Tag: Ministry of Education

SDP: Minister’s Silence On Benjamin Lim’s Suicide Is Troubling

The SDP expresses our deepest sympathies to the family of Benjamin Lim. His suicide is a tragedy that could have been avoided.

There is a reason why the law and society treat minors differently from adults: They are presumed to not possess the full maturity in thought and deed as adults. Common sense would have indicated to the authorities to proceed with caution when dealing with minors. Yet, five police officers were dispatched to arrest the boy.

Even if the police were concerned that Benjamin would not be co-operative and could overpower the officers and escape, how far could he have run? And even if he did make a getaway, did the police not have his family, school and classmates that they could contact?

Also of concern is whether the number of officers sent to arrest Benjamin signaled an aggressive police mindset that was carried over into the interrogation room.

School officials must be aware that their duty is, first and foremost, to protect students’ welfare as well as their families’ interests. Doing this would not impede law enforcement officers from carrying out their duty. It would, on the other hand, help to prevent tragedies like Benjamin’s suicide from taking place.

But there is something else that is equally disconcerting. The Ministers for Law, Education, and Home Affairs have kept silent on the matter. Given that a teenager has committed suicide resulting from a series of actions involving the police and the school, it behooves the Ministers to, at the minimum, address the situation and see how the matter is resolved and future incidents prevented.

Instead of looking into the matter, Todayonline runs a headline saying: “MPs, experts laud police review of interview process involving minors”. Why are MPs and the media not speaking up on investigating the circumstances that led to a 14-year-old committing suicide after police interrogation? Instead, they are lauding the review of a procedure that should not have been in practice in the first place.

In any developed country, the standard operating procedures (SOPs) would require minors to be accompanied by a parent, guardian or lawyer during interrogation. Its SOPs would also require video recordings of all police interrogations. Without these protections of minors’ rights – indeed the rights of all persons under interrogation – we will never know the treatment meted out to Benjamin during the three hours or so in police custody.

The public is upset over this incident and deserves full accounting from the Government.

Dr Wong Souk Yee
Chairperson
Singapore Democratic Party

Source: http://yoursdp.org

February 6, 2016
MOE To Consider Introducing Modules On Race And Religious Issues

The Education Ministry will consider introducing a module for students to better appreciate issues concerning race and religion, said Education Minister Heng Swee Keat.

He said this at a Racial Harmony Forum on Wednesday (Jul 8) attended by 900 school leaders and teachers.

“I think that is something that we ought to consider so that over a period of years, as our students go through the primary school all the way to secondary school and then JC, ITE and polytechnics, there can be some continuity in how we mould their understanding,” he said.

“I think that will be a useful idea because today a lot of these materials are already embedded in the different Character and Citizenship Education material as well as in social studies and history and so on. If we can pool it together, in order to give it a focus, I think that is something that we should consider.”

Singapore has enjoyed racial and religious harmony in the last 50 years but the young should be reminded that it is a delicate asset that should not be taken for granted, Mr Heng said. He pointed out that fault lines can emerge, if misinformation about other races and religions are allowed to spread.

The minister said efforts to maintain harmony must be doubled, given several challenges. For instance, the internet makes it easier to post careless remarks about other races and religions, with wide-reaching repercussions.

Radicalism, the ISIS threat as well as increasing religiosity, also raise the need to facilitate understanding between people of different beliefs even more. “We first need to be aware of these issues, consider what they might mean for our students, and prepare to engage them meaningfully,” Mr Heng said.

“It also means that we need to keep a watchful eye on our charges, helping our young find meaning and purpose in their school and community, so that they will not fall prey to radical and extremist religious beliefs,” he added.

“With high internet connectivity, it has become easier to connect with others of similar beliefs from across the world, and for people to congregate around causes and movements. If you look at some of the videos produced by the ISIS, they are highly sophisticated. There is great need today for our young to be discerning, responsible users of information, as well as to navigate this terrain wisely. Now, we have to work a lot harder to keep the ideals of our nation.”

To promote inter-racial understanding among students, schools mark Racial Harmony Day on Jul 21 annually.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

July 9, 2015
Sabah Quake: 13 Dead, At Least 6 Missing

A strong earthquake that jolted Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia has left 13 people dead and another six missing on Southeast Asia’s highest peak, an official said on Saturday (Jun 6).

The 6.0-magnitude quake struck early Friday near the picturesque mountain, a popular tourist destination, sending landslides and huge granite boulders tumbling down from its wide, 4,095-metre-high (13,435-foot) crown.

“There are 13 (dead) bodies. Two yesterday and 11 today. We’ve got six people still missing. I cannot confirm with you where they are from,” Mohammad Farhan Lee Abdullah, police chief of the town of Ranau near the mountain, told AFP.

