Episode 17: Destroying Chinese Culture and Education

To safeguard British interests in Singapore after independence, the British desired to leave behind a reliably pro-British population, who would identify themselves as British. To achieve this, the colonial government embarked on massive social engineering to destroy Chinese culture and education. In this episode of “The History of Singapore”, PJ Thum explains why and how the British sought to transform Singapore’s Chinese into loyal English-speaking British subjects, and how this alienated and radicalised the Chinese-speaking community.

Please send questions, comments, and feedback to thehistoryofsingapore@gmail.com or visit thehistoryofsingapore.com. Support the show at patreon.com/pjthum. For all the previous episodes in this series, search for "History of Singapore" on bfm.my.