ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR 1ST APRIL, 2000 TO 31ST MARCH, 2001 (Paper Cmd. No. 2 of 2000)

Order read for consideration in Committee of Supply [7th Allotted Day].

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Head J (cont.) -

Resumption of Debate on Question [14th March, 2000].

"That the total sum to be allocated for Head J of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100." - [Dr S. Vasoo].

Question again proposed.

Dr Lily Neo (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Sir, I am very glad that this Government has set up Community Development Councils (CDCs) to more effectively cater to the needs of the people. I am concerned about the direction the CDCs should go in order to be relevant and perceived as relevant to our citizens. I would like to suggest that the CDCs should be proactive in areas that affect a majority of residents and on programmes that benefit more residents in the constituencies. Ideally, the CDC can be a form of "local government".

I would like to suggest that the CDC also venture into three areas that I am familiar with; areas where most families will benefit from and can appreciate from long-term outcome. These areas are:

(1) Healthcare is generally an important issue to most people and, frequently, it is a political one too. Singapore is no exception. It is, hence, an area worthy of the CDCs' attention.

A programme that can benefit all the households of our residents and also something that will improve the health of all the residents would hold the CDCs in good stead. I am suggesting that the CDCs sponsor everyone above 50 years of age for health screening tests on a regular basis. The Minister for Health announced yesterday on the launching of a community health screening programme. The CDCs could perhaps co-sponsor this scheme for residents on the amount payable by them, especially those less well off residents.

Sir, this has the benefit of making sure that preventive care is extended to everyone, especially to the poorer and less informed. This will ensure that Singaporeans will have better health and happier lives. It will thus help in containing the cost of healthcare in the future as well as in enhancing the economic contributions of a healthier citizenry. The tangible benefit for a lot of households, as many households have at least one person above 50 years, will be good for our nation too. The CDCs are the best to carry out this programme because it has the machinery of the grassroots workers to ensure comprehensive coverage of residents in the constituencies. The Ministry of Health shall lend the medical resources and the follow-up of patients that require them.

(2) Sir, the second area that I would like CDCs to consider is the complete take over of MediFund and the future ElderCare Fund. CDCs should be the decision-making body in the disbursement of these Funds because, as "local councils", they will know the residents' needs better. The grassroots also have better rapport with the residents in assessing the eligibility of the applicants. This is better than letting social workers of the hospitals to do the job. Members of Parliament can be the advisors and perhaps hand out the awards to the residents.

(3) Sir, as we are facing a fast-increasing aging population in Singapore, I would like to urge CDCs to redouble its attention in these potential problems that come with it. The CDCs should consider setting up and subsidising Centres of Activity for Retired and Elderly (CARE) island-wide. These centres are to make sure that the increasing numbers of elderly have places to go to every day where they can have beneficial physical, mental and social care. The purpose is to maintain them to be as healthy and active for as long as possible. The elderly who attend these centres will appreciate the effects and their children will have peace of mind knowing that they are catered for while they are there.

Sir, I hope the Minister for Community Development would consider my suggestions.

Mdm Claire Chiang See Ngoh (Nominated Member): Sir I would like to speak on two points. One is on the identity and role of CDCs.

I have followed with great interest the development of CDCs since its launch in 1997. Since then, the CDCs have committed 500 over projects, found jobs for many residents and served almost like a "local government" for 300,000 people.

I strongly welcome the strategic move to take over some of the responsibilities so far carried out by MCD. I have long argued for the need to work small, stay targeted and relevant to smaller population bases, which have different demographic characteristics and distinct socio-economic needs. The Mayors and the MPs in each ward would know best what the people want, how they wish their environment to be organised and whom they can mobilise to kick-start community projects. There is no better way to create a sense of ownership and responsibility among residents.

In so far as the CDC defines itself as a bridge between the people and the public sector, it must then see itself as a capacity-building agency within the people sector, and not as a Government instrument designed for exerting more control over the community. Is CDC prepared to accept the active, egalitarian participation of citizens who are free to debate, contest and challenge issues that affect them? Or is it prepared to only encourage individuals and groups to rise from the grassroots to undertake self-help projects already defined by the CDC management? The distinction community leaders made between the role of an activist within a civil society movement and that of an agent in creating a civic society will impact in numerous fashions the way we organise projects, communicate and share responsibility. Undoubtedly, it is going to be a very complex decoupling and re-emerging process where the promises of civil society and that of civic society can somewhat be negotiated. It will take time, and it takes a lot of trust.

The experiences on the ground so far have yielded a mixed satisfaction level and mixed successes. Although the perceptions have improved since 1997, a thorny issue persists, among others, in the relational aspects of cooperation between the older grassroots leaders and younger professional social service operators, between the CDC management and the community agencies. The groups are divided by age, social class, experiences, differences in skills, attitudes and interests. If these differences are not managed, people's agencies will just shut themselves out.

It is difficult enough to accept CDCs as non-Government, because they are led by politicians, but it can be less "bureaucratic" or jeng-hu or "government", so to speak, by adopting flexible, open, fair and accountable inter-personal skills to interact with a more demanding, questioning citizenry, one which seeks more information and is not likely to merely follow instructions.

Sir, I propose that the National Community Leadership Training Institute (NCLTI) take the lead in organising workshops for the grassroots organisations within each CDC. It would be useful to include key partners in other sectors as well, like the Police, social service agencies, polyclinics, residents' committees and so on. We would need very good facilitators to get this going. I believe that when people work and learn together, the greater are the chances of building rapport with one another and making sense of the meaning of "community". An even more concrete suggestion is to regularise an on-going workgroup for people to meet and discuss community concerns and solutions. Such regular face-to-face interactions are more effective in generating the social capital that encourages civic engagement.

CDCs can serve as strong bridges, but without effective networkers, they cannot become effective community builders. Without professionalising the personnel by equipping them with a range of skills in building community, the goals of S21 which CDCs are tasked to execute at the community level will be harder to realise.

I hope this weekend's gathering on the 19th for the nine CDC leaders will identify the kind of leadership attributes needed for CDCs. The clarion call made by Mr Eddie Teo could serve as a lead for more discussions. His call was to ask the civil servants to open up, share information, be responsible to constructive ideas and tolerant of differences. This same message must be adopted by the voluntary sector as well as by community leaders and social workers.

My second point is about making CDCs a "virtual neighbourhood". We could kick off a pilot project by CDCs sponsoring old computers for a limited number of participating households in one constituency. We can request the help of polytechnic students to design an easy-to-use Internet training programme to promote Internet literacy. It is my wish to see simple computers and even simpler programmes that older persons could learn to use to create this virtual neighbourhood.

Eventually, an on-line service connected to the CDC will serve as the coordinating centre to answer all queries, respond to assistance calls and make the necessary referrals. This is where volunteers and students could be mobilised to manage this on-line service. 12.45 pm

In London, at Islington, where such a networking experiment was tried, participants were able to exchange information as mundane as gardening tips, recommend a plumber or electrician, find a baby-sitter or exchange notes on shops and restaurants. These bits and pieces of everyday life created the vibrancy of a shared and a caring community and allowed more communication among residents which could not have happened otherwise. The company, Microsoft Corp, which sponsored this experiment called this their first "cyberstreet community project". Maybe this is something CDCs could spearhead to help make Singaporeans, young and old, Internet literate and connected. I believe technology must be made simple and broadly applied to promote some level of social cohesion.

Mr Ang Mong Seng (Bukit Gombak): (In Mandarin): Recently, the results of a survey conducted by the National Youth Council revealed that out of the 100 youths surveyed, only one was interested in social work, while 55% of them were more interested in outdoor activities and public entertainment. Such surveys have aroused my interest. The Ministry of Community Development has also conducted a survey on some 25,000 grassroots leaders. According to the survey, 60% of the grassroots leaders were over the age of 60, and 25% between the ages of 30 and 40. These two surveys showed that our young people are disinterested in social work. Such survey results merit our attention. It is a problem that we will have to solve.

Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. The fact that we are able to enjoy peace and racial harmony is due to the fact that all of us work towards the same goal to build a better home for Singapore. The important factor for such an achievement is that we have very strong grassroots organisations. They help to build our social cohesiveness. They act as a bridge between the Government and the people. They convey messages from the Government and also receive feedback from the people. Such hardworking grassroots leaders merit our admiration. I know certain grassroots leaders have been working in the constituencies for long periods of time. They sacrificed their time and donated their money. They worked very hard for the society. Many grassroots leaders worked for more than 30 years and have devoted their life to society. Such dedication is exemplary. Our young people should emulate them. Most of these people are quite elderly and when they leave the scene, we would have no young people to take over from them. We have to do something about this. We have to work out some plans to encourage our young people to be involved in community work.

The Chairman: Mr Jeyaretnam is not here. Mr Harun Ghani.

Mr Harun Bin A. Ghani (Hong Kah): (In Malay): The Muslim residents in the Jurong area are grateful to the Government because, for many years, the Government has allowed Muslims to use the land in Jurong to build a mosque, which is the Jalan Majapahit Mosque. Unfortunately, at the end of 1999, the Mosque could not function any more because the site has been acquired. Therefore, the Muslim residents in Jurong, Jurong West, Gaik Poh, Nanyang, Old Jurong Road, Boon Lay and the workers in the Tuas industrial area and its surroundings also do not now have a place to go and observe congregational prayers and attend religious classes. So the residents there are appealing to the Government, through the Minister in charge of Muslim Affairs, for a mosque to be built in the Jurong West area because there are now 65,000 residential units in the area. According to the Development Guide Plan, each area with 20,000 units of residential units ought to have one place of worship for each religion. I believe that with this density of population in Jurong, it is timely for Jurong West to have a mosque.

The Chairman: Mr Sin Boon Ann is not speaking. Mdm Claire Chiang.

Mdm Claire Chiang See Ngoh: Sir, we have about 12,400 people with disabilities who are currently receiving services from the VWOs. One main concern that this group faces is that of employment opportunity. It is within our national interests that we build an environment for persons with disabilities to optimally function as independents. For me, employment is the key pillar in empowerment.

We have a centralised employment centre, Bizlink that provides vocational assessment, placement, training, counselling/follow up for disabled people. In 1996, only 272 placements were made, but since then, the employment situation became increasingly difficult for the disabled community due to the economic crisis.

Our Government does not enforce employment legislation for the disabled. However, various incentives are provided to encourage organisations to hire people with disability. Allow me to raise two promotional schemes because I feel they have not been publicised enough. First, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore permits employers to claim a tax deduction of up to $100,000 when they modify their business and premises to help their disabled workers. Second, the Singapore Chinese Chamber Foundation reimburses the salaries of each disabled worker employed by the private sector for the first one and the half months. It provides a transport and meal allowance of $5 a day for the first two weeks of employment, channelling the money through the Ministry of Community Development.

Sir, could we ask the Government to be generous and complement the role of the Chinese Chamber by matching the reimbursement amount to the disabled community and the companies that employ them on the basis of co-sharing principle? This initiative may well succeed in incentivising companies to offer jobs and individuals with disability to seek jobs.

Sir, let me turn to the employment issue. Could Bizlink serve as a labour contractor responsible for placing groups of workers in a work context and be responsible for ferrying them to and from work and helping them adjust to the work environment? The advantage of placing more than one worker is self-evident. The disabled person feels supported. Or could the role of contracting employment for the disabled in groups be left to individual organisations so that they can find the appropriate employment placement for those under their charge? Because they would know what their clients could do and tasked with this job they will find the work contracts that are suitable to the work and skills levels of their clients and they could conduct orientation and support programmes at work to give employers their fair return and help workers feel useful.

In Japan, the Labour Department actually adopts an integration model by setting a quota of 1.8% of employment of persons with disabilities for companies with more than 300 regular employees. If such companies failed to comply, a levy of 50,000 yen is imposed on the companies. On the other hand, employers who recruit more, above the quota, will be paid a grant of 25,000 yen per person per month for the number of disabled persons employed in excess of the quota. This is a very enlightened labour policy, as it encourages companies to open up more jobs for people who are disabled.

Sir, the Japanese integration and rehabilitation model has a lot to teach us. Not only is their disabled community being encouraged to function in the open market, large ventures are encouraged to contract them to be part of the production teams. One example is the operation of big printing presses. The persons with disabilities do the less physical demanding jobs of desktop publishing, mailing, and so on, while the able workers do the physically more demanding ones. This way the workshop can provide the full range of service to the customers from desktop publishing to printing and mailing service, like in any commercial printing company. Through training and close supervision, out of work and during work, the flourishing of commercial ventures in Japan involving persons with disabilities has proven one vital point: that the disabled are not unable and they are economically productive if they are given a chance and adequate support. We need employers to open up more jobs with some levels of incentives from Government. We need MOM to provide an employment bulletin for jobs posted by employers who are really willing to recruit the disabled. We need to strengthen the assessment and referral procedures of Bizlink and other VWOs.

The Chairman: Dr Jennifer Lee is not speaking. Dr Lily Neo.

Dr Lily Neo: Sir, I have repeatedly raised in this House, over the past three years, various issues about the aged in our country. Notwithstanding the embarrassment of being a bore to my colleagues, I seek their indulgence on this topic one more time. Please allow me to reiterate an important issue concerning ageing of the population. I refer to the financing of healthcare for senior citizens in the future. I am raising this issue under the Ministry of Community Development because it is the lead agency to implement the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ageing Population.

As I have mentioned in this House before, there is an inadequacy in our present healthcare financing in spite of our Medisave, MediShield and Medifund schemes. This was recognised by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ageing Population and is referred to as "Expanding Step-down Care Financing". It is recommended that the Ministry of Health and the Central Provident Fund Board establish, as I have advocated in this House as well, an insurance scheme against severe disabilities. It is also recommended that the premiums be made less burdensome by making it payable with Medisave. Sir, my main contention on this issue is that we must make sure this insurance scheme addresses the problem well and its execution is well planned, lest we find it still lacking after implementation.

In order to ensure success, this insurance scheme must cater for all aspects of "step-down care" and contrary to the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ageing Population, must include medical expenses. Yes, coverage of medical expenses is an important part of "step-down care" and must be included. Many "step-down care" patients need continued medical care and long term medications after their discharge from the hospitals. If the medical expenses are exclusive of the "step-down care" and are excluded from financing, this financing scheme will only fail. Sir, our future cases of chronic-disease sufferers will heavily burden our tertiary medical institutions, raising the healthcare costs unnecessarily when they can be cared for in the community facilities or in their own homes. But they will opt not to because they can only use Medisave and MediShield in the tertiary institutions and not at community facilities or when they stay at home. I hope that we do not let this serious mistake take place, or we will have a perpetual flaw in our system.

I hope the Minister for Community Development can steer the implementation of this issue with favourable outcome.

Dr Ho Tat Kin (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Sir, with good medical care, senior citizens are now living to an older age, averaging about 77 years. Currently, there are already cases where the old, about 60, are looking after the yet older parents who are in the 80s. This type of elderly care is obviously not efficient. Although the full impact of the ageing population will not be seen until 15 to 20 years' time, I am glad that the Government had taken the initiative with a high-level Inter-Ministerial Committee to make an in-depth study on this issue. While the Inter-Ministerial report on the aged is a total approach to the issue, I believe the Ministry of Community Development and Sports should be the lead Ministry to take care of the total solution. Based on the current budget allocation, this amount will not be sufficient to take care of the ageing population. The Ministry should work closely with the Ministry of Finance for higher budget allocation which could be related to the population of the aged. 1.00 pm

Sir, currently, young mothers are allowed to take leave to take care of sick children below the age of six. With the ageing population, I would like to ask for elderly parent care leave which will allow workers similarly to take care of aged parents of 60 years and above. This will encourage more people to take an active part in the care of ageing parents.

