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110 P. F. Neo

countries and became a part of their traditional culture. This shows that Confu-
cianism is not only a tradition of Chinese societies, but is also accepted by non-
Chinese societies. In fact, it has become a major system of moral philosophy in
Asia.” (CDIS, 1985: Lesson 18) As Singapore is a multiethnic country, the authors of
the textbooks deliberately made it clear that Confucianism does not only belong to
the Chinese, but is a common cultural heritage of many countries in East Asia.
Although this may be an expression meant to suit the Singapore context, it could
also be regarded as a farsighted approach to studying the development of
Confucianism.

4 Conclusion

According to official statistics, in 1986, barely a year after the introduction of the
Confucian Ethics in 1985, there were close to 6,000 secondary school students (over
5,000 in Chinese classes and about 700 in English classes) enrolled in the course
(Anonymous, 1985a). By 1987, the number of students taking the course had
increased to 14,795, representing 18.7% of the total number of secondary three and
four students in the country. Of these, the number of students taking the course in
Chinese was about three times that of the English classes (Anonymous, 1987). In
1989, more than 14,000 students were enrolled in the Confucian Ethics course (Tan
et al., 1989), accounting for 17.8% of the total number of secondary three and four
students (Wong, 1996, pp. 288–289). In 1992, however, the Singapore Ministry of
Education implemented a new policy on moral education for secondary school
students. As a result, Confucian Ethics, together with the other moral education
courses offered at the time, began to be replaced by the new curriculums. The
Confucian Ethics curriculum thus ceased to be offered as a subject for students to
study in schools (Neo, 2007). However, the Confucian Ethics curriculum, which was
jointly developed by Singaporean experts and their international colleagues,
nonetheless, remained as a set of unique curricula rich in style and content, which
may serve as a useful reference for those who wish to teach Confucianism to young
students.
In the early 1980s, when Singapore initiated the project of developing the
Confucian Ethics curriculum, Confucianism as a field of study was still under-
developed in the People’s Republic of China as the country had not yet recovered
from the political campaign of criticizing Lin Biao (林彪 1907–1971) and Confucius.
Therefore, it was only natural for Singapore to seek help from the Confucian
scholars outside the mainland of China. The New Confucianists, and other ethnic
Chinese scholars who were inspired by their spirit, were an influential academic