Promote Mandarin Council

'Speak Mandarin Campaign') is a Singaporean organisation established in 1979 as part of then-PM Lee Kuan Yew's programme to promote Mandarin as the preferred language amongst Chinese Singaporeans.

In 1966 the Singapore Government institutionalised a bilingual education policy, under which Singaporean students were required to learn both English and their "designated mother-tongue".

The Goh Report, an evaluation of Singapore's education system by Dr. Goh Keng Swee, claimed that less than 40% of the student population managed to attain the minimum level of competency in two languages.

In 1979, then-PM Lee Kuan Yew decided to establish the Promote Mandarin Commission as an organisation focused entirely on the promotion of the Mandarin language, with the initial goal of eliminating all other Chinese varieties in Singapore within the next decade.

In 1998, the Commission was officially renamed as the Promote Mandarin Council.