The fertility rate has dropped from 1.82 in 1980 to 1.48 in 1999. If this trend continues, there will not be enough siblings to take care of their parents. Loneliness will be the biggest problem which the aged will have to learn to cope with. Teaching the senior citizens how to cope with ageing will be a major task. The Ministry should work out comprehensive plans to help senior citizens adjust to the problem of ageing, especially in the mindset. Preparing for retirement with sufficient money is only one important aspect. There are many other variables to take care in ageing.

Sir, the Ministry has over the years spawned a whole new industry in childcare centres. These childcare centres provide good care for children with working parents. The Ministry should now draw up guidelines and provide good incentives for the private sector and VWOs to set up more senior citizens care centres, where workers could place their elderly parents, and professionally trained geriatric care staff can take good care of senior citizens at affordable rates.

Mr Ang Mong Seng: (In Mandarin): Sir, at the moment, there are about 280,000 people aged 60 and above. By the year 2030, there will be about 400,000 such people. Later on, there may be about one million such senior citizens in Singapore. So we must have a comprehensive plan to tackle the problems of an ageing population.

I have three suggestions to make. On the family, Minister Mah Bow Tan has mentioned that there are about 800,000 families in Singapore, and the number is likely to rise to one million. On the average, there will be one senior citizen in every family. So, at home, we have to start to educate our young to respect the old and take care of them. We must also ensure that there is good care for the old people. As it is said in Chinese, "Look after your own old people and extend it to look after other people's old people too." We must be caring to all the old people around us, so that we have a compassionate and caring society.

We spent a lot of time talking about setting up more childcare centres because of the need for them. In view of the ageing population, we must also seriously think about establishing more elderly-care centres.

I think the MCDS should consider setting up day care centres for the elderly at our community clubs or community centres. Now that the trend in our society is to have small families, couples have to work in the day time, while the old people are left at home. They may feel very lonely. So if you have day care centres in the community centres and the community clubs, then such senior citizens can go to the centres to read newspapers, watch TV, sing karaoke songs, or do some physical exercises. These day care activities will certainly make life happier and more wholesome for such old people.

As it is said, the four essential things in life are: clothing, food, housing, and transportation. To our old people, clothing is not much of a problem. As for housing, the Ministry of National Development has already announced various measures to make the HDB flats more user-friendly for the elderly, such as having lift landing on every level, etc. Minister Mah Bow Tan has already actively considered this issue.

Another suggestion is that we must have regular health screening for senior citizens. Minister Lim Hng Kiang has already accepted my proposal. I would like to thank the Minister for this.

The third one is transportation problem. I mentioned this in the debate on the President's Address. Generally, we have a good and safe public transport system in Singapore. We have taxis, buses, MRT and LRT, and so on. But although the senior citizens are granted concessions for the use of public transport, these concessions are restricted to certain periods of the time. I would like to ask if this time restriction can be removed. I understand that the Inter-Ministerial Committee has accepted this proposal in principle. Now it is for SBS and TIBS to implement this recommendation. Hitherto, I have not heard any good news on it.

There are two approaches to tackle this problem. One is when you want to do something, you take the proactive approach and actively look for ways and means to achieve what you have targeted to achieve, so that your plans may be carried out smoothly. On the other hand, if you take a negative approach, and have no intention to work hard to resolve the problem, then you will think of all kinds of reasons and excuses for not doing it. So I hope the parties concerned would be very active in considering my proposals. We must know that the senior citizens had made contributions to nation-building when they were young. Without their dedication and contribution, we would not have a prosperous Singapore today. So we must give them due recognition and reward. I think they deserve our concern. It is a concession. It is not completely free. So this will not seriously eat into the profit of the companies. A Zaobao survey said that more than 90% of those people surveyed supported this proposal. I hope the parties concerned will consider this favourably and bring another good piece of news to the 280,000 old people in Singapore.

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang): Sir, currently, there is an Elderly Development Division, under the Ministry of Community Development. Its functions include, among other things, monitoring and reviewing of community-based programmes and residential care services for the elderly, and regulatory control of sheltered homes for the aged. Under the Ministry of Health, there is an Elderly Care Unit responsible for development of institutional care and community-based services for the elderly.

Sir, although I understand the different focus and capability of the Ministries in developing specific services needed by the aged, I share the view in the report of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Ageing Population that the current situation does not provide a satisfactory framework in providing services to the aged. The Report said, and I quote:

"The present administrative divide between social care and health care hinders the development of holistic models of care for senior citizens. It also discourages service providers from expanding their scope of services and limits the scope of joint planning and development of health and social services." This is in page 85 of the Report.

I would like to know from the Minister what is his response to the above.

Mr R. Ravindran (Bukit Timah): Sir, the number of senior citizens aged 65 years and above stood at 235,000 as at 1999 and there will be 529,000 of them in the year 2020. The rapidly ageing population will mean that there will be increased demand for elderly care services at the local level. It has been commented for sometime that there are insufficient facilities at the local level for the elderly.

Sir, one particular area of concern among VWOs serving the elderly is the lack of coordinated effort to look at the social needs of the community at the planning stage. It is not common for services to be needed in a particular locality but one is not able to site the service centre there due to a lack of a proper site. Matters are compounded in the new housing estates where void decks are becoming short in supply and there are competing uses.

Sir, it has become critical that the various planning agencies get together and provide for many of these services and facilities at the planning stage. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Ageing Population made a recommendation in its report last year, calling for MCDS to become the coordinating agency to coordinate with various Government agencies involved in the town planning stage, that is, when the blueprint is being drawn up, MCDS should be the coordinating agency to identify the demands and needs of the elderly. Sir, it also made the recommendation that CDCs, grassroots organisations and VWOs be consulted on the local needs as far as the elderly were concerned so that the needs and facilities that they require can be taken into account in planning and when implementing programmes for the aged.

Sir, I would like to ask the Minister what steps the Ministry has taken to become the coordinating agency in this respect.

Dr Lily Neo: Sir, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Ageing Population has many good recommendations on how we can prepare Singapore for an ageing population. I would like to urge the Minister for Community Development to hasten implementation of some of the recommendations and to ensure attainment of those recommendations.

I would like to raise the issue of community-based services for our senior citizens. Here, I strongly agree with the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Ageing Population on one of its key desired outcomes for senior citizens, and that is, to ensure sufficient opportunities for healthy senior citizens to remain socially, physically and mentally active. Indeed, I have been advocating this and have mentioned this in this House on several occasions.

Setting up "multi-service centres" and integrating health, social and other services under one roof for senior citizens has been recommended. Two models have been suggested: (1) co-location of services targeted at different clientele groups such as senior citizens, children and disabled, and (2) co-location of eldercare services such as day care, day rehabilitation and home care.

I would like to reiterate that for this scheme to give the best results in the future, we must first have basic centres preferably throughout the island that promote the social, physical and mental well-being of the independent elderly. The aim of the centres is to enable the elderly to lead a healthier, happier and independent life for as long as possible and to contribute to society for as long as possible without burdening themselves and others. Sir, the very basis of preventive care for the aged shall depend on a scheme like this. It is better to strive for excellence in this area so that we do not need to cater excessively to look after the sick and disabled elderly. I urge the Minister for Community Development to first prioritise setting-up such basic centres which are easier and cheaper to run. Once we have such centres in place, other relevant services, including childcare, can be developed from them. 1.15 pm

Sir, the Ministry of Community Development should not be over-zealous in getting co-location of other services too quickly in the "multi-service centres". Let there be well-founded basic centres in the beginning and expand to have other services from these centres later. The expansion for other services is best tailored to the requirements of each centre or the task may be overwhelming and prone to failure. It is to be noted that a constituency that needs eldercare may, indeed, not need childcare services, and vice versa, depending on the age distribution of the residents.

