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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 17:1 (2018) ► pp.118–140

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Skilling the nation, empowering the citizen

Neoliberal instantiations in Singapore’s lifelong learning policy

ORCiD logo with link | City University of Hong Kong
Published online: 3 November 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.16012.ng
Abstract
This paper focuses on what is referred to as the SkillsFuture initiative as the most current crystallization of the Singapore government’s lifelong learning policy, and the state-sponsored discourse associated with it. Adopting a critical discourse-analytic approach, the study examines a data set that cuts across various genres and media (i.e. political speeches, Internet website, video clips), covering both linguistic and (moving) visual instantiations, involving semiotic features like pronouns, modality, image design parameters, and importantly, metaphor. The paper seeks to provide insight into the ideological foundations of Singapore’s education-labour policies as an indication of the ideal(ized) Singaporean citizen-subject promulgated by the state, and how these are semiotically instantiated in state-sponsored discourse. In so doing, the analysis also considers the contextual specificity of the neoliberal-oriented values purveyed, as the individualizing tropes of neoliberalism discursively interact with what might be considered a post-Confucian Singaporean communitarian/collective ethos.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Analytic mode and data
  • 3.Background and context
    • 3.1Skills, education and labour in a neoliberal economy
    • 3.2Singapore’s governance and policy trajectory
  • 4.The SkillsFuture discourse
    • 4.1Choice, flexibility and competition
    • 4.2Commodification of education, skills and learners
    • 4.3Individualization of responsibility
  • 5.Textualizing neoliberal normativity in Singapore
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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