1. Expensive lip service is useless in my opinion, when English is a required language in today's world. The (usually Chinese) people who can't read it still have counter staff who can explain it to them.

2. Well, we could provide more support for minority language and cultural (competency) in schools, and this does not have to result in decreased exposure to Chinese language and culture. We do need Chinese with these abilities too. More importantly, this would reduce the burden on minority communities (religious institutions, family, common identity) to educate their members on their own roots.

3. No, non-Chinese are not restricted from SAP schools. At the JC level, where students have their mother tongue requirement waived by passing O level higher mother tongue, barriers are even lower. (But there may be announcements in Mandarin.) Some minority parents choose to send their children to study Chinese and tutor them in their mother tongue by themselves.

Yes, Mandarin is the hardest language to learn, but it is in the same class as Arabic, which is may be underserved to the Malay-Muslim community. Yet SAP schools actually don't go far enough in Mandarin instruction, being restricted to English in non Mandarin-lessons. The cultural immersion is useful, but if SAP is to improve learning of Mandarin, other classes have to have the freedom to be conducted in Mandarin. I think a minor portion of ethnic-specific announcements and cultural events could be conducted in mother tongue with English translation across schools. I would like SAP-like education to be available to minorities, but I don't know how the three programs can be integrated into one school. Malaysia is running such experimental schools right now.

The thing about madrasahs is that it is difficult to live near one. HDB quotas is not really an issue for SAP schools, but many Malay-Muslims obviously want to live near a mosque, much less a madrasah. (The enthno-religious nature of Malays in Singapore means a madrasah is an adequate comparison to SAP schools.)

1. Racism is not the only highlighted issue here, but that of culture as well. If interracial coupling becomes a method to cast away the minority culture and language for the majority one, the loss is not good for cultural diversity or the minority culture itself.

Yes, people are going to discriminate anyway. We can be more aware about our biases as a first step, then examine if there is basis to these biases, and take action to reduce the negative effects of these bias. Kind of what the goal should be for racism and social justice as a whole!