From 2026, more students to be allowed to study higher mother tongue from Sec 1: Chan Chun Sing

SINGAPORE – More students will be allowed to study their mother tongue languages – Chinese, Malay or Tamil – at a higher level in secondary schools as part of a raft of efforts set to kick in over the next few years to shore up bilingual education.

From 2026, pupils who do well in the subject in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) will be able to take higher mother tongue languages (HMTLs) in Secondary 1, regardless of their overall PSLE score. 

These are pupils who score AL1 or AL2 – the two highest possible scores – in their mother tongue languages (MTLs), or a distinction or merit in HMTL in the PSLE. 

This is a change from the current system, where pupils must do well across all four subjects – English, maths, science and mother tongue – in the PSLE to qualify to study HMTL in secondary school.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) told The Straits Times that it expects as many as 1,000 more students to take HMTL under the revised criteria, depending on performance and interest.

More than 7,000 students take HMTL today, or about one in five of each cohort, it added.

Giving more details about the initiatives at the Mother Tongue Languages Symposium on Sept 14, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said English proficiency is necessary, but is on its own not sufficient for Singapore’s society.

Given its importance and benefits to Singapore, more has to be done to preserve bilingualism, he said, and challenges line the road ahead for Singaporeans, particularly young people, in gaining proficiency in their mother tongues. 

To tackle this, MOE will also increase efforts to expose students to MTLs earlier in life, he told educators and parents at the symposium at the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre.

At the primary level, a new structured reading programme will be introduced in 2025, where Primary 1 and 2 pupils will have 30 minutes of their mother tongue curriculum time set aside weekly for reading and library activities. 

Known as MTL Soar, it will be rolled out progressively to all levels in primary schools by 2029, MOE said in a statement on Sept 14. 

“We will provide graded readers for students across genres and topics that are exciting to young children. This will complement the existing curriculum and textbooks, so that students can apply and extend what they have learnt in the classroom,” Mr Chan said. Graded readers are books that are simplified so they are easy to understand.

“The programme will also cater to different types of learners. Those who are stronger in MTL... can read more books that are richer in content and be stretched in their learning, while those who need more support will have books that are more accessible for them.”

For younger children, MOE will increase exposure to MTLs in kindergartens.

Under a pilot programme in two MOE kindergartens – MK@Hougang and MK@Elias Park – the daily curriculum time dedicated to these languages will increase from one hour to 1½ hours from 2025, Mr Chan said. 

MOE said the pilot, previously reported in February, will gradually be scaled up to more MOE kindergartens.

More efforts must be made to take the use of MTLs out of the classroom and to leverage technology such as artificial intelligence to improve language learning, Mr Chan said. 

“Our mother tongue languages anchor us to our heritage. They also offer us an edge, a competitive advantage, by allowing us to connect with people who speak the same language, as well as tapping into wider opportunities in the region,” he said. 

He added that in multi-ethnic and multilingual Singapore, bilingualism is a cornerstone of the education system and remains a fundamental pillar of the country’s national identity.

The announcements on Sept 14 elaborate on a thrust to improve MTL learning first

outlined in August by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in his maiden National Day Rally speech

, when he emphasised continued government support for bilingualism. 

Then, he noted that the ethnic Chinese community was very concerned about the state of the Chinese language in Singapore, adding that many Singaporeans, including himself, speak English at home.

Efforts have been made over the years to address this issue through the education system.

Primary 3 and 4 pupils can now take Higher Chinese in several schools that are not in the Special Assistance Plan – a programme to develop bilingual students with traditional Chinese values – a move that has resulted in more primary school pupils taking the subject.

MOE has also offered Higher Malay Language and Higher Tamil Language to Primary 3 pupils since 2022, and to Primary 4 pupils since 2023.

The changes are part of larger, system-wide moves to customise education to each student, said Ms Esther Ong, deputy director at MOE’s Mother Tongue Language Branch, on the sidelines of the symposium.

Ms Ong, who was involved in the HMTL policy review, said the ministry’s studies have shown that some secondary school students, who had been allowed to take HMTL, despite not having made the cut based on their overall PSLE score, could manage the subject well, without cost to their other grades.

“So we are working to free up some of these boundaries and tying things to certain criteria, so students can be the best that they can be,” she said.

Some pupils are already taking part in a pilot of the MTL Soar programme through an initiative known as Reading Passports, where they are given a document containing fun activities to complete after reading books.

Primary 1 pupil Ganeshram Jaikumar has been in the programme since the start of 2024. His mother, 34-year-old engineer Visalakshi, who goes by a single name, said it has ignited in him a love of reading Tamil books.

She said: “We have always put an emphasis on speaking to him in Tamil at home, but with reading, he would sometimes struggle with more complex words. This programme really helped him become more confident and he is now even asking us to buy or borrow more books in Tamil.

“This interest in reading has also helped him start conversations with his grandparents and great-grandparents, by asking them to read the books with him.”