Malaysian media reports have said the dead included members of a Singapore primary school group on an excursion to the mountain, including a 12-year-old girl who was killed, as well as a local Malaysian climbing guide.

Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE) identified the schoolgirl as Wee Ying Ping Peony from Tanjong Katong Primary School. It added that seven students and two teachers from the school are still missing.

“It’s very sad. The Singapore children were so happy when they arrived here, but now…” Masidi Manjun, tourism minister for the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island, told reporters.

Rescuers earlier on Saturday finished escorting down to safety 137 hikers who were stuck on the mountain for up to 18 hours after the quake damaged a key trail and they faced the threat of continuing rockfalls.

Crews and officials engaged in further search and rescue efforts were kept on edge, however, by aftershocks including a Saturday afternoon tremor that Malaysian officials rated at 4.5-magnitude.

It sent staff and journalists scurrying out of the park’s headquarters.

Reports said most people on the mountain when the quake hit were Malaysian but that they also included hikers from Singapore, the United States, the Philippines, Britain, Thailand, Turkey, China and Japan.

Authorities have not provided a breakdown or given details on the number of injured.

‘ROCKS RAINING DOWN FAST’

Major earthquakes are rare in Malaysia and the tremor was one of the strongest in decades, jolting a wide area of Sabah and sending people fleeing outdoors.

But there have been no reports of major damage, nor any casualties outside of those on the mountain.

Masidi said all climbing would be suspended at Mount Kinabalu for at least three weeks to allow for repairs to damaged trails, accommodation and other facilities.

Malaysia’s Bernama news agency quoted a climber describing his terror as the quake unleashed a shower of large stones from the rocky peak.

“Rocks were raining down fast, like rock blasting,” Lee Yoke Fah, a 60-year-old Malaysian who suffered minor injuries, was quoted as saying. “I am not going to climb again, I am scared.”

Mount Kinabalu is among the top tourist attractions in a state famed for its rainforests, wild rivers and coral reefs.

Around 20,000 complete the relatively easy climb each year, usually taking two days.

The force of the tremor was so strong that it toppled one of the two “Donkey’s Ears”, towering twin rock outcroppings that form a distinctive part of the peak’s profile.

Mount Kinabalu is sacred to the local Kadazan Dusun tribe, who consider it a resting place for departed spirits.

Malaysian social media users and some officials have suggested the quake was a sign the spirits were angry after a group of 10 apparently Western men and women tourists last weekend snapped nude photos at the summit and posted them on the Internet.

“This will certainly bring misfortune… we can’t play with the spirit of the sacred mountain,” deputy state chief minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan told reporters Saturday.

He called for the tourists to be brought to justice.

GROUP TURNS UP TO SHOW SUPPORT

A group, including parent volunteers, turns up to show their support for returning students and teachers of Tanjong Katong Primary School. (Photo: Monica Kotwani)

A group of about 50 people turned up at Changi Airport Terminal 2 to show their support for the 19 students and two teachers from Tanjong Katong Primary School returning to Singapore after their ordeal. Among them was Mr Hafiz Bin Ahmad, Amal’s uncle.

Speaking to Channel NewsAsia, Mr Hafiz said he understands from his sister-in-law, Amal’s mother, that Amal is alive because one of the teachers pushed Amal to an overhang in the area, and the teacher did not return after 15 minutes.

Amal also suffered from hypothermia but Mr Hafiz said he believes she did not sustain any serious injuries.

FERRATA TRAIL “MANAGEABLE”: SEASONED CLIMBER

Seasoned climber Suhardi Hashim feels that the Ferrata (Walk the Torq trail) is “manageable, even for 12-year-olds, especially if the climbers have had sufficient training and rest.”

He has been scaling mountains for more than 10 years, including Mount Rinjani in Indonesia. Since 2006, he has climbed Mount Kinabalu eight times, and said it is his favourite climb because of the majestic view at the peak.

Speaking to Channel NewsAsia, Mr Suhardi added that the trail is an adventurous one but it is safe, as there are protective measures for climbers. For example, they are hooked up to safety lifelines.

He said he had arranged to climb the mountain on Jun 9, but has since cancelled his trip, as he received a letter from the Park informing climbers that there would be no climbing activities until further notice.

The US Geological Survey had said the quake struck at a depth of 10km its epicentre located about 54 kilometres east of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah.

No major damage was reported caused by the quake, which sent residents of the region fleeing in panic from homes and buildings, including Kota Kinabalu’s International Airport, according to witnesses.

June 7, 2015
Sabah Earthquake: More Bodies Recovered, 8 Singaporeans Remain Unaccounted For

As the Ministry of Education confirmed the identity of the Singaporean student who died in the 6.0-magnitude quake that hit Sabah on Friday (June 5), the wait for other Singaporeans anxiously awaiting news of their still-unaccounted for loved ones looked set to lengthen into a third day.

