Impact of World War II on Singapore

Mr Lee Kuan Yew is at the 2nd row, 3rd man from the right
and with his other team members.

People's Action Party (PAP) was formed 21 November 1954 by Mr Lee Kuan Yew. His vision was to make Singapore to be independent and make the people's lives a better one. Singapore's founding father and Singapore's first Prime Minister was Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Slowly, people like Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan and S. Rajaratnam joined PAP. It is a political party from 1954 even till this day.

PAP Community Foundation is run by PAP, a political party, Goh Chok Tong was the chairperson of the board. It focused on education as they believe in providing education to the younger generation to provide them good jobs in the future. It not only focus on the young ones but also, offers financial assistance and promote resident and citizen welfare. They build kindergarten, childcare, student care and aged care services to encourage people from different races and religions to come together. 

Pre-school/Kindergarten

• "We want all children to be able to attend Pre-school and thus we keep our fees affordable for our community." 
• It was quoted from the PAP Community Foundation website.

1. Majority children were sent to PAP kindergarten by their parent because the fees is not too expensive and affordable.
2. This helps to expose them to different areas like making new friends from different races and religions, learn English Language together and communicate with people using English Language. 
3. Singapore is a multi-racial  country so English Language is the first language used for Singapore followed by the second language which is their Mother Tongue consist of the Malay, Tamil and Mandarin. 
4. This is to prevent unhappiness to arose so people in Singapore still have their own language to learn and communicate among their community. 

PAP kindergarten are found under the HDB block as it is convenient for parents to fetch their kids after their work and walk a few distance to reach their house if they live in HDB flats.

The children will work, learn and play together despite their different races and religions. 

RELATE BACK TO THE PAST DURING THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION

The Japanese set up schools and forced the people to learn their language to remove the Western influence after Singapore was handed over to the Japan after the British surrender. Textbooks were printed in Japanese for the students to learn Japanese Language. 

It was hard for the students to adapt to these changes as they could not understand Japanese. Some parents resorted to finding a tuition teacher who teaches English or even Mother Tongue to their child to avoid their child from losing out. 

Every morning, the children had to stand facing the direction of Japan's flag and sing the Japanese national anthem. It was called Kimigayo. It was compulsory to sing the national anthem. It was a new thing for the people and it took them some time to adapt with the new national anthem as it was hard to pronounce the words.

Sources taken from:
Singapore From Settlement To Nation Pre-1819 To 1971
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAP_Community_Foundation
http://www.pcf.org.sg/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SG&v=29FFHC2D12Q&hl=en-GB


Done by:
Nur Dini (17)
3E3
2015