PLAN TO FOSTER STRONG CHINESE CULTURAL ELITE

Mr Tay Beng Chuan asked the Minister for Information and the Arts (a) whether the Government has set up any target and concrete plan of action to foster a strong Chinese cultural elite; and (b) in what way can the Government encourage and work with the ethnic Chinese community to achieve the target without causing any undesirable ethnic sensitivity in our multi-racial and multi-cultural society.

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo: The Government's plan to encourage the use of Chinese and help foster a Chinese cultural elite was outlined by PM in his 1997 National Day Rally speech and DPM Lee in his speech at last year's launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The Ministry of Education is also currently undertaking a review to improve upon the effectiveness of teaching of Chinese Language in schools. Some steps being considered include the strengthening of our SAP schools, offering more Chinese scholarships, and improving teaching materials and techniques.

MITA will continue its efforts to make Chinese culture relevant and interesting to a younger generation of Chinese Singaporeans. We do this through the promotion of Chinese culture, heritage and Mandarin. MITA and its statutory boards work closely with Chinese civic organisations in many activities.

The Speak Mandarin Campaign is now in its 20th year and has achieved some success. The National Arts Council regularly supports Chinese performing and literary arts. The National Heritage Board's Asian Civilisations Museum explores and presents the heritage of Singaporeans in the context of their ancestral cultures. The National Library Board has signed co-operation agreements with the National Library of China and the Shanghai Library, which will allow Singaporeans to access the catalogues of these two libraries. The NLB has also embarked upon an expansion programme to expand and improve its Chinese collection.

These efforts help to ensure that we have a sizeable group of Singaporeans with a good command of Chinese and a deep knowledge of Chinese culture. But it must be emphasised that many of these measures are long term in nature and the results can only be seen after many years. For example, our promotion of Chinese Internet will only bear fruit in the next century.

Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. Mr Tay Beng Chuan is absolutely right that we must be sensitive in the way we promote our ethnic cultures. The key to this is in forging a common Singapore culture and consciousness which bind Singaporeans of all ethnic and religious groups together. With each generation and with each crisis, we should pull closer together. Much of MITA's effort concentrates on building up this sense of one Singapore. The coming National Education Exhibition in July will emphasize the awakening of our national consciousness and our common struggle to create a separate and independent Singapore identity.