DPM Heng Swee Keat at the Singapore Sikh Education Foundation 35th Anniversary Dinner

Mdm Gurdial Kaur, Chairperson of the Singapore Sikh Education Foundation,
Mr Malminderjit Singh, Chairman of the Sikh Advisory Board,
Ladies and gentlemen,

A very good evening to everyone, Sat Sri Akal!

I am delighted to join our Sikh community and your wide range of partners to celebrate this joyous occasion.

Let me first congratulate the Singapore Sikh Education Foundation, or SSEF, on your 35th anniversary this year.

It is an important milestone in a remarkable journey. We heard from Mdm Gurdial earlier about how your first classes started in March 1990 and how SSEF has evolved and transformed over the years. Mdm Gurdial mentioned about that momentous year, 1990, when the Government introduced Punjabi as a Mother Tongue Language (MTL)-in-lieu. Since then, SSEF has been at the forefront of preserving the Punjabi language and promoting the rich cultural heritage of the Sikh community in Singapore.

When I was Minister for Education in 2011, founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and I had a discussion about second languages. Mr Lee was looking at the latest research showing that the younger a person was when he or she was exposed to a second language, the easier it was for that person to learn it. After speaking to experts in MOE and professors at NIE, I too was convinced of this finding. So we worked closely with Mr Lee to set up the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism.

Mr Lee also felt that learning a second language was not just about opening doors to the wider world for Singaporeans, but also an important way of preserving our culture and values. It was interesting that we started tonight’s event with the school song, which I understand is based on nine values – perseverance, well-being of mankind, hard work, sharing, self-control, humility, truthfulness, courtesy and remembrance of God. Many of these would resonate with Singaporeans from different communities.

So well done!

2025 also marks SG60 – 60 years of Singapore’s independence and nationhood.

Milestone anniversaries like these, at the 35 and 60-year mark, are a good occasion for us to reflect.

Just as we celebrate our past and how far we have come, we must also envision our future and how far we can go in the years ahead.

I last joined SSEF to celebrate your 21st anniversary in 2011 when I was Education Minister.

At the time, Singapore and the rest of the world were still emerging from the impact of the Global Financial Crisis.

Since then, the world has undergone even more dramatic transformations. We have navigated yet another crisis – the COVID pandemic. And there will be other crises to come in the years ahead.

Now, as a nation, we came together to address challenges during COVID and emerge stronger.

One key reason for our success is our sense of unity, forged out of our diversity.

Fostering greater trust and confidence among our diverse communities has been a key pillar of our nation-building efforts since independence.

It was among the highest priorities for Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his founding team and continues to be so for successive generations of Singapore leaders.

In our early years, it was existential.

Forging unity-in-diversity was fundamental to keeping our nation stable and successful amid great political uncertainty, both internally as well as in our external environment.

This harmony that we have forged enabled us to focus on economic development, to uplift the lives and livelihoods of our people.

Over the past six decades, generations of Singaporeans have learned to grow and thrive in our dualities.

Even as we appreciate our respective cultural roots, we simultaneously expand our common ground and strengthen our distinctive, shared Singaporean identity.

When I was Minister for Finance, the Mayors and I introduced Community Development Council (CDC) vouchers in 2020, that were to be used largely at hawker centres and neighbourhood shops. One reason for this was that these places also serve as common spaces for Singaporeans regardless of race, language or religion, and the vouchers were one way for Singaporeans to support and strengthen them during a challenging period.

Today, it is common to see Singaporeans of different races and religions come together to celebrate one another’s festivities.

Some of you here would have joined friends and neighbours to celebrate Chinese New Year recently!

This strong sense of trust and goodwill between our communities was built through years of conscious and deliberate effort.

We must continue to invest in it, and strengthen it further, in the years ahead.

Strengthening multiculturalism also takes many stakeholders working together with a common cause. The Government cannot do it alone.

So, what role has our communities, and community organisations like SSEF, played and will continue to play?

Let me briefly mention two.

The first is by embracing bilingualism to deepen our understanding of our own cultures as well as those of others.

In his memoirs, Mr Lee wrote that becoming monolingual in English would have resulted in Singaporeans losing our cultural identity.

To him, this meant losing a “quiet confidence about ourselves and our place in the world”.

At the same time, being proficient in English, the international language of science, technology and business, is an important competitive advantage for Singapore.

Bilingualism has hence been a long-standing cornerstone of our education policy.

