States do you have primary education being done with a population attending school in English but the MAJORITY of the population not speaking English at home, as was the case in Singapore just a generation ago.
I've heard some amusing stories from Singaporeans and from Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity about how to learn just enough Malay to pass school exams and then forget it. English is the language it is crucial to know in that part of the world.
The sole language of instruction in primary and secondary schools supported by public funds in Singapore since independence has been English, with most pupils studying one or more of the other national languages. Singapore shows the lie about excuses for poor educational progress in the United States. Many school officials in the United States whine about the diverse language backgrounds in some United States school districts, but nowhere in the United States do you have primary education being done with a population attending school in English but the MAJORITY of the population not speaking English at home, as was the case in Singapore just a generation ago.
I've heard some amusing stories from Singaporeans and from Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity about how to learn just enough Malay to pass school exams and then forget it. English is the language it is crucial to know in that part of the world.