I am a (youngish) Singaporean, born in the mid-80s. To be fair, I'd say the Chinese here generally don't consider dialect groups to be major divisions any more - it's more a point of curiosity, a minor variation for most people. Among the older generation, perhaps, but the time of actual conflict and distrust between the groups is essentially long gone, steamrolled by government language policy. It was hard enough for me to learn to speak Hokkien, because my circles are English-dominated.
This is all to say that it could be argued that Singapore is a Chinese-majority nation, but it doesn't take away from the fact that there are many Malays and Indians here, and many foreigners of all stripes (Indians, Europeans, Americans). Foreigners make up 2m of our 5.2m people (38%), which is pretty shocking really (500k of them have become permanent residents, though).
I'd say that in the context of primary schools here, diversity isn't at a true melting-pot level. Furthermore, education among Chinese families is pursued in the same aggressive way as in other East Asian nations - the majority of students have supplementary tutoring, sometimes from the early grades. The culture of academic emphasis among parents is in line with the government's pedadogical efforts, which results in high achievement levels.
This is not to take away from the success of the Singaporean mathematics curriculum, which is quite outstanding by most measures - probably because it was designed by mathematicians and teachers in tandem, drawing on the best practices in the world known at the time (the late 70s/early 80s). Though even that is changing with our new emphasis on knowledge by construction, collaboration and discovery.
This is all to say that it could be argued that Singapore is a Chinese-majority nation, but it doesn't take away from the fact that there are many Malays and Indians here, and many foreigners of all stripes (Indians, Europeans, Americans). Foreigners make up 2m of our 5.2m people (38%), which is pretty shocking really (500k of them have become permanent residents, though).
I'd say that in the context of primary schools here, diversity isn't at a true melting-pot level. Furthermore, education among Chinese families is pursued in the same aggressive way as in other East Asian nations - the majority of students have supplementary tutoring, sometimes from the early grades. The culture of academic emphasis among parents is in line with the government's pedadogical efforts, which results in high achievement levels.
This is not to take away from the success of the Singaporean mathematics curriculum, which is quite outstanding by most measures - probably because it was designed by mathematicians and teachers in tandem, drawing on the best practices in the world known at the time (the late 70s/early 80s). Though even that is changing with our new emphasis on knowledge by construction, collaboration and discovery.