PRIME MINISTER'S BOOK PRIZE

Mr Shriniwas Rai asked the Minister for Education (a) how many students offering Tamil as second language were awarded the Prime Minister's Book Prize; and (b) whether the Prime Minister's Book Prize will be given to students offering non-official languages like German, Japanese and Hindi.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Since the Prime Minister's Book Prize was first instituted in 1974 the following numbers of students offering Tamil as their mother tongue language received the award: PSLE : 31 GCE 'O' LEVEL: 27 GCE 'A' LEVEL: 9

The Prime Minister's Book Prize was instituted in 1974. Its objective is to promote excellence in bilingualism as reflected in students' performance in English and the mother tongue. The mother tongue languages considered are Malay, Chinese and Tamil and the non-Tamil Indian languages, namely Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu. Performance in the foreign languages, French, German and Japanese is not considered as they are not the mother tongue languages of our pupils.

The prizewinners for the 1998 awards will be announced at the Special Academic Awards Presentation Ceremony on 14th August 1998.