These basic centres will be good platforms to offer help on various aspects, such as health, finance or job issues, to an ageing population. They can also be further developed into day rehabilitation or day care venues and some of the healthy elderly there can even be co-opted to help and care for the dependent elderly.

Sir, as recommended by the Inter-Ministerial Committee, it is best to set up the "multi-service centres" through the collaboration of the Ministry of Community Development, the Ministry of Health, the Community Development Council and the grassroots and voluntary organisations. We should make use of available infrastructure like the community centres that are often under-utilised in the day as the centres. Governmental financial subsidy, of course, has to be forthcoming as the elderly usually have no disposable income to pay for these services.

I hope the Minister for Community Development will take into account all the points raised when implementing these "multi-service centres".

Mr Kenneth Chen Koon Lap (Hong Kah): Sir, years ago, when Mr Howe Yoon Chong presented the White Paper on the problems that we could face in our ageing population, many were sceptical, but it became obvious now that our demographic profile is changing faster than expected. With the ageing problem plus the less than satisfied population growth, an ageing population has become a very serious problem.

The raising of CPF withdrawal age, the emphasis on training of our older workers, the promotion of healthcare and the various schemes by the Government to encourage senior citizens to be more active, all help to emphasise the need to deal with the rapid increase in our ageing population. But one of the most important steps to take to address this problem is to change the mindset of our population towards old age.

Some 30 to 40 years ago, when we mentioned a person who is 50 years and above, an image of an old man came to mind. However, through these years, because of better diet and medical advancements, life expectancy has increased for male, maybe, up to 76 and female, 78. Therefore, this will straightaway mean that those in the 50s should now be considered as middle aged and only those who are above 65, or so, can be defined as senior citizens.

I think it is important for the Ministry to make greater efforts in promoting the change in the mindset of our population so that we have a whole new concept of ageing. This will not only change the profile of the demographic pyramid, it also helps to physically and mentally change the number of the so-called senior citizens we have now. And if we are able to change the definition of senior citizen from what is now being pursued as around 50-65 to, say, about 65 to even 70, it would then reflect more truly our age classification at this present moment. I therefore call for a number of measures to be considered.

(1) Retirement to be raised further;

(2) Define the age when one can be considered senior citizens, for example, increase the age limit to be considered for MRT, bus fares, or any other such concessions;

(3) All senior citizens' clubs' or associations' qualifying age should be increased;

(4) Redefine the classification of age for senior citizens in senior sporting events.

The Chairman: Mr Iswaran is not here. Mr Ong Ah Heng.

Mr Ong Ah Heng (Nee Soon Central): (In Mandarin): Sir, I am pleased to note that the Government will increase tax reliefs for those who live with their aged parents by $500 to $5,000. I am also pleased that the Government is extending the CPF's top-up scheme to include the grandparents as well. The above measures will encourage more young people to live with and take care of their aged parents, promote inter-generational ties and strengthen family bonding and filial piety among the children.

Singapore's population is ageing rapidly. It is a matter regarded as very serious among all our people. In 1998, the Government formed the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Ageing Population to lead a coordinated national response to address the challenges of Singapore's rapidly ageing population. The Inter-Ministerial Committee has finalised its recommendations and has submitted its report to the Government. Perhaps, the Government could enlighten us on whether there is any timeframe for the implementation of the various recommendations of the report, as many of the Members who spoke before me have also expressed interest in it.

The Government provides childcare subsidies for working mothers to send their children to childcare centres of their choice. Of course, the children are the future masters of our nation. There is nothing wrong with such subsidy. However, for our elderly, who had worked hard and contributed to our nation during their younger days, we should consider giving similar subsidy for working couples to send their elderly in the family to some elderly day-care centres, irrespective of whether they are run by the voluntary welfare organisations, or by private operators, or cooperatives. If the Government could grant the subsidy, it will encourage more private operators and cooperatives to play a larger role in providing affordable services to those who need such services. Hopefully, more day care centres would be set up for the benefit of our senior citizens.

The Government has introduced the studio apartments for our elderly to have more choices in their housing options. This is something which is very good. HDB has also promised a "complete living environment" so that the elderly will be able to live near their children and other elderly people in an estate with easily accessible amenities. Can the Government inform us on the types of facilities and services which will be provided for residents of the studio apartment? Will the service providers be confined to the voluntary welfare organisations? Can private operators also be given the opportunity to provide such services?

The Minister for Community Development and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs (Mr Abdullah Tarmugi): First, let me thank Members who have spoken. I must admit that I am really impressed by the passion and the commitment of Members, especially on the institution of the family, and indeed this bodes well for the community. We, at MCD, have put the family at the top of our agenda.

Sir, come 1st April 2000, MCD will become the Ministry of Community Development and Sports (or MCDS). This signals more than a mere change of name. I would like to take this opportunity to lay out the new policy directions and emphases that my Ministry will pursue to strengthen our social fabric and the role of sports in Singapore.

MCDS' mission is to build a cohesive and resilient society, supported by four pillars: that is, socially responsible individuals, strong and stable families, a sporting people, as well as a caring and active community. And all Singaporeans must share these responsibilities. But MCDS has a special role in nurturing individuals, families and the community and in charting out the policy directions for the future of sports and social services in Singapore.

To achieve this mission, Sir, MCDS will adopt the following approaches and emphasis. First, where feasible, we should take an integrated Government approach to social issues. Whether it is preparing for an ageing population or addressing the issues of family ties, values, marriage and procreation - these are highly complex issues which cut across many agencies and sectors of the community. We therefore agree with Dr Vasoo, Dr Jennifer Lee, Mdm Claire Chiang and others, who have highlighted the benefits and effectiveness of such an integrated approach.

Second, we need the spirit of active citizenship in the public and private as well as people sectors. The social issues we face today can no longer be addressed by Government alone.

Third, to make the social safety net more effective, we will increasingly work upstream to identify and deal with the root causes before they grow into social problems. MCDS is studying the problem of youths and families in distress to identify the predictors and the risks. And based on these studies, we will strengthen preventive and developmental programmes.

The first pillar: we want socially responsible individuals. We want citizens who are active to serve the community. At the very least, we want Singaporeans to take responsibility for their own lives. But there will always be those who need help. And social welfare will therefore continue to be a major responsibility of my Ministry.

In particular, we will strengthen our rehabilitation programmes for juvenile offenders. As family involvement is critical for the effective rehabilitation of offenders, we will increasingly seek the involvement of parents in this process. And I am happy to inform the Member for Tanjong Pagar, Dr Vasoo, that we will propose making parental involvement and counselling mandatory when we amend the Children and Young Persons Act before the end of this year.

Let me move to our second pillar, which is the family. The family, as we know, is the single most important stabilising pillar of society. And MCDS will deepen its commitment to building strong and stable families. However, family values are under pressure due to changing lifestyles and rising expectations. Our young are delaying marriage and postponing having children. Both men and women are struggling to balance their work and family responsibilities. It is therefore in the national interest to ensure that Singapore has a pro-family environment. I would like to assure Dr Jennifer Lee, Mdm Claire Chiang and other Members that as lead Ministry for the family, MCDS will work with our various partners to put in place an integrated policy framework on the family. We will promote practices and services which create a family-friendly environment which is conducive to marriage and procreation and which support families in their parenting and care-giving roles. 1.30 pm

Sir, a key concern, as has been alluded to by several Members, is marriage and procreation. The Prime Minister raised this issue during the debate on the President's Address last October. Although the proportion of single graduates has remained stable somewhat, there has been a dramatic increase in the proportion of single non-graduates. And as a group, there are far more non-graduate singles than graduates. For example, the singlehood rate for non-graduates between the ages of 40 and 44 years has risen from 9.2% in 1990 to 13.8% in 1998.

