Education-at-Large

Student Life and Activities in Singapore 19451965

The first part of the book contains documentation of a groundbreaking exhibition held in 2007 on student activities and societal engagements during post-war Singapore 1945–1965 and transcripts of forums held in conjunction with it. The second half centres on oral history accounts of mostly former Chinese school students who shared about their social, cultural and political activities in complex but exciting times.

Education-at-large broadens our understanding of Singapore's educational history in the transitional period between the end of the Second World War and the country's independence; examines the ways in which student activities and activism resonated with, and contributed to, the country's wider social, political and cultural life, as well as the decolonisation process; and stimulates debates about Chinese education and student activism in Singapore.

Contents:

• Forum Documentation:

  • A Bilingual Forum: Inhabiting Two Different Worlds — Dialogue Between Han Tan Juan and Koh Tai Ann
  • My Project Work Experience
  • My Thoughts on Participating in the Exhibition “Education at Large: Student Life and Activities in Singapore, 1945–1965”
  • Some Thoughts on the “Education-at-Large” Exhibition
  • Perspectives in Student Movement Research
  • A Very Brief History of Idealism in Singapore
  • A Historical Account of the Chinese Book Industry in the 1950s to the 1960s

• Oral History:

  • Brief Biographies of the Interviewees
  • Youthful Wanderings amidst Student Movements — An Interview with Lim Chin Joo
  • Transfer to Chinese School — Taking a Different Road — An Interview with Tan Kok Chiang
  • Those Organised and Unorganised Times of Youth — An Interview with Chen Mong Tse and Chai Chu Chun
  • Observation as Historical Participation — An Interview with Lee Leong Seng
  • Growing Up with Literacy Classes — An Interview with Tan Teck Keng
  • The Sojourns of a Village Youth — An Interview with Chua Hiang Yong

• Appendix:

  • The Singapore Chinese Middle School Students' Union: A Lost Echo of an Era
  • Thoughts of Exhibition Visitors
  • Participating Schools
  • Editors' Notes: A Collective Imagery of Youth in the Island-State
  • About the Editors
  • Organising Committee / The Tangent Committee

Readership: Students and the general public who are interested to understand the social, cultural and political activities of students during post-war Singapore 1945–1965.
Key Features:

• It presents an overview of student life in Chinese schools in postwar Singapore and challenges that students in Chinese schools face
• It offers rare insights on a key student organisation in postwar Singapore, Singapore Chinese Middle School Student Union from participants' perspectives, of which little is publicly known
• Rare materials and oral history accounts on student life and movement during postwar Singapore, originally available in the Chinese language, are made accessible in the English language in this book for a wider audience