Even the Sage of Singapore can be surprised. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, whose bilingualism-at-all-cost policy caused many Chinese Singaporeans a lot of heartache over the years, is seeing a sea change among younger parents in Singapore.

He acknowledged as much during the recent FutureChina Global Forum when he noted that parents now want their children immersed in the Chinese language and culture.

He came to this realization when he saw the feedback from English-educated parents who wrote to newspapers arguing against a suggestion to reduce the weighting for the Chinese language in an important examination called the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

The opposition by parents forced the Prime Minister to step in and assure Singaporeans that the government will not implement such a move.

What a turnaround from the anger and frustration articulated by parents in the last 30-40 years!

The reason is simple: With a rising China opening up economic opportunities, it is only natural for parents to get their children to take up the language.

This is very different from the situation since 1966 when bilingualism was forced down the throats of Singaporeans. At that time, a ruling party wanted a Singapore rooted in Asian culture and heritage and mastery of the mother tongue was seen as one way to achieving that end.

Doing well in the subject was a must to progress to the next level of education, even to university. Many parents, fearing for their children's prospects, went to extremes, putting undue pressure on the young minds.

Children who couldn't cope went overseas, some never to return.

That is the first lesson for China if it wants to take up Lee's suggestion on understanding the world without translation: Let the parents see the benefits, economic or otherwise, of taking up a second language.

The other lesson is to make sure that language teachers make teaching fun, exciting and meaningful. Most second language teachers in Singapore were purists and wanted to teach the language the dogmatic way. The result was a student population that dreaded classes.

Over the years, Singapore has finally understood how misguided it was in pursuing a bilingualism policy rooted in ideology. We have young Singaporeans who studied a second language just to pass the examinations and resented using it in their post-school lives.

My two children are living examples of this trend. Both scored distinctions in their second language examinations but hardly use it anymore, let alone understand it.

What a shame!

China's parents should not be made to feel this way many years down the road.

A forward-looking bilingual policy with the soft approach of showing parents the value, both economic and otherwise, of a bilingual education and providing the right type of teachers can help China avoid the costly mistakes Singapore has made.

P N Balji is the director of the Asia Journalism Fellowship, a joint initiative by Temasek Foundation and Nanyang Technological University.

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