Declassified Albatross File may reshape school history lessons, spark debate on national identity

SINGAPORE – Over her 35-year career as a secondary school history teacher, Ms Tan Siew Hua taught generations of students that

Singapore had been suddenly expelled from Malaysia

on Aug 9, 1965.

During lessons, she showed videos of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew breaking down on television as he announced the end of the political and economic union he had fiercely fought for.

To Ms Tan, who retired in 2012, parts of this narrative have been turned upside down by the

recent declassification of the Albatross File.

The documents detailing Singapore’s 1965 Separation from Malaysia reveal a more nuanced story and confirm that the end of Singapore’s time in the federation was negotiated.

They show that leaders from both nations pushed for a clean break after two years of merger – a story that runs counter to the idea which remains in the public imagination that Singapore was kicked out unilaterally by then Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The new details that the documents provide could in time change how this part of Singapore history is taught in schools, said educators and historians.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) said, in response to queries from The Straits Times, that when relevant new historical materials such as the Albatross File become publicly available, they are incorporated into textbooks and digital resources during syllabus reviews and resource updates.

The idea of a negotiated Separation is not new.

This narrative has been public for some years through sources like Mr Lee’s 1998 memoir The Singapore Story, said historian Tan Tai Yong, who is president of the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

It has also made it into the history curriculum in schools, in a process that started in the early 2000s after some of these sources were released in the late 1990s, said MOE lead curriculum specialist for history Noel Ong.

Students now learn that Singapore leaders had a hand in effecting and enacting Separation, and textbooks include information about the secret negotiations between both sides in the weeks leading up to it, he said.

This process – where new historical discoveries are slowly incorporated as they become more supported by historical evidence and more historians reach a consensus on the findings – has happened before, Mr Ong noted.

He cited archaeologist John Miksic’s discoveries, made public in 1984, which gradually led to a new understanding that Singapore’s history as a trading hub spanned roughly over 700 years. This was gradually woven into the history curriculum over about two decades.

MOE said it works with academics and organisations, including the National Archives of Singapore, National Heritage Board, National Library Board and National Museum of Singapore, to develop both the history and social studies syllabuses, textbooks and digital resources.

What the declassified file provides is documentary and oral history evidence that confirms Separation was not as sudden and unexpected as previously believed, Professor Tan said.

Prof Tan wrote part of the introduction to a book about the documents, titled The Albatross File: Inside Separation.

The book is accompanied by a permanent exhibition at the National Library Building that displays some of the file’s documents. Both were

launched on Dec 7 by Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

These will provide new primary sources for teachers and students and enrich the learning of history, said history master teacher Candice Seet.

MOE said it has publicised the exhibition to all secondary schools and pre-university institutions for their consideration in helping deepen their students’ understanding of Singapore’s formative years.

History lessons in secondary schools have, since around 2013, adopted an “inquiry-based approach”, Ms Seet said. “This means students play an active role in analysing a range of sources to answer inquiry questions like ‘Was Singapore’s separation from Malaysia unexpected?’, rather than being taught a series of events.”

The book and exhibition provide a wealth of primary sources that open up the story to new lines of questioning for students, said Ms Ong Bee Young, who retired from teaching history in 2024.

These were in the past not easy to come by, she noted. Now, the file has fleshed out the crucial roles of various leaders then, including first-generation leaders Goh Keng Swee and E.W. Barker, she said.

“If I were teaching now, my students would have a more exciting time looking at Separation... I might get them to role-play the Singapore Cabinet at that period of time debating what they were arguing for and against – and now we do not only have Lee Kuan Yew’s account.”

New files could spark discussions on nation’s origins, identity

The declassification of these new sources with the file could also spark a new conversation about Singapore’s national narrative and identity as the country celebrates 60 years of independence, said observers.

They could also prompt a reassessment of Dr Goh’s legacy.

Dr Goh, then finance minister and Singapore’s chief negotiator during Separation, was the one who kept the secret file. It comprises Cabinet papers, his own handwritten notes from meetings with Malaysian leaders, and other documents detailing the process of leaving the federation.

Taken together, the papers show that he negotiated for a full separation without the knowledge of Mr Lee, who had preferred a “looser” federation.

Historian Loh Kah Seng said Dr Goh has since 1999 been appraised by academics as an economic and social architect of Singapore.

Albatross shows he was also a political architect of Singapore’s Separation and Independence, he said.

“Dr Goh, the economist, not only wanted the separation, but believed that Singapore would succeed as an independent state, and he was right.”

Institute of Policy Studies Social Lab senior research fellow Teo Kay Key said the file also raises questions about what being a Singaporean means. In a year when the country is celebrating SG60, the file’s declassification brings attention back to the country’s origins as a nation, and offers a moment of reflection.

Many Singaporeans continue to believe that Singapore was unexpectedly “expelled” from Malaysia, Prof Tan said.

This narrative is deep-seated because it has been entrenched in the national historical consciousness for decades, he said.

“The image of an emotional Lee Kuan Yew announcing Separation on television – his ‘moment of anguish’ – deeply etched in the popular mind the impression of an unplanned rupture and reinforced the belief that Singapore was booted out of Malaysia.”

The expulsion story has an easily remembered theme – that Singapore did not plan to be a nation-state and had independence thrust upon it.

This then fed into nation-building objectives, emphasising the nascent state’s vulnerability, and the political and economic imperatives of survivalism, he said.

Public memory will take time to change and negotiated separation is a more complex and nuanced narrative. Telling this more intricate story will necessitate some reframing and re-telling, he added.

For some, like retired teacher Madam Ding, 87, who lived through the period, the reasons for Separation were not material then and do not matter much now.

She had moved from Malaysia to Singapore to attend college and became a Singaporean then, but had family including two siblings in Malaysia who still live there today.

Madam Ding, who declined to give her full name, said she was sad when Singapore’s departure was announced, but now views it as a blessing in disguise.

“Within a few years, I could see the policies here are better – equality, and freedom of worship. I am happy about everything. Equality is the main thing, equality among all the races.”