Pritam Singh Advocates for English Tests to Boost Integration in Singapore

SINGAPORE: A video clip of a speech from Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh was shared on Reddit on Monday (May 1). He underlined his key point in proposing an English test to evaluate an individual’s citizenship or permanent residency application, focused on integration.

The Leader of the Opposition cited that in a poll by CNA, a large majority favoured the test.

@thehammertok

Leader of Opposition Pritam Singh speaking on the President’s Address. WP proposed an English proficiency test for new citizenship and PRs application. Do you agree with this call? #wpsg #parliamentsg #pritamsingh #sgnews #citizenshiptest #makeyourvotecount

♬ original sound – The Workers’ Party 🔨 – The Workers’ Party 🔨

“I had proposed an English requirement for PRs and citizenship applications in last month’s Committee of Supply debate.

A few weeks later, in a demographically representative poll of 500 Singapore-born citizens aged between 18 and 69 (a CNA-Mediacorp survey reported on 3 Apr this month by Channel News Asia) found that almost 80% were in favour of an English test for new PRs and citizens.

Prior to the release of this survey result, in some limited quarters, the proposal for an English requirement was incorrectly understood as a divisive one, with the implicit point being that mother tongue languages would somehow be compromised or that an English requirement was a test of Singaporeans.

But these criticisms missed the key point of the proposal which was focused on integration. I am gratified that the demographically-representative survey respondents did not miss the point,” he said.

Commenters on Reddit and TikTok, where the WP shared the clip on Apr 26, appear to find the proposal sensible, with many praising Mr Singh.

“I can’t see why any reasonable Singaporeans will disagree to this,” wrote one Reddit user.

“Pritam is the kind of opposition we need a lot more of,” chimed in another.

A TikTok user wrote, “End of the day, it’s rly not about the superiority of the English language. It’s about having a language that everyone in the country can speak.”