It has enabled our people to retain their links to their heritage, while confidently seizing opportunities in a global marketplace.

It has also reinforced a shared understanding that even as we come from different roots, we all belong to one Singapore.

Through SSEF’s efforts, including in partnership with the Board for the Teaching and Testing of South Asian Languages, Sikh students in our schools have had the flexibility to offer Punjabi in lieu of an official Mother Tongue Language, or MTL.

In the past five years, I understand that around 500 students offered Punjabi as their MTL in-lieu in schools annually. At the exhibition outside, I saw that there are students learning Punjabi at the kindergarten level as well.

I commend SSEF not only for implementing the Punjabi curriculum, but also for developing your own learning and enrichment materials.

This has helped our Sikh youth develop a stronger anchor to their heritage, as well as to the community, their families and one another.

Beyond learning of a language, Punjabi education has also enabled the imparting of important cultural values to make our youth more constructive citizens.

For example, the Sikh principle of seva, or selfless service, teaches youth to place the community above self.

This resonates strongly with the kind of society we hope to continually nurture in Singapore - where our people look out for and support one another. This is going to be even more important as our population ages.

This brings me to my second point.

Groups like SSEF play an important role not only by serving the academic needs of our youth.

You also develop them to be socially responsible, civic-minded, and as Mdm Gurdial described earlier, “passionate changemakers”.

Many members of the Sikh community have contributed to Singapore’s nation-building over the years – whether in Parliament or public service, in the Armed Forces, or in healthcare and education.

Mdm Gurdial herself was an educator for many years.

After serving as Principal of Qihua and Da Qiao Primary, she helped to nurture the next generation of teachers at NIE

Mr Surjit Singh Wasan, former Chairman of the Sikh Advisory Board who is here today, is a member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights and the Presidential Council for Religious Harmony.

Now, in these roles, he helps to ensure that legislation does not disadvantage any religious or racial community and advises the President on matters pertaining to Singapore’s religious harmony.

SSEF Advisor Mr Bhajan Singh also previously served on the Presidential Council for Religious Harmony.

Others from the Sikh community support different platforms such as our Racial and Religious Harmony Circles.

All of you here set a positive example for the next generation in the Sikh community to draw inspiration from.

As Singaporeans, we can contribute not only by preserving our own respective cultures and heritage, but also by working with others to serve the wider society and the wider world.

I am glad to learn that SSEF is fostering a culture of giving back by creating opportunities for your students to volunteer and engage the wider community.

For example, in 2019, around 100 SSEF students joined volunteers from the Young Sikh Association to spend time with family beneficiaries of the Marine Parade Family Service Centre, under a ground-up project named “Sewa Pledge”.

In 2022, SSEF also supported the Sikh community’s organisation of the annual Harmony Games, bringing together different faith groups to foster friendship and interaction through sports and games.

So, I encourage SSEF, and the wider Sikh community, to keep up and expand these efforts.

In sum, organisations like SSEF make important contributions to strengthening Singapore’s social cohesion by deepening our cultural and inter-cultural understanding, and nurturing youth who can be bridge-builders across wider society, today and in the years ahead. And I should add that our youth can also be good bridge-builders across the world, in a global environment that is increasingly fragmented, contested and divided. I hope that Singaporeans, growing up in multiracial and multireligious harmony and with a deep sense of self and our cultural and religious heritage, can contribute to building deeper inter-cultural understanding and engagement globally.

This will serve Singapore well as we navigate an increasingly complex global landscape.

SSEF’s efforts, and your journey these past 35 years, remind us that multiculturalism is not simply a policy.

Rather, it is a lived experience and investment that must be nurtured by each generation of Singaporeans – to build a better home for those who come after us.

Let me take this opportunity to thank the different generations of leaders who have steered SSEF since your founding till today, as well as the many teachers, principals, administrators, donors and trustees, whom Mdm Gurdial Kaur acknowledged earlier, who have supported your mission over the decades. The saying that “it takes a village to raise a child” is true especially when it comes to education.

So, I am glad that we will be honouring around 30 of you later this evening.

My heartiest congratulations once again to SSEF on your 35th anniversary.

I am confident that with the support of the Sikh community and your partners, SSEF will continue to grow in the years ahead and continue to make an impact – not only as a pillar of excellence for the teaching of Punjabi but also in developing future generations of leaders of Singapore.

Thank you and I wish everyone a pleasant evening. Congratulations!