Youth temporalities and the cost of Singapore's educational success

Abstract

This article presents a different portrait of Singapore's educational success, using data collected from a qualitative in-depth interview study of a group of Singaporean youths, showing the cost of its education policies in terms of youth subjectivities. How the participants categorise their temporalities, that is, their lived experiences of time, shows how a modernistic temporality geared towards credentialist and materialist goals is regarded as more legitimate than temporalities such as creative becomings, engagement or coevalness. Juxtaposing the discourse of legitimate/illegitimate temporalities against the discourse of education reform, this article defamiliarises the ways in which temporalities are valorised. This article also highlights how, by promoting narrow forms of ‘love’ for the country, and ‘creative’ and ‘critical’ thinking, educational reform can manage subjectivities to accept, rather than contest, existing personal, national, and global realities.