Singapore received the unexpected and unwanted gift of independence in 1965 following its ejection from the Malaysian federation. The years in Malaysia had seen political turbulence, in large part due to the struggle for political and economic power between ethnic groups leading to racial riots: the successful management of issues of ethnicity, language, religion, and culture in Singapore were thus crucial political imperatives. Additionally, Singapore was a small, economically underdeveloped nation with a Chinese- dominant population in a geopolitical area of Malay Muslims. However, while Singapore looked in part to education to contribute to the development of a socially cohesive and economically productive society the education heritage itself was one of an underdeveloped, segmented, and underfunded system held hostage by various political factions (Gopinathan, 1974)