Decolonizing the History Curriculum in Malaysia and Singapore is a unique study in the history of education because it examines decolonization in terms of how it changed the subject of history in the school curriculum of two colonized countries - Malaysia and Singapore. Blackburn and Wu's book analyzes the transition of the subject of history from colonial education to postcolonial education, from the history syllabus upholding the colonial order to the period after independence when the history syllabus became a tool for nation-building. Malaysia and Singapore are excellent case studies of this process because they once shared a common imperial curriculum in the English language schools that was gradually 'decolonized' to form the basis of the early history syllabuses of the new nation-states (they were briefly one nation-state in the early to mid-1960s). The colonial English language history syllabus was 'decolonized' into a national curriculum that was translated for the Chinese, Malay, and Tamil schools of Malaysia and Singapore. By analyzing the causes and consequences of the dramatic changes made to the teaching of history in the schools of Malaya and Singapore as Britain ended her empire in Southeast Asia, Blackburn and Wu offer fascinating insights into educational reform, the effects of decolonization on curricula, and the history of Malaysian and Singaporean education.

Experiences of captivity in Japanese-occupied Asia varied enormously. Some prisoners of war (POWs) were sent to work in Japan, others to toil on the 'Death Railway' between Burma and Thailand. Some camps had death rates below 1 per cent, others of over 20 per cent. While POWs were deployed far and wide as a captive labour force, civilian internees were generally detained locally. This book explores differences in how captivity was experienced between 1941 and 1945, and has been remembered since: differences due to geography and logistics, to policies and personalities, and marked by nationality, age, class, gender and combatant status. Part One has at least one chapter for each 'National Memory', Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Indian and American. Part Two moves on to forgotten captivities. It covers women, children, camp guards, internee experiences upon the end of the war, and local heroines who fought back. By juxtaposing such a wide variety of captivity experiences - differentiated both by category of captive and by approach - this book transcends place, to become a collection about captivity as a category. It will interest scholars working on the Asia-Pacific War, on captivities in general, and on the individual histories of the countries and groups covered.

Singapore under the ruling People's Action Party government has been categorized as a developmental state which has utilized education as an instrument of its economic policies and nation-building agenda. However, contrary to accepted assumptions, the use of education by the state to promote economic growth did not begin with the coming to power of the People's Action Party in 1959. In Singapore, the colonial state had been using education to meet the demands of its colonial economy well before the rise of the post-independence developmental state. Education, Industrialization and the End of Empire in Singapore examines how the state's use of education as an instrument of economic policy had its origins in the colonial economy and intensified during the process of decolonization. By covering this process the history of vocational and technical education and its relationship with the economy is traced from the colonial era through to decolonization and into the early postcolonial period.

Experiences of captivity in Japanese-occupied Asia varied enormously. Some prisoners of war (POWs) were sent to work in Japan, others to toil on the 'Death Railway' between Burma and Thailand. Some camps had death rates below 1 per cent, others of over 20 per cent. While POWs were deployed far and wide as a captive labour force, civilian internees were generally detained locally.

This book explores differences in how captivity was experienced between 1941 and 1945, and has been remembered since: differences due to geography and logistics, to policies and personalities, and marked by nationality, age, class, gender and combatant status.Part One has at least one chapter for each 'National Memory', Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Indian and American. Part Two moves on to forgotten captivities. It covers women, children, camp guards, internee experiences upon the end of the war, and local heroines who fought back.

By juxtaposing such a wide variety of captivity experiences - differentiated both by category of captive and by approach - this book transcends place, to become a collection about captivity as a category. It will interest scholars working on the Asia-Pacific War, on captivities in general, and on the individual histories of the countries and groups covered.

Singapore under the ruling People's Action Party government has been categorized as a developmental state which has utilized education as an instrument of its economic policies and nation-building agenda. However, contrary to accepted assumptions, the use of education by the state to promote economic growth did not begin with the coming to power of the People's Action Party in 1959. In Singapore, the colonial state had been using education to meet the demands of its colonial economy well before the rise of the post-independence developmental state. Education, Industrialization and the End of Empire in Singapore examines how the state's use of education as an instrument of economic policy had its origins in the colonial economy and intensified during the process of decolonization. By covering this process the history of vocational and technical education and its relationship with the economy is traced from the colonial era through to decolonization and into the early postcolonial period.

This book provides a sophisticated summary of up-to-date knowledge on the Fall of Singapore, including the critical tensions between Churchill and local commanders. A focus on the role of Churchill, and on his understanding of the guns and Singapore's fortifications, makes the Fortress central to understanding why and how Singapore fell as it did. The book includes a range of quotations that give the flavour of the time and the essence of the debates. No other book allows the reader to get a clear overview of the base, the plans, the campaign, the guns and the remaining heritage, all in one place.