Even for those who choose to marry and have children, the median age of mothers at birth of their first child has increased from 27.5 years in 1990 and eight years later, in 1998, to 28.5 years, a one year increment. The total fertility rate has fallen, as mentioned by other Members, from the Dragon year high of 1.96 in 1988 to 1.48 in 1999.

In short, Singaporeans are not replacing themselves. The fewer babies we have, the more we will have to rely on immigrants to make up the numbers. This may have an impact on our social structure and values. Our population is also ageing rapidly partly because of this fall in the fertility rate. With increased singlehood and smaller families, the family as the primary source of care and support may also be eroded. But Singapore is not alone in this regard. For example, Italy and Spain saw their fertility rates decrease steadily from replacement levels in early 1980s to about 1.17 in 1995. Japan also reported fertility levels of only 1.42 in 1995. Japan has implemented a set of comprehensive pro-family policies, the so-called "Angel Plan", mentioned by Dr Wang yesterday, which increased childcare benefits, nursery care services, reinforced maternity and child healthcare systems, and provided help in childcare costs, besides other measures. Yet, Japan has yet to see a turnaround in their TFR.

If we are to arrest declining fertility rates, our procreation policies must be targeted at the broad base of the population and not just at graduates.

This subject is a very complex one which requires a multi-agency and a multi-sectoral approach. For Members' information, there is currently an Inter-Ministry working committee looking into the issues of marriage and procreation in detail. And I would like to thank Dr Vasoo, Prof. Low Seow Chay and the Member for Bukit Timah, Dr Wang Kai Yuen, for their suggestions and comments on this subject of national concern and certainly their suggestions will be conveyed to the Inter-Ministry committee.

I should also like to mention that in its effort to address the problem of singlehood and under procreation, this working committee will be looking into the plethora of reasons and attitudes that discourage marriage and procreation and what we can do to encourage family formation and to provide family support. I agree with Dr Jennifer Lee, Dr Vasoo and Mdm Claire Chiang that an integrated approach is necessary in tackling wider family issues. But given that the Inter-Ministry working committee is still deliberating, it would be premature for me to comment on whether a structure, similar to the high-profile IMC for the Ageing Population or a series of committees focused on specific issues, as mentioned by Mdm Claire Chiang yesterday, would be the most effective mechanism to take family issues forward. Nonetheless, I would like to assure the House that my Ministry will work to ensure that the Singapore family is given high priority on the national agenda.

Let me now come to the ageing population. The IMC on the Ageing Population has been cited by Members as a good example of a multi-agency initiative and approach. The Government has accepted the Committee's recommendations in principle and I am glad to report that implementation of the recommendations is on schedule.

Some recommendations have already been implemented, for example, the Ministry of Health's recent revisions to the subsidies for VWO-run nursing homes, while others are being implemented, such as the Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) announced by Dr Richard Hu. The rest of the recommendations, such as the development of multi-service centres and an elder-friendly built environment, would be part of a longer term programme.

As the leading agency on the ageing issues and secretariat to the Committee, my Ministry is working with the various agencies to ensure the effective implementation of as many recommendations as possible, bearing in mind that solutions have to be feasible, sustainable and cost-effective.

Let me now come to youth development. Our youths are our future. Agencies, such as the NYC, the People's Association, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, including the Ministry of Home Affairs and various non-governmental organisations have been doing an excellent job in running youth programmes in line with their respective organisational concerns. However, we agree with calls that it is timely for us to take a more coordinated approach. MCDS will henceforth play a more active coordinating role to ensure a more integrated approach to youth development in Singapore. My Ministry will also give increased emphasis on youth matters by incorporating such matters into a new Sports and Youth Division in MCDS.

Our next pillar is a caring and active community. MCDS has been reviewing how community services can be better delivered and made more responsive to local needs. We also want to empower the community to do more for itself. We intend to delegate certain functions to CDCs, so that they can take on the role of planning and delivering social services at the local level. Apart from planning social services, the CDCs will serve as the first-stop for social assistance in the community, thus making services more accessible to those who need help.

The CDCs will also be the local focal point for volunteerism and community involvement. Getting more people involved in community services and activities will promote community bonding.

With this delegation of functions to CDCs, the role of MCDS will be less in direct services, but more in policy formulation, national planning, as well as in setting and regulating standards.

Among the services to be delegated to the CDCs is the administration of Public Assistance (PA) and other short-term financial assistance schemes. The CDCs will also take charge of planning and siting community-based services, beginning with childcare, student care and also family service centres. We expect to delegate these functions in phases over the next few years. In fact, two CDCs, the Marine Parade and the Tanjong Pagar CDCs, will be involved in the first phase with the other CDCs coming on board later on.

Let me now turn to sports. Dr Vasoo has asked for an elaboration of our policy on sports. To provide greater policy focus on sports, MCDS will, as I mentioned earlier, form a new Sports and Youth Division from 1st April 2000.

Sir, since my announcement of MCD becoming MCDS, I sense rising expectation on what should be done for sports, in terms of resources, manpower and financial support and infrastructure. Members' speeches during the past two days mirror this expectation. I empathise with this. But I wish to also emphasise that the sports fraternity and the various stakeholders should also accompany this expectation with effort, commitment and changes in mindset, if necessary.

Together with the Singapore Sports Council, my Ministry intends to consult various stakeholders in the sports fraternity on a new vision for sports in Singapore, as well as strategies to realise this vision. We have already started this process in February and we hope to announce our new sports vision before the end of the year.

As much of the desired outcomes of sports policy include increased focus on national pride and community bonding, we recognise that sports excellence or winning medals remains a key driving force. Hence, the critical element is greater professionalism and accountability of the National Sports Associations or NSAs.

For a start, we have identified three strategies to achieve this. The first is for the SSC to develop a systematic programme of training for NSAs in sports management and board governance. We will start with NSAs in the core and merit sports.

The second initiative is to encourage the "twinning" of key NSAs with GLCs or MNCs. Corporate sponsors will be encouraged to adopt NSAs so that the latter can benefit from the financial support and guidance on corporate governance. Asia Pacific Breweries (APB), for example, not only sponsors the FAS' S-League but provides management expertise as well.

The third strategy is greater accountability in the management of resources. To optimise resources and promote better accountability, we will coordinate funding by SSC, Singapore Pools and other major funders and tie funding to plans, targets and results mutually agreed upon between the sponsors and the NSAs. Leadership effectiveness will also be taken into account as plans will remain as plans unless they are properly executed. My Ministry and SSC will work with the NSAs towards this objective.

The Member for Pasir Ris, Mr Ong Kian Min, and Dr Wang Kai Yuen have raised the idea of a Sports School. This subject was also broached at the SSC@21 Sports Conference in January this year. I am glad to inform Members that MCDS will be working with the Ministry of Education to see how we can best make the idea of a Sports School a reality.

MOE is prepared to consider funding such a school to a similar extent as it funds other secondary schools, provided there are competent organisations willing to provide additional funding and see to the running and management of such a school. MCDS will work closely with MOE on this.

MOE has also just announced a scheme whereby autonomous schools can develop different niche areas of excellence, including sports. This is one way to establish sports excellence in schools. In fact, some of our mainstream schools already make special provisions for athletes. For example, at Anglican High School, I was told that sports persons from different sports attend classes together where their time-tables are scheduled to enable them to train and attend inter-school competitions.

