This article explores the role of education, in particular citizenship education, in shaping the Singapore electorate. An understanding of the history of citizenship education helps to shed light on the contemporary political culture in Singapore. The extent to which democratic citizenship education has been taught in schools since 1958 is explored. Singapore's citizenship education has consistently stressed the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, patriotism, national identity and moral values-with the goal of nation-building and legitimising the People's Action Party state. This reflective historical piece on Singapore's educational history adds a relatively unexplored facet to the discussions on the general election 2015 results as well as Singapore's subsequent political development. The results of the 2015 general election in Singapore, seen in this light, are not so surprising, as they reflect the success of the state's citizenship education in shaping the current political culture.

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For the city state of Singapore, 2018 was a year of many firsts. It marked the midpoint of the 13th Parliament of Singapore within a manifestly post–Lee Kuan Yew era. The incumbent government of the People's Action Party (PAP) began the year with the pleasant surprise that economic growth in 2017 had reached 3.6 per cent. This exceeded the modest expectations of 1.5 to 3.5 per cent.1 But despite the positive start, 2018 was to be filled with headwinds for Singapore, both new and familiar. Top of the list was the revival of tensions with Malaysia, as well as a newly elected PAP Central Executive Committee, marking a crucial occasion of fourth-generation leadership transition for the world's third-longest ruling political party. On the international front it was the year of summits, with Singapore hosting two major events: the North Korea–United States Summit — the "Trump-Kim summit" — and the 33rd ASEAN Summit, both amidst the trade war between China and the United States. Meanwhile, in local politics, other notable firsts included the formation of the Select Committee on deliberate online falsehoods and the convening of its public hearings, as well as a cyberattack on SingHealth, Singapore's largest healthcare provider, resulting in the records of about 1.5 million patients being compromised. On the ground, inequality took the crown as buzzword of the year in the public consciousness as Singapore grappled with various encounters, propelling the otherwise academic term into the limelight. On the policy side, the introduction of the Merdeka Generation Package set a new bar for the government's commitment to reducing the healthcare costs of elderly Singaporeans.

In June, Singapore captured the global spotlight when it hosted the summit meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The regional political environment prompted anxiety, given the leadership transition in Malaysia. Domestically, political leadership transition and the opposition Workers’ Party’s lawsuit over allegations of mismanagement of town council funds were major issues.

Singapore remained in crisis mode in 2021, a situation that persisted from 2020. While COVID-19 continued to devastate various foundations of Singapore, especially the economy and public confidence in the government, a political succession crisis threw the republic deeper into uncharted territory. These developments are likely to have long-term consequences, especially for the staying power of government in what is a one-dominant-party state. © 2022 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress.edu/journals/reprints-permissions.