This as the Malaysian authorities recovered more bodies on Mount Kinabalu yesterday.

Six of Tanjong Katong Primary School students and two teachers who were on a school trip remain unaccounted for. Confirming the identify of the student who died – 12-year-old Peony Wee Ying Ping – the ministry said in an update around 11pm the identities of other bodies found could not be verified.

At around 7pm, Sabah’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Masidi Manjun tweeted that nine bodies have been retrieved and flown to Kota Kinabalu by helicopter, while another was being carried down the mountain. At least 11 have been killed in the quake.

In a Facebook post at 11.55pm yesterday, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat said: “My heart is heavy to learn that several bodies have been recovered. We’re not able to confirm if they are our students and teachers – but whether they are our students and teachers or not, they are loved and missed by their families.”
He added that he had spoken to Mr Manjun to thank him for “his leadership and the strong support that his team has given us”. “Minister Masidi assured me of continued assistance and close cooperation,” Mr Heng added in his post.

Among the 29 TKPS students — mostly athletes and student leaders — and eight teachers who went on the annual school expedition known as the Omega Challenge, 19 students and two teachers returned yesterday.

Family members of the missing students and teachers left for Kota Kinabalu in the morning on a Republic of Singapore Air force plane, but most remained in the dark about the whereabouts of their loved ones for much of the day.

Mr Heng was present at Changi Airport to receive those who made it back to Singapore safely. Speaking to reporters, the Minister said search and rescue operations on the ground are in full swing.

“We are in close touch with the parents who have also flown in with us, to provide support to the parents. Our officials are working very closely with Malaysian authorities, to do our very best to locate the children and teachers who are missing,” he said.

A team led by the ministry comprising counsellors, officials from the Singapore Police Force, Singapore Civil Defence Force and the Transport Ministry went to Kota Kinabalu on the same flight as the relatives of the missing individuals.

As updates came in from the Malaysian news outlets and social media over the day, MOE stressed that they will not release names of students who are unaccounted for “until the next-of-kin have identified their loved ones”.

“Our team has been in Kota Kinabalu since early afternoon, and is working closely with the Malaysian authorities. Our priority now is to provide support to the next-of-kin in this difficult time,” said the ministry’s spokesperson.

TKPS students who returned yesterday were visibly distraught, many in tears as they were reunited with their loved ones at Changi Airport. Some of them had their arms in slings and one boy was in a wheelchair.

Mr Heng said the students are “a bit shaken, but otherwise they are fine”, adding that the MOE has arranged for follow-up care for them and their family members.

At least 50 people, including parent volunteers of the school, also showed up at Terminal 2 to support those who returned.

Among them were Mr Hafiz Ahmad, who was there to receive his niece Amal Ashley Lim. Speaking to the media, Mr Hafiz said Amal’s mother, his sister-in-law, told him that one of the teachers had shielded Amal and another student under an overhang when the quake happened. Amal was later helped down by a mountain guide, he said.

He added: “It’s been quite unbearable (to be waiting) here. We have had to synchronise what we hear from the press and others…but we understand the limitations, that crisis management involves difficulties.”

Another TKPS parent, Mr Alec Wing, whose son also returned yesterday, said the school and teachers had gone beyond their calls of duty. “Many of the teachers who were with them (on the trip) put themselves in harm’s way and got injured pretty badly. Their spirit is really admirable,” said the permanent resident from Mauritius, who works in the technology sector.

Back in Singapore, the school’s personnel also tried their utmost to keep parents updated, such as by contacting the relevant ministries, airlines and insurance companies, Mr Wing added.

However, he noted that the communication between government agencies could have been more prompt and better coordinated.

“We were getting dribs and drabs of information, and we were not sure where the sources are, and whether they are credible, he said, adding MOE appeared to not be in contact with the MFA’s crisis response team on Friday . “The disaster happened at 7.15am (on Friday) morning, but it took the Minister coming down at 1am (on Saturday) before things started to get into place,” he said.

Parent volunteer Miyashita Swissdy, whose child completed the Omega Challenge two years ago, was also at the airport. “This is a very meaningful leadership programme. It teachers young children perseverance, to work towards their goals. This is an unfortunate accident…The teachers are very experienced because it is not the first time they are planning something like this,” she said.

MOE said that the two injured students and one teacher, who required more medical attention in Kota Kinabalu, would return tomorrow (June 7).

Parent Sadri Farick, whose son Emyr Uzayr is one of the two students, said he feels “thankful and is very happy to see (Emyr) in one piece”. He had flown to Kota Kinabalu to see his son.

“I feel very sad for my friends and (Emyr’s) friends, it’s very sad to hear him ask me where are his friends who are still missing, and it’s getting dark now,” said Mr Sadri.

