The Crisis of Historical Amnesia and the “National Education” Response

Abstract

Citizenship education in Singapore received a major boost in 1997, with the launch of the “National Education” (NE) programme by the Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on 17 May. The stated aim of NE was “to develop national cohesion, the instinct for survival and confidence in the future”.1 This was to be achieved by fostering a sense of Singaporean identity, promoting an understanding of Singapore’s recent history, promoting understanding of Singapore’s major challenges and vulnerabilities, and the intention was to instil core national values which would ensure Singapore’s continued success and well-being. NE was clearly a “citizenship education initiative [by the state] aimed at socialising the young into a set of desired attitudes and values”.2 These values include patriotism, loyalty and the willingness to defend the nation. This represented the state-formation aim of citizenship education in Singapore. Other values commonly associated with citizenship education, such as social justice and democratic civic engagement, were noticeably absent.3 NE was to become the de facto citizenship education programme in Singapore. Unlike the previous “flagship” citizenship education programmes like EFL and RK, NE was more than a curricular subject — it was a comprehensive citizenship education framework for the entire educational system in Singapore.