Is Chinese still the 'mother tongue' for the majority of Singaporeans, or is it in danger of becoming a foreign language for students? And why is achieving good grades in the subject so important to getting a place at university? These are soul-searching questions which have dominated the education debate here in recent months.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Education decided to 'fine-tune' its mother-tongue language policy and allow more students to opt for a less difficult syllabus in all mother tongues from early on.
Although this does not mean that the government is changing its bilingual policy, it is a recognition that with many families speaking only English at home, an increasing number of students are struggling with their Mandarin at school. Indeed, for the first time last year, the number of Primary One students from English-speaking households exceeded those from Chinese-speaking homes.
Doing well in your mother tongue from an early age is extremely important in the local school system. If a student is doing poorly in English, maths or his mother tongue, he will be unable to access the best schools and universities, even though he may excel in other subjects.
It is not rare for parents to send children as young as four to a weekly 'improvement' course to prepare them for the Primary One Mandarin syllabus. 'I don't want my child to start with a disadvantage and lose out. I've seen the syllabus and frankly it's a difficult one,' one parent told me.
The issue of Chinese mother tongue seems to have divided Singaporeans into several camps. On one hand, some bemoan the fact that Mandarin standards are dropping fast. They wonder what the point was of grandparents sacrificing speaking Hokkien to their grandchildren to improve their Mandarin if it is now going pear-shaped. Others argue that the much-put-forward economic rationale of speaking good Mandarin so Singapore is better placed to compete with China does not really hold water.