Promotion of Malay Cultural Activities in Schools through CCAs

Mr Mohd Fahmi Aliman asked the Minister for Education (a) how many schools currently offer Malay Dance as a Co-Curricular Activity (CCA) in Singapore; (b) how many schools have removed Malay Dance as a CCA option in the last five years; and (c) what are the Ministry’s plans to ensure the preservation and promotion of Malay cultural activities, including Malay Dance, in schools.

Presently, out of 351 schools, about 90 schools offer Malay Dance as a co-curricular activity (CCA). In the last five years, about 40 schools have discontinued Malay Dance as a CCA. This trend is not unique to Malay Dance but has also been observed across all the ethnic dance CCAs likely due to a change in student preferences and declining student cohort numbers. A number of schools that discontinued ethnic dance CCAs have offered Cultural Dance or International Dance CCAs instead. Overall, about 50 schools started new CCA dance groups in the last five years.

Malay dance continues to be an important art form which the Ministry of Education (MOE) supports. It is one of the dance categories in the Singapore Youth Festival Arts Presentation. MOE also engages professional arts groups and practitioners to provide workshops for Malay Dance CCA students and teachers to deepen their appreciation for the art.

Under the National Arts Council’s Arts Education Programmes, students get to experience Malay dance and other cultural arts performances in their own schools. Some schools also have Learning for Life Programmes with an emphasis on dance, which exposes their students to a broad repertoire of dance forms including Malay dance.

MOE also nurtures all students’ appreciation for Malay culture through other art forms. For example, the art curriculum exposes all students to works by Singapore Malay artists. The music curriculum exposes all students to Malay community songs and students who take upper secondary Music learn traditional Malay music and instruments.

The Malay Language curriculum also seeks to enhance students’ cultural knowledge and appreciation through immersive programmes like the Mother Tongue Language Fortnight and Language and Cultural Camp. Beyond school, the Malay Language Learning and Promotion Committee collaborates with community partners to organise interesting programmes for our schools to appreciate Malay language and culture.