Immigrant parents’ articulation and imaginings of the Singaporean education system

Drawing on a study into immigrant parents’ influences on children’s education in Singapore, this paper presents preliminary and partial findings on immigrant parents’ discourses surrounding various forms of schooling or education systems, specifically the local mainstream schools, international schools, education in their countries of origin, and shadow education in Singapore. The paper demonstrates how such discourses inform and are intertwined with the immigrant parents’ articulations of their parenting ideologies and educational philosophies. It is found that immigrant parents generally hold positive views on mainstream schools in Singapore, sometimes comparing these favourably with the perceived education and culture in international schools, as well as that of their countries of origin. At the same time, immigrant parents also pointed out the drawbacks of the Singapore education system in terms of its stressful nature, which has given rise to a pervasive shadow education sector. Through talking about and reflecting on these different forms of schooling/education, immigrant parents construct their notions of a good education. However, the paper cautions that the various characteristics attributed to different types of schools/education should be understood as immigrant parents’ subjective and imaginary constructs, reflecting not so much ‘objective reality’ as their ideologies and expectations pertaining to their children’s education.