In the area of sports for community bonding, I am pleased to announce a new initiative mooted by the East-West Cultural Development Centre, a non-profit organisation in Singapore. Under the overall rubric of "Building Community through Sports", the proposed programmes seek to involve the community in sporting events as much as possible as participants, spectators and also as sponsors. One proposal that we are studying is a series of inter-community youth games between the CDCs. The games will have a youth and family focus and spectator involvement will be encouraged, by placing emphasis on cheer leading teams, for example. The support of local business community will be sought to further the idea that corporations have an important role to play in sports development.

With these plans and priorities which I have outlined, I am confident that MCDS is on the right road to building a cohesive and resilient society. But to achieve our desired outcomes, MCDS will need the cooperation of many agencies and sectors. We need also active citizens who are prepared to do their part. I am confident that MCDS and Singapore will rise to this challenge.

Let me now come to the other questions raised by Members. Dr Vasoo, Dr Lily Neo, Mdm Claire Chiang and Dr Jennifer Lee have been very passionate in their support for the family. I agree totally with them that the family remains the single most important stabilising pillar of our society. It is an institution which is very important to us.

As many Members have pointed out, our families are changing. They are facing stress and strains brought on by changing lifestyles and many of the social problems we now face are more complex. Dual-income families, as mentioned by Dr Lily Neo, are now quite common in Singapore, especially as our women become better educated. For women aged 25 to 34 years, the group most likely to have young children, the married female workforce participation rate has risen from 32.7% in 1979 to 52.1% in 1989, and again to 66.7% last year. Trends in developed countries are similar. So, to help families cope with the changing social and economic environment, my Ministry promotes both the "hardware" and "software" programmes for families. 1.45 pm

Let me first touch on "software". My Ministry works with social service agencies and self-help groups in many public education programmes. We will continue doing this in more effective ways with a view to reaching out to as many types of audiences as possible. And our key strategy in family life education is for MCDS to provide a resource bank of messages, materials, trainers and to facilitate groups in the community and private sector to reach out to as many people as possible, particularly the so-called unconverted.

As for "hardware", my Ministry promotes care centres for children, students and the elderly, family service centres and other services to create an environment which supports but does not supplant the family's nurturing and care-giving roles. And we agree that schools are good locations for student care centres, as mentioned earlier by either Mdm Claire Chiang or Dr Jennifer Lee. And based on the survey conducted by my Ministry, indeed, about 50% of parents using student care centres share this view. There are currently 22 student care centres in schools, and we are working with MOE to encourage more schools to set up student care centres in their premises. And there is a fee subsidy scheme for children from low income families who go to such centres.

Dr Lily Neo has suggested that we co-locate childcare services with social day care centres (SDCs) for the elderly. Indeed, my Ministry plans to co-locate family service centres, childcare centres, student care centres and elderly care centres together in multi-service centres (MSCs). Families would find these MSCs more convenient, as they will allow the various service providers to network and collaborate, thus bringing about synergies in service provision. Dr Neo's suggestion of "borrow a granny" scheme is indeed one innovation which can take place at the MSC. The Tampines East PCF, I am told, has tried out this concept in their three-in-one family centre with considerable success.

On maid sharing, the Ministry of Manpower has considered such a scheme but found that it could create complications, because of the question of responsibility for looking after the welfare and housing of these foreign domestic workers.

While many dual income families have maids, they need not necessarily be the only care providers. The full range of options should be considered first. Given the importance of the early years in a child's development and in nurturing of strong parent-child bonds, families should consider whether or not both parents should work full-time during these critical years. And, of course, this will entail some material sacrifices, but families should re-examine their own priorities and consider the merits of having one or one and a half income during these important years in their children's development.

Alternatively, dual income families could consider involving the extended family, ie, parents, aunties, uncles, in the care of their children while the couple is at work. And there is also the option of the childcare and student care centres.

Sir, MCD agrees that having flexible work arrangement is yet another avenue to help parents balance work and family commitments. So both my Ministry and the Ministry of Manpower support the adoption of flexible working arrangements. It is inappropriate, however, for Government to compel companies to adopt prescribed measures. Work processes and worker profile vary across organisations, and employers must be given the flexibility to choose, and being prescriptive will give rise to rigidities in the labour market and add to the financial burden of the companies without necessarily meeting the needs of the employees.

Sir, a better approach would be to promote awareness and recognition. MCD has introduced a Family Friendly Award (FFA) in 1998 in collaboration with MOM, SNEF and the NTUC. And we are now conducting a survey on public attitudes and preferences as well as producing publicity and education materials on family-friendly practices, among other plans.

Members have also urged that we change the mindset of Singaporeans on the role of men in the family. I would like to draw Members' attention to the study on the Singapore family released last year. The study found that 78% of married respondents agreed that "although the husband may help out, the wife is responsible for the housework." And it is notable that more women than men held this view (85% and 60%). This suggests that there are many couples who are quite comfortable with the traditional division of roles in the family. However, the same study also found that younger couples are more likely to share household and parenting duties. We can encourage and educate couples to share household responsibilities, but I do not think it is appropriate for the Government to insist on a change of roles if the individuals are comfortable with them. What roles the husband and wife would play must be left for them to decide. We can only encourage.

Dr Lily Neo, Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, Dr Ho Tat Kin and Dr Jennifer Lee have also asked about infant and child care. My Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Mrs Yu-Foo, will answer all these questions on my behalf.

Sir, let me now turn to family life education. Both Mdm Claire Chiang and Dr Jennifer Lee had called for more targeted and extensive parenting and family life programmes to strengthen families and parents as carers. My Ministry agrees that families today, especially parents, need strengthening and support, both as nurturers of the young and carers of the elderly. Sir, this is no mean task in this age.

We work with VWOs and various civic organisations to help parents at different stages of their parenting life cycle in their nurturing and caring functions, eg, by organising parenting talks and distribution of age-appropriate resource materials, and producing video tapes and pamphlets for carers of the elderly. We also encourage and promote support groups for parents and carers.

MCD also adopts a multi-prong and multi-channel approach based on the following four strategies:

(1) Spearheading family life education and parenting messages based on studies on family and parenting needs.

(2) Coordinating and extending outreach by partnering the people in the private sector in the production and distribution of family life and parenting messages and programmes. This enlarges the network and customises the messages for different target groups and brings the programmes closer to the community.

(3) Developing and sponsoring resource materials and training of family life educators. The resource materials for parents are differentiated according to significant age groups of children, eg, pre-school, primary school and teenagers. And we sponsor a graduate certificate course in parent education conducted jointly by Swinburn University of Technology, Australia, and the Family Resource and Training Centre here. The number of graduates for 1998 and 1999 were 26 and 18 respectively. Another class, I am told, will start next month. The Ministry also sponsors training and management of parent support groups.

(4) The fourth strategy is media activities organised to generate awareness and mass outreach. We also publicise family life programmes in the press, radio, magazines, at bus stops and MRT stations and through our web site. We also have new initiatives in the pipeline which includes the production of a guide for family life educators, and the title of the book is Learning About Parenting Young Children. It will help social work professionals and volunteers who conduct parenting programmes.

We have also established a Central Repository of training and resource materials, and we also organise regular sharing of best practices among experts in the field. We have formalised a structured comprehensive family life education delivery system by appointing family life ambassadors from all walks of life. This was announced by my Senior Parliamentary Secretary earlier in the week.

We are also producing a Malay video tape to equip divorcing parents with effecting parenting skills for children affected by divorce called Anak Amanah Kita Bersama. It will be launched on 25th March and it will be screened at the Syariah Court and social service agencies. My Ministry will be working on other language versions.

Lastly, Sir, we will feature case studies and family issues on TV along the lines of the popular series Extraordinary People, and supporting the Young Parents of the Year Award. We will continue to pay special attention to at-risk groups and we partner social service agencies in this effort. In this connection, I would like to commend Dr Lee for initiating the programme Healthy Style for couples and families which her hospital identified as needing special and closer help from social agencies in their parenting and family responsibilities.

