Which is why in only ten years there are fewer people who speak a mother tongue language such as Tamil or Mandarin(Foley 219). .
The recent decrease in the use of these mother tongues and the increase in the use of English was due mainly to the fact that the younger generation received their education in English. Also contributing to that fact is the socioeconomic status of the population. First the relationship between monthly income and language use in the home is believed to lead to the rise of use of English in the home. For example, households with incomes of less than $1000 per month, only 7.6% reported using English in the home, whereas households with incomes of $4000 and over, 33.5% reported using English in the home(Foley 219). .
Although Chinese dialects make up the majority of language use in the home at over 50%, more and more households are using English in the home. .
For a typical child living in Singapore today, their family would use either the mother tongue spoken by the family or sometimes English. Most of the younger children growing up today use English in the home, this is primarily due to the fact that these children are using English more frequently at school and with their friends. However most children that grew up in the late 1970's used their mother tongue at home and English in the school and with their playmates(Foley 221). .
Language in the School .
Historically, the education policies in Singapore have changed and developed over the past 100 hundred years and since independence has changed even more. The colonial education policy in Singapore was one of noninterference meaning that each community was free to establish their own form of education. Therefore establishing four separate educational systems based on the different languages--Mandarin, Tamil, Malay and English and each were modeled after education in their respective homelands. .
At the time, the high cost of English education and the scarcity of qualified English teachers were the most common reasons for the limited amount of English schools in Singapore.