In his Facebook post late yesterday, Mr Heng added: “This is also a difficult time for our officers, on the frontline in KK, in TKPS and MOE HQ. Officers are giving their all and feel the pain personally. I really appreciate the officers’ dedication.”

Source: www.todayonline.com

June 7, 2015
Eugene Tan: Do Away With Race-Based Annual Academic Data

Every year, the Ministry of Education (MOE) publishes data on how Singaporean students fared in the previous year’s national examinations; that is, for the Primary School Leaving Examination, and the GCE O- and A-Levels.

The data demonstrates the significant progress of Singaporean students over the past two decades. Last year, 95 per cent of the 2003 Primary One cohort proceeded to post-secondary education after 10 years of schooling.

Before last year, the annual releases were titled Performance by Ethnic Group in National Examinations. They are now titled 10-Year Trend of Educational Performance. However, the data remain primarily organised and broken down according to the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others (CMIO) racial classification.

Raising academic standards is a collective national effort. We should not allow success or failure to be perceived in racial terms when other factors such as socio-economic status are playing a larger role.

Such a routine public release of annual data on the major ethnic groups’ academic performances is likely to have the unintended consequence of reinforcing racial stereotypes, especially of the minority groups.

The MOE should replace the current practice of annual reporting of such data with periodic reporting every five or 10 years. As the ministry stated in its 2014 data release earlier this month, “year-to-year fluctuations are to be expected as each batch of students is different, so it is more meaningful to focus on longer-term trends over 10 years”.

In November 2012, I asked in Parliament whether the objective of providing feedback to the communities on their students’ academic performance can be achieved by a limited release at five- or 10-year intervals, when comparisons and analyses can be more meaningful and productive.

The MOE’s Senior Parliamentary Secretary Hawazi Daipi replied that the annual release of data “enables the respective communities to monitor the effectiveness of their educational programmes, and recognise and celebrate their children’s achievements. There is also value in providing such information so that the community, ethnic self-help groups and the public can study the data and discuss areas for improvement”.

If ethnic self-help groups need the information annually to assess and tweak their programmes, the MOE can easily provide the data directly to them away from the public glare. But circumspection is needed with annual data, since such programmes take time to raise academic standards and performance.

PROVIDE DATA BASED ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS

To be sure, the data is of some use in examining educational performance trends. Yet, in presenting trends, such data are not necessarily better if they do not provide meaningful information, and this undermines the primary purpose of releasing it.

For example, the data show that Malay students, despite making the biggest improvement in mathematics, still do not fare as well as their non-Malay counterparts.

In 2004, 67.8 per cent of Malay students passed O-Level mathematics. The figure has hovered at around 70 per cent since 2009. The comparative figures for Chinese and Indian students were 93 and 80 per cent, respectively, last year. But these statistics do not tell us why some groups perform better than others.

This is not to mollycoddle some groups or to massage the facts of educational performance of the various races. Instead, greater attention and care should be put on the type and regularity of the information released, and how to release it in a measured way that will strengthen the efforts and self-esteem of groups that do not do so well.

How about publishing data on how students perform according to their socio-economic status (using proxies such as housing types and household income), which is more relevant than race in explaining and uplifting educational performance?

Is it not more likely the case that a non-Chinese student who needs help in mathematics would have more in common with his Chinese counterpart who also needs help in the same subject than with a fellow non-Chinese student who is doing well in mathematics?

Research has shown that academic performance is not simply a function of actual ability. It is affected by the shared beliefs that people hold about the performance and abilities of their own and other social groups, whether it is race, religion or gender.

Stereotypes are beliefs people have about different social groups, and how these beliefs affect our attitudes and abilities. Stereotype threat occurs in situations where people fear that their poor performance, when judged by or treated in terms of their race, fulfils a negative stereotype about their group. When people perceive a stereotype threat, they tend to underperform, thereby conforming to the stereotype.

Context matters, too, and affects how we view presented data. We have long imbibed the dominant meritocratic discourse, which often equates academic success with one’s individual ability and effort. Hence, education successes and failures are commonly framed and seen as resulting from factors originating outside our well-regarded education system.

The data are organised along race, but do particularistic factors such as race explain why a group lags behind academically, never mind the significant progress made?

In educational psychology, the cultural deficit model posits that some groups underachieve vis-a-vis the dominant majority group because their culture is disadvantaged in important ways — in skills, knowledge, and behaviour — which contributes to poor school performance generally.

At a time when the CMIO racial classification is less relevant with more inter-racial and international marriages, we must do away with racial stereotypes or notions of cultural deficits, because they undermine the very students we seek to help. Only then can our students develop to their full potential, unencumbered by the stereotypes and baggage of race, religion and language.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Eugene Tan is associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University School of Law and a former Nominated Member of Parliament.

Source: www.todayonline.com

November 22, 2014