Mdm Chiang would also be pleased to know that the committee on the family has a work group on parenting and another on stresses on the family. They are actively reviewing what more can be done to strengthen and support families and parents.

We agree with both Dr Jennifer Lee and Mdm Chiang that much more can and should be done to create awareness and to educate our people on the importance of the family as the basic building block of our society. Given the wide spectrum of issues to be covered under family life education and the diverse groups of people we want to reach to, MCDS cannot do this on our own. We must continue to engage and partner the public, private and people sectors in our efforts and, indeed, we welcome feedback and suggestions on what and how we can best bring this message to our families.

Dr Ho Tat Kin asked about abandoned babies. Sir, the truth is that we do not know who the parents are in the majority of cases of abandoned babies. In the few instances where the parents are identified, they are not always young people, as commonly perceived. The number of abandoned babies is actually small, ranging from 3-7 a year over the last five years. Of these, the mothers of only seven babies were traced, and only one of them was a teenager.

I agree with Dr Ho that public education on responsible parenting is critical, and that is why my Ministry emphasises continuous family life public education programmes which cover a variety of topics including marriage preparation, parenting, family enrichment as well as effective parent-child communication, especially on sensitive issues such as teenage sexuality. For the young people, we need to tackle the problem at source, ie, parents must take the responsibility to spend time with and instill the right values in their children, and to supervise and guide them wherever they can. Some of our programmes help parents to spot tell-tale signs of teenage pregnancies and to point them to the support services available in the event their children get into trouble. 2.00 pm

Sir, abandoning babies is against the law. That must be established. But while we do not want to encourage children born out of wedlock, we also recognise the trauma that unwed mothers and their child face and their need for support in their plight. This is why we provide services in my Ministry's Child Protection and Welfare Service, social service agencies, or medical social workers at any Government restructured hospital which the unwed mothers could turn to for help. Arrangements can be made for the mothers to stay in a temporary shelter pending delivery, if she requires alternative accommodation. Should the mother want to give up her baby, the Ministry will assist in adoption placement. Where the unwed mother is a teenager, the Ministry and social service agencies will generally work with the girl's parents to provide the support and guidance needed by the girl.

Dr Ho asked if my Ministry could consider a baby deposit scheme like the one in Hamburg, which the newspapers highlighted recently. Sir, it must be clear that this option is akin to abandonment, albeit of a different nature. We note the different views among the Germans and even among Singaporeans who read about this, and the views are divided. I would like to advocate a careful and closer study into this before we adopt similar methods in Singapore. There is a need to look holistically at the social issues of abandonment, the needs of the mother and the child, and the wider societal values and legality involved. I believe our current approach balances the need to preserve our traditional family values and the welfare of both the unwed mother and child. But we will continue to monitor the Hamburg scheme and we will keep our minds open.

Prof. Low Seow Chay and Dr Wang raised the issue of marriage and procreation and on the setting up of an Inter-Ministry Committee. I think I have already responded to this point in my earlier speech, but I would like to thank the Member for Bukit Timah, Dr Wang, for his two suggestions to boost fertility, ie, to consider additional tax incentives for the third and fourth child and to teach our girls the joy of larger families. I will pass on this suggestion to the working committee to consider.

As for family support services which Prof. Low has asked about, I had earlier mentioned a number of them, including childcare centres, student care centres, family service centres, and promoting family-friendly work places and family life programmes, such as parenting courses for the various age groups. My Ministry is committed to regularly review and improve these programmes and services to support individuals and families in making life decisions such as getting married, having children and the care and upbringing of our children.

Let me touch on sports now. Mr Yeo Guat Kwang had given several suggestions on how we can make Singapore a great sporting nation. I would like to thank Mr Yeo for his suggestions and my Ministry will certainly take his views into consideration, as we work with all the relevant stakeholders in the sports fraternity. The Sports Council also supports the idea of providing housing schemes for these various NSAs, of both recreational and competitive sports. That is why we have given much support to provide a home for each of the core and merit sports. We have also provided some accommodation for some active NSAs, ie, non-core and merit sports.

The Sports Council also provides office space at subsidised rental rates to NSAs. However, with the limited land and space that we have, we need to be realistic as well as pragmatic in our distribution and provision of such resources. Nevertheless, we will continue to see how best we can provide NSAs with the requisite facilities as our resources and manpower allow.

Dr Ho Tat Kin asked about careers in sports. Sir, one of our strategies in making Singapore a sporting nation is to ensure that we have viable career options for people who choose to continue their interest in sports. But it is a fact of life in Singapore that most parents and children give their priority to education and to career over full time commitment to sports. This is inevitable and understandable, given the highly competitive environment we are in. However, we are encouraged that there is an increasing number of young Singaporeans who are prepared to put their education and career on hold to achieve sports excellence and glory for the country. The SSC will nurture them and provide all the encouragement and support to help them achieve their aspirations, including scholarships, financial and future career options and assistance.

The Sports Council will help retiring athletes get certification as coaches if they wish to, and if they meet the standards. For example, we have sent Sheik Allaudin, through a scheme for national athletes, to attend coaching courses under the National Coaching and Accreditation Programme (NCAP). He has earned his qualification and assumed the national coach's position. As Members know, footballers, Fandi Ahmad and Malek Awab, have also benefitted from this scheme. SSC also provides career counselling and guidance. But more can be done to develop a sports industry which offers a career in sports and its related fields. We will continue to study and promote the development of this industry in Singapore.

Mr Ang Mong Seng has asked for more grants to NSAs. Sir, although SPEX 21 is targetted at sports with medal prospects at the international and regional games, the Singapore Sports Council also funds other types of sports, such as volley ball and other team sports. The Sports Associations of non-SPEX 21 sports receive between $8,000 and $120,000 per annum, depending on their annual programmes. As Members know, funds for sports promotion are limited. The Singapore Sports Council has to be judicious in its allocation and will not be able to meet the financial needs of all NSAs.

Sir, it would be difficult to work on a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 funding formula, as suggested by Mr Ang, because even the core and merit sports under SPEX 21 only receive between one-third and two-thirds of their funding from SSCs, and they would have to source the remainder from corporate and other sponsors.

Mr Ong Kian Min wanted to promote figure ice skating in Singapore. He has made two suggestions to promote figure ice skating both as a sport which we could excel in and as a career path for Singaporeans. He has suggested building a world class ice skating rink for the promotion of the sport. Currently, we have two ice skating rinks. In providing for world class facilities for promoting sports excellence and in land scarce Singapore we have to be mindful of the many competing sporting needs of our population. Therefore, we will have to be selective and promote certain sports for excellence based on a set of criteria and put them under SPEX 21 programme. At the moment, there are no strong reasons, to my mind, to include figure ice skating as a sport we could excel in.

His second suggestion is for the Ministry of Education to encourage students to take up ice skating as a co-curricular activity. Again, MOE has no immediate plans to make figure ice skating a CCA in schools. However, pupils who take up the sport with an approved organisation can get CCA bonus points as provided for under MOE's recently announced scheme to recognise approved activities outside schools. SSC will continue to work with the Figure Ice Skating Association to develop and promote the sport. The support for the sport will increase correspondingly with the demand and popularity of the sport.

Dr Vasoo and Mdm Claire Chiang have spoken about the need to give more help to the VWOs and for my Ministry to review the funding formula. Under the Government's Many Helping Hands approach to social services, my Ministry works very closely with the VWOs, the National Council of Social Service, which is the umbrella organisation of our VWOs, and increasingly now, with the CDCs, together as stakeholders in this social sector. We complement each other's work to ensure that we provide a responsive and seamless social service delivery system, and my Ministry coordinates this effort.

