in 1949 sought to significantly decrease student enrolment in Chinese vernacular schools. Chinese students were faced with the implementation of high school exams that served little purpose in ensuring the students' path into university. The National Service Ordinance act also disrupted the education of Chinese students as the colonial government was unwilling to allow them to defer if they had to sit for examinations. This eventually led to the May 13 incident in 1954. In January 1955, the students' application to register the SCMSSU was rejected and subsequently met with many obstacles which the students felt were unreasonable demands by the colonial government to prevent the set up of the student union. Newspaper reports of the government not providing help or compensation to victims of World War Two in Singapore also served as a reminder to students that they were being asked to fight for a government that does not have their interests at heart. Students were seen to be the allies of the workers serving as a political force that could influence the decisions of the ruling elite. Loh et al. highlighted that many of the workers were ex-students and that the Chinese school students knew that the workers who were intertwined in labour negotiations was a reflection of their future. The anxieties of the students coupled with the students' sympathy to the workers resulted in their support for the Hock Lee bus workers. Workers C. M. Turnbull saw the cause of the riots to be a battle between moderate and left-wing politics within the People's Action Party (PAP) and attributed the workers' involvement to be one of "joint direct militant campaign of obstruction and violence." The book Men in White also frames the Hock Lee event as a "demonstration of the ruthlessness of the communists and their capacity to unleash violence in Singapore." In both these accounts, the bus workers were not given any political consciousness as the event is seen as a spontaneous one that was initiated by the communists that eventually went out of control. Workers in the 1950s were subject to the many effects of colonial society. As previously mentioned, the Rendel Constitution paved the way for the liberalisation of Singapore politics coupled with the workers increasing anxiety about wages and working conditions as seen from an increase from 11 trade unions in 1946, to 236 unions in 1955. The post-war colonial administration was seen