Singapore: bridgehead of the West or counterforce? The s[t]imulation of creative and critical thought in Singapore's higher education policies

This paper argues that the welcoming by western humanists of pedagogies of critical and creative thinking in Asian universities - as if such thinking will breed an eastern counter-voice to western neo-liberalism - is misguided. The paper will question the rise of creative and critical thinking in higher education in Asia by analysing the intersections of the neo-liberal economy, new media technologies, and such new 'thinking' in the post-colonial context of Singapore and its national university. The paper will conclude that in the new hegemonic configuration under technological acceleration, higher education becomes a nationalist and globalist project in which privileged Singaporean students constitute the new 'upwardly mobile' by branding themselves as 'creative Asians'.