Singapore Diary (II): Raffles, the Institution

The name “Raffles” is ubiquitous in Singapore. Tourists will tend to think of the Raffles Hotel, founded and named by some enterprising Armenians in the 1880’s and home to the “Singapore Sling” (for the curious, on our recent trip my contingent stayed in respectable but less-storied quarters on Orchard Rd, and no, I did not drink one!). Other “Raffles” manifestations include a shopping centre, a city square and a station on the underground railway (MRT).

Sir Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) was effectively the founder of modern Singapore – the city, that is, rather than the nation. Governor of the area for a couple of relatively brief periods , he established British interests securely in the Malay Peninsula and provided a relatively enlightened legal and social framework for what was fast to become an economic hub.

There are certainly places in Singapore where continuing use of the name “Raffles” indicates an older and more direct link to the name’s famous bearer than some of these can claim. Raffles’ coat of arms features in the central panel of the East window (behind the High Altar) of St Andrew’s Cathedral, where I attended a Sunday liturgy that combined elements of a very traditional Mattins with traces of revival-meeting evangelicalism. This artistic acknowledgement in stained glass reflects Raffles’ choice of the site of St Andrew’s, adjacent to what is now called the Padang, a kind of “common” reserved for public and civic use.

The same coat of arms is used by one of the leading schools of the nation and the region, the Raffles Institution. This – originally the Singapore Institution - was founded by Stamford Raffles himself in 1823 – almost fifty years before Trinity began. Its alumni include two Prime Ministers and three Presidents of Singapore (that’s half or more of the total of each so far). During our tour of Malaysia and Singapore in July, Director of Music Michael Leighton-Jones and the Choir of Trinity College were able to conduct a workshop there. Speaking to the audience to acknowledge their welcome, I had to acknowledge that it was fairly rare to find Trinity conceding seniority in age and tradition to another educational institution in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Trinity Choir and our hosts’ own Raffles Voices each performed for an audience of students (members of choirs from different local schools), and then sang two pieces together, finishing with the beautiful “Shaker Allegro” (“Tis the Gift to be Simple”). The Raffles students were impressive and enthusiastic in their own repertoire of western and local pieces.

Stamford Raffles’ legacy persists in various ways – and each of these reflects in some way the interesting and vigorously hybrid character of Singaporean society. As at Trinity, traditions of educational breadth and excellence are certainly important among them. So too the capacity of Anglicanism to take root and take shape in different settings is evident in Singapore.

Singapore Diary (I): With the Academy of Principals

On July 5th I addressed a gathering of the Academy of Principals of Singapore, a peak body and professional development organization covering all Singapore schools. What follows is a precis of my remarks.

There are many differences between school and University education, and not all are to do with curriculum or level of achievement. Regimentation must give way to a kind of freedom or space, a benign “educational vacuum” as it were, which can draw out the potential of students to fill it.

Yet it is not sufficient to provide that absence of imposed order. Students must also be given a rich set of resources, experiences and choices, the wherewithal to construct their own set of skills, interests and values. Autonomy and capacity for critical thinking are only as useful or as adequate as the context in which they are formed.

Remarkably, while there are some University programs where great emphasis is placed on an aesthetically-rich physical environment, the provision of cultural activities, sporting and social opportunities and more besides, others have none of these. The role of a University in inculcating values and pursuing a particular ethical mission is also entirely variable.

Perhaps this variation is an unavoidable element of the Higher Education reality, but there is a real tension between some versions of it, and what a group like this might actually assume education is – not just the inculcation of knowledge or even of skills, but the formation of creative, capable individuals, through a variety of processes and experiences.

My sense is that educators in countries such as Singapore and Malaysia are quite conscious of the challenge of fostering critical thinking and creativity among their students.

However there is still, both in Australia and in countries like Singapore, a sort of supposed “common sense” which sees the purpose of University education as to equip the student for success in a particular vocation or career, and hence holds that it should focus strongly on a specific set of professional skills.

Yet in a rapidly changing economic world, students need to acquire generic or “soft” skills – those of creative and critical thinking, and of effective communication. Specific vocational training may meanwhile quickly become redundant.

When we think of great Universities, we know we are not simply talking about outstanding lecturers and libraries. These are communities characterized by excellence and diversity, where there is considerable scope and responsibility given to students, but also personal attention and mentoring; where there are inspiring elements of environment as well as of curriculum, and where profound conversations take place in dining halls, as well as or perhaps even more than in lecture halls.

Leadership for that educational world means giving attention to curriculum, but also to more. In the increasingly competitive and differentiated Australian educational environment, the question of whether tertiary education is understood to include the development of the whole person, and preparation for leadership in society, will be one of the crucial tests of a genuinely outstanding educational experience.