Appreciation of Cultural and Religious Beliefs in Schools

Mr Zainudin Nordin asked the Minister for Education in view of the recent incidents of insensitive online remarks and postings pertaining to religious beliefs, whether the Ministry will consider introducing basic knowledge of different communities and religious beliefs in Singapore in our schools.

The Minister for Education (Mr Heng Swee Keat): Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank the hon Member, Mr Zainudin Nordin, for this question. Given Singapore's multi-racial and multi-cultural landscape, one of our key aims in education is to educate our students to be sensitive and socially responsible on religious matters.

In the Civics and Moral Education programme, schools emphasise the values of respect, responsibility, care and harmony in fostering racial and religious harmony in Singapore. Students are equipped with knowledge of the different religious beliefs, festivals and practices as well as skills for identifying their own stereotyping and prejudices. Students are also taught ways to demonstrate respectful behaviour in their actions and words.

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Appreciation of the cultural diversity amongst the various ethnic communities in Singapore is reinforced through subjects like Social Studies and History. In learning about the significance of the various customs and practices, students will come to respect the customs and practices as unique to each community. Students also learn about the causes and consequences of the Maria Hertogh riots and the 1964 race riots to realise the importance of the continual efforts by every Singaporean to ensure racial and religious harmony. Students learn about the various measures put in place in our society to promote inter-racial and inter-religious understanding, such as creating common space and shared experiences, formation of Inter-Racial Confidence Circles and Harmony Circles.

To equip students with only head knowledge on such issues is not sufficient. Programmes like CCAs and Community Involvement Programmes provide opportunities for students to interact with others from different racial, cultural and religious backgrounds and practise values in action as they build respectful relationships with schoolmates and members of the community.

MOE constantly reviews the approach to inculcate good values and develop healthy habits in our students. We will continue to emphasise the importance of preserving racial and religious harmony so that our students become respectful and responsible citizens. In doing so, we will continue to work with parents and the communities who can help to reinforce such behaviours and values in their daily interactions with the children.

Mr Zainudin Nordin: Sir, supplementary questions for the Minister. I just want to know whether MOE monitors the effectiveness of the programmes, firstly. Second question, at what level do we start to introduce these programmes that the Minister mentioned? Thirdly, if such an incident happened in real life, are they brought into the classrooms for discussion as case studies so that the students are even more aware of real-life examples?

Mr Heng Swee Keat: Sir, I thank the Member for his supplementary questions. I think the first point on the effectiveness of the programmes: indeed in all the programmes that we run, monitoring the effectiveness of the programmes and how they are run form a part of the teaching and learning aspect, and part of the way we evaluate the effectiveness of our teaching. His second point was: at what level do we start? We start right at the very beginning, at the primary school level and, indeed, even in preschools. Preschools do teach some of these values as well. On his third question about actions that merit discussion in the classrooms: these are opportunities which schools and teachers will take to discuss and reinforce the values. This is part and parcel of the ongoing discussion and ongoing review.

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar: Sir, I thank the Minister for the answer. May I find out how extensively is this done in schools, especially those that do not have a good mix of the different races or children from different faiths?

Mr Heng Swee Keat: The programmes that are in place have two broad components, one is the formal curriculum. In the formal curriculum, as Members are aware, we have a national curriculum. Whichever school that our students go to, they will follow the formal curriculum where all the basic concepts and basic values are taught in each and every school. Now over and above that, there are programmes that are outside of the formal curriculum in CCAs, in Community Involvement Programmes as well as school-based programmes. In these school-based programmes, different schools have different approaches to inculcate those values.

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Sir, to give an example, there are schools, for instance, that have twinning programmes with other schools to help our students interact more extensively with students from other schools. In others, they run pen-pal programmes and other ways to encourage students to learn all these values. One school, for instance, organised special trips to Little India and to Kampong Glam to help our students learn and recognise the differences of different customs and practices. So indeed, schools do have a wide range of different programmes to help our students learn these values.