From: Laremy Lee
Date: March 8, 2009 6:04:59 PM GMT+08:00
To: Ng Bee Chin
Cc: stforum@sph.com.sg, chee_hong_tat@pmo.gov.sg
Subject: You have my support.Dear Professor,
I just read Mr Chee Hong Tat’s letter to the ST Forum Page, which I believe was written on behalf of MM Lee Kuan Yew. If anything, the use of a pejorative to emphasise a point which scarcely needed to have been made was thoroughly unprofessional and uncalled for.
More importantly, the bilingual policy may seem to be the most efficient option, but to speak against introducing alternatives is to disallow the freedom of choice. This is an incongruity which has me feeling rather perturbed, since the Ministry of Education is an advocate of “provid[ing] students with greater choice to meet their different interests and ways of learning”, for the ability “to choose what and how they learn will encourage them to take greater ownership of their learning”.
Nevertheless, I’d like to encourage you not to be discouraged. You have my support, along with that of many other Singaporeans, if you’ve been reading the chatter in the blogosphere.
Keep the vision alive.
Yours sincerely,
Laremy LEE (Mr)
You have my support.
Comments
One response to “You have my support.”
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You would expect people who have made it to NTU to be able to command a decent level of English and Mandarin.
The argument that learning a new language will destroy the use of other languages is ridiculous for if that is the case we should phase out all the learning of German, French we have. (and the learning of third language??)
Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkien, Hakka, etc. all died in one generation in Singapore. Its true. These are the real mother tongues of the Chinese people in Singapore and not Mandarin.
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