This book provides a sophisticated summary of up-to-date knowledge on the Fall of Singapore, including the critical tensions between Churchill and local commanders. A focus on the role of Churchill, and on his understanding of the guns and Singapore's fortifications, makes the Fortress central to understanding why and how Singapore fell as it did. The book includes a range of quotations that give the flavour of the time and the essence of the debates. No other book allows the reader to get a clear overview of the base, the plans, the campaign, the guns and the remaining heritage, all in one place.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203404408

Decolonizing the History Curriculum in Malaysia and Singapore is a unique study in the history of education because it examines decolonization in terms of how it changed the subject of history in the school curriculum of two colonized countries - Malaysia and Singapore. Blackburn and Wu's book analyzes the transition of the subject of history from colonial education to postcolonial education, from the history syllabus upholding the colonial order to the period after independence when the history syllabus became a tool for nation-building. Malaysia and Singapore are excellent case studies of this process because they once shared a common imperial curriculum in the English language schools that was gradually 'decolonized' to form the basis of the early history syllabuses of the new nation-states (they were briefly one nation-state in the early to mid-1960s). The colonial English language history syllabus was 'decolonized' into a national curriculum that was translated for the Chinese, Malay, and Tamil schools of Malaysia and Singapore. By analyzing the causes and consequences of the dramatic changes made to the teaching of history in the schools of Malaya and Singapore as Britain ended her empire in Southeast Asia, Blackburn and Wu offer fascinating insights into educational reform, the effects of decolonization on curricula, and the history of Malaysian and Singaporean education.

Commemoration of war is done through sport on Anzac Day to remember Australia's war dead. War, Sport and the Anzac Tradition traces the creation of this sporting tradition at Gallipoli in 1915, and how it has evolved from late Victorian and Edwardian ideas of masculinity extolling prowess on the sports field as fostering prowess on the battlefield.

Examines the various aspects of the relationships between mothers and education at different levels in the education system. In particular, mothers of young children in relation to various educational policies are looked at in interaction with their children's schools and teachers.

A balanced, sensitive study of the history of comfort women in Singapore during World War II. "Comfort women" or ianfu is the euphemism used by the Japanese military for the women they compelled to do sex work in the Second World War, and has become the term generally used in English to discuss the subject. The role of comfort women in the Japanese empire during World War II remains an important and emotional topic around the world. Most scholarship concentrates on Korean comfort women, with less on their counterparts in Japan, China, and Taiwan, and even less on Southeast Asia. That gap persists despite widespread knowledge of the elaborate series of comfort stations, or comfort houses, that were organized by the Japanese administration across Singapore during the Occupation from 1942 to 1945. So why, the author asks, did no former comfort women from Singapore come forward and tell their stories when others across Asia began to do publicly in the 1990s? To understand this silence, this book offers a detailed examination of the sex industry serving the Japanese military during the wartime occupation of Singapore: the comfort stations, managers, procuresses, girls, and women who either volunteered or were forced into service and in many cases sexual slavery. Kevin Blackburn then turns from history to the public presence of the comfort women in Singapore's memory, including newspapers, novels, plays, television, and touristic heritage sites, showing how comfort women became known in Singapore during the 1990s and 2000s. Bringing great care, balance, and sensitivity to a difficult subject, Blackburn helps to fill an important gap in our understanding of this period.

Singapore fell to Japanese forces on 15 February 1942. Within a matter of days, the occupying army took prisoner more than 100,000 British, Australian and Indian soldiers, and massacred thousands of Chinese civilians. A resistance movement formed in Malaya's jungle-covered mountains, but the vast majority of people resigned themselves to life under Japanese rule. The Occupation of Malaya would last three and a half long years, until the British returned in September 1945. How is this period remembered? And how have individuals, communities, and states shaped and reshaped collections in the post war era as the events of the time slipped out of living memory? This volume uses observations gathered from members of various communities involved in or affected by the conflict - Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, British and Australians to respond to these questions. Its first hand accounts range from the thoughts of families left bereft by Japanese massacres to the ideals of young women who flocked to the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army, hoping to march on Delhi. The authors also draw on other forms of memory, including the soaring pillars of Singapore's Civilian War Memorial and traditional Chinese cemeteries in Malaysia. In preparing this volume, the authors have reinserted previously marginalised or self-censored voices back into the story in a way that allows them to reflect on the nature of conflict and memory. Moreover, these voices speak of the searing transit from war and massacre through resistance and decolonisation to the moulding of postcolonial states and identities.

Japanese World War II POW camps conjure up a notorious picture of deprivation and brutality. The idea that sport, of all things, flourished in such hellish conditions is hard to envisage - but the truth is, it did. Captives played Aussie Rules football and rugby at the infamous Changi prisoner-of-war camp, and tennis on the Burmese side of the Burma-Thailand Railway. They played soccer, cricket, baseball or basketball, and sometimes their prison guards even joined in for a game. There were many elite sportsmen in these ranks intent on reviving their sporting careers after returning home at war's end, and many of them succeeded. The Sportsmen of Changi tells the story everyone forgot - of how sport became a lifeline for POWs after the fall of Singapore, when 50 000 Australian and British soldiers became prisoners of the Japanese. Inspiring and absorbing, it shows that in unimaginable conditions people will do all they can to hold onto what makes them human.