VWOs have been receiving and will continue to receive Government funding for capital and recurrent funding. We are, in fact, reviewing our current funding policies. The review will also consider how we can widen the range of services beyond meeting the basic needs so that those who are prepared to pay for more services could have access to them. And to ensure that an increase in the funding will lead to better standard and effectiveness of services, we will be looking into linking funding to outcomes.

We would also like the VWOs to take responsibility for maintaining good and effective service. This can be achieved through training of VWO staff and board members to equip them with better governance and management skills to deliver a better standard of service.

NCSS, in fact, has been planning and organising such training courses. Today, it has put together a workshop on board governance which provides training for VWO board members on good governnance skills and has also developed a Senior Management Development Programme which will be implemented in due course. The Executive Directors' Network has also been set up to enable EDs to learn through sharing from others in the network. NCSS is also exploring the possibility of starting a Diploma Course in Non-Profit Sector Management with one of the local polytechnics as well. My Ministry has also helped fund and saw to the setting up of the National Volunteers Centre (NVC). The NVC will strengthen the work of VWOs by linking volunteers to VWOs and also training them.

My Ministry is also actively involved in the effort to enhance the role of CDCs when they take on the role of local administrator for community-based services. By strengthening the links between VWOs and CDCs, they can capitalise on the outreach capabilities that both parties have and there will also be greater synergies in the use of scarce resources in the social sector.

Mdm Claire Chiang has also asked how much is enough and who is funded to do what. Last year, we spent $58,736,210 on non-health related social services, such as services for the aged, disabled, the families and children. I think the issue is less on whether funding from Government is enough, but rather whether we have a system in place that tries to ensure that no one who should be helped is left totally neglected, whether by the Government or by the various partners in society. The social service sector is not the sole responsibility of the Government and each of us has a part to play in ensuring that we indeed live up to our ideal to be a caring and gracious society.

Mdm Chiang also quoted yesterday a case study of the Bukit Ho Swee Social Service Centre. I would like to point out that the Centre did not approach my Ministry to develop a second FSC. What happened was it was working with the central CDC to develop a youth centre, and when that did not materialise, it planned to relocate its social service centre to another site, so that the existing site can be used for the proposed youth centre instead. My Ministry, as you know, funds new FSCs, but not the relocation of existing centres, especially where we feel the existing locations are good or ideal. 2.15 pm

Mr Ang Mong Seng moaned the fact that the young are not coming up to volunteer and only the old volunteers remain.

Sir, it is not surprising that there are more elderly people involved in volunteer activity than the young people, because those above 60 years of age are likely to be retirees who may have more time and less competing demands than younger people. However, this does not mean that we should not encourage more young people to be active volunteers. I agree with him.

My Ministry and the NCSS had worked out jointly to set up, which I mentioned earlier, the National Volunteer Centre (NVC) in December last year, and this is to promote volunteerism as a way of life among Singaporeans. The NVC will try to match volunteers of all ages with the voluntary organisations that meet their interests. In addition, the centre would train volunteer leaders and volunteers so that they can be better equipped to carry out their voluntary work.

We also believe in exposing our people to volunteer activity from young, to inculcate in them an instinct to be responsible for and to contribute to the community they live in. One good example is the Community Involvement Programme, or CIP, which involves every primary, secondary and junior college student, and the centralised institute students, launched in October 1997 by the Ministry of Education. Certainly, MCDS will continue to explore ways to attract even more younger people to volunteer.

Encik Harun Ghani asked whether there could be another mosque in Jurong West. Under the Mosque Building Programme, one mosque is built in one new HDB new town. He mentioned earlier the DGP criterion of 20,000 dwelling units. Sir, there is already a mosque, which is the Al-Mukminin Mosque, in Jurong East and the Assyakirin Mosque in the Jurong West New Town. There is therefore no plan to build another mosque under the project.

In order to meet the increasing demand, the Assyakirin Mosque in Jurong West will be redeveloped, and the redevelopment project will begin from the third quarter of this year, and is expected to complete in year 2002. Once completed, the new mosque will have a larger capacity from the existing 2,600 square metres to 4,500 square metres. If there is a need, MUIS will conduct a review of the Mosque Building Programme.

Mdm Claire Chiang spoke at length about empowering people with disabilities, and she mentioned BizLink. People with disabilities can approach BizLink for jobs. The centre, which was set up in 1986, acts as a central body for the job placement of people with disabilities. The centre is jointly funded by my Ministry and the National Council of Social Service and currently it has a job bank of over 1,700 employers. It not only looks out for new job opportunities but also provides follow-up services and support to those placed in employment to help them remain employed.

Apart from BizLink, there are also other avenues which exist for people with disabilities, for example, several VWOs help their clients find jobs. And people with disabilities can also register with the Ministry of Manpower's Deployment Department or online with MOM's Internet job system. My Ministry and the NCSS are reviewing the employment placement system for people with disabilities to see how it can be further improved, including whether there is scope for more dedicated VWOs to complement what BizLink is doing.

BizLink is already engaged in raising public awareness of the employment potential of people with disabilities. It telemarkets, for example, to potential employers and their HR departments for available jobs, and visits prospective employers to present what BizLink and its clients have to offer them. It also taps existing employers from its database to see if they have new openings and avenues for BizLink's clients. BizLink also provides free technical advice to employers on workplace modifications, if they are needed, to accommodate the disabled, and monitor the adaptation of clients in their workplace. Apart from feedback, BizLink also visits the workplace to find out how clients are coping in their work.

Sir, I would like to thank Mdm Claire Chiang for her suggestion on encouraging more employers to open up more jobs and for an employment bulletin to publicise work openings for people with disabilities.

MOM, in fact, is currently helping to urge employers to recognise that some people with disabilities can be as capable as any worker. My Ministry and NCSS will study the suggestion put forward by the NMP earlier in the review of the employment placement system, and will discuss with MOM where there are synergies to be got from working together.

Let me now come to the issue of ageing. Dr Lily Neo and Mr Ang Mong Seng both talked about co-location of eldercare services.

MCD is preparing an Eldercare Services Masterplan for the next five years until 2005. A key focus of this Masterplan is the setting up of Multi-Service Centres (MSCs) to cater for all age groups at the local level. This is to allow Community Development Councils (CDCs) to administer community-based social services, and where possible, the MSCs will be co-located at Community Clubs to make better use of land and other common resources. MCDS would also work out a regional masterplan of services for the next five years to guide the CDCs in the provision of eldercare services, tailored to local needs. A network of Activity Centres will also be set up around these MSCs as focal points for volunteerism in the community and where the elderly can be engaged to help other elderly in need. The Activity Centres are modelled after our existing Senior Activity Centres for the low-income elderly. However, the Activity Centres would cater to the needs of the elderly in the wider community, and not just the low-income. Thus, my Ministry's plan is similar to what Dr Neo described and had in mind.

However, I would like to caution against overly unrealistic expectations. Our pace of ageing would only increase from 2010 onwards. Therefore building Multi-Service Centres immediately for every constituency might be over-providing infrastructure and straining our resources. Instead, we will embark on a programme to build Multi-Service Centres for the long term whilst continuing to facilitate the setting up of eldercare services where there are specific demands and needs.

Mr Ong Ah Heng has asked about subsidies to be given to senior citizens for elderly day care centres operated by private companies or cooperatives, and services in the studio apartments.

Sir, as part of the Masterplan for Eldercare Services, we are also determining how we can incentivise the private sector and cooperatives to provide eldercare services for our citizens. We will take Mr Ong's suggestion into consideration in drawing up our framework. Such Activity Centres will indeed be set up in studio apartments.

Mr Kenneth Chen talked about the uniform age for defining "senior citizen" for benefits. Mr Ang Mong Seng also spoke about full day concessionary bus fares.

Sir, there is now no common age to determine when one is or is not a "senior citizen", in order to qualify for benