Education in Singapore aims to provide every child with a fully rounded education. But a fully rounded education does not require every granular aspect of life to be explicitly taught, examined and qualified for. Some aspects like music, despite its importance to daily life, requires less rigour to develop an ‘appreciation’ for it and so takes up less time and priority on the school curriculum. The depth at which music is taught in Singapore depends on how important music is to the individual student, even to the level beyond what the school can be expected to teach, but every student would at least have had some curriculum time devoted to music exposure through activities like choral singing and some basic instruction in playing simple instruments – without any assessment of competency. There is little point in putting pressure on learning a subject that most people just take for fun and recreation.
Music is, of course, an important aspect of a fully rounded education. While the main focus of education is on subject mastery – sciences, math, humanities and languages, we recognise that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Academic subjects require each learner to be industrious and disciplined in their studies. This is work. In Singapore’s competitive society, children prove themselves through academic success. On paper, shining academically qualifies them to apply for better paying jobs after graduation – that’s what we tell them. But if all they did in school was work, no one in the labour market would hire dull, knowledge-spewing workers. They have Google and ChatGPT for that. And there are no jobs that pay people to take exams. No legal jobs, that is.
So Singapore’s curriculum also ensures that students get sufficient ‘playtime’ as well. Music periods are programmed into the weekly timetable at Primary to Secondary levels. I admit, I don’t know how music periods function today, but when I was schooling our class was taught to sing popular folk songs in our four national languages (some community building going on there along with music), and play simple instruments like the recorder… and something called a harmonipet, a breath-powered keyboard toy thing. Music class was awfully discordant, hilariously chaotic, and a lot of fun. Nobody needed to be ‘good’, just ‘together’. If we never learned music beyond how entertaining it was, that was good enough. It raised our spirits and fed our souls. Intrinsically, music helps us explore and regulate our emotions. It helps us connect our experiences so that we don’t feel so alone, making recovery from setbacks and heartbreak more assured. None of these psychological benefits need to be taught to us, they are inherent in the music itself. We just need to be exposed to enough of it to want to find more for ourselves.
As far as the curriculum goes, that is the extent of music feeding into our fully rounded education. But for those of us who want a deeper connection with music, Singapore schools provide us with co-curricula activities led by paid professional trainers in their specific fields. Whether it’s choral singing, dance or orchestral performance in different cultural contexts, further music learning is voluntary, as it should be. And if certain individuals seek professional qualifications in their musical performance, although those fall beyond what the school generally provides, there are specialised private schools and tutors who are available to provide the training.
Apart from music, Singapore schools also provide for co-curricular activities in sports, art, theatre, and other opportunities to hone a student’s interests and sharpen their talents. With both the rigour of academics and the development of personal pursuits, every Singaporean student has a fully rounded education that they can not only use to distinguish themselves in the job market, but also define themselves in the way they see themselves as individuals in society.
Considering the fully rounded education Singapore purports to provide, music seems like it’s been given rather superficial attention. A stronger emphasis on music could provide our students with an additional layer of perceiving life and expressing themselves through it. And since Singapore is still rather lacking in its ability to produce its own culturally unique sound, perhaps giving more Singaporeans a stronger background in making music might inspire more individuals to add to our local musical tapestry. The problem is in making this push without imposing the pressure that comes with such strong intent. For now, the voluntary approach still looks like our best bet. Meanwhile we will continue to hope for more Dick Lees and Kit Chans to emerge through fun rather than force.
To conclude, although there seems to be comparatively little emphasis on music in Singapore’s schools, even as they try to provide the most fully rounded education possible, pragmatically speaking, it is enough. Some aspects of life are best enjoyed when they aren’t forced down our throats. It’s enough that I can take joy from listening to contemporary pop on my earbuds, without needing to sight-read or discuss music theory with Bach, Rachmaninoff and Beethoven.
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Inspired by Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘A’ Level H1 General Paper (Paper 1) 2020 Question #10