Singapore is a multicultural immigrant city, and many Chinese choose to immigrate to Singapore because of its open and free cultural atmosphere. In addition, Singapore places great importance on the promotion of mother tongues, including Chinese. From 2011 to 2015, the funding for mother tongue promotion was 16.6 million SGD. Recently, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the Ministry of Education will increase the funding for the three mother tongue promotion committees (Chinese, Malay, and Tamil) by 50% from 2016 to 2020, reaching 25 million SGD, in order to more effectively promote bilingual policies in schools and society, benefiting students.
Lee Hsien Loong pointed out that the increase in funding will strengthen the learning and use of mother tongues. He emphasized that Singapore still focuses on bilingual policies. As the use of English becomes more widespread, Singapore needs to intensify efforts to protect and promote the use of mother tongues, enabling Singaporeans to master both English and their mother tongues to remain globally competitive.
The three mother tongue promotion committees were established between 2005 and 2006, with the aim of unifying the support of individual mother tongue communities for learning their respective languages and creating an environment conducive to the learning and use of the three major mother tongues.
The Chinese Language Learning Promotion Committee's cultural group launched the "Cultural Gateway" program in 2009, providing funding to schools to encourage students to attend cultural performances related to Chinese language and culture. For example, Jurong Secondary School organized an outing for students and teachers to watch the stage play "The Gate of Heaven" at the Drama Centre in April this year. "The Gate of Heaven" is a martial arts drama performed as a special production for the 50th anniversary of the Practice Theatre.
Some schools also have a "Student Guide Program," such as the collaboration between Zhongzheng Secondary School and the Sun Yat-sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, allowing some students to become student guides for special exhibitions. These types of extracurricular cultural activities, in collaboration with other civil organizations, provide participating students with more opportunities to engage deeply with Chinese culture and use Chinese for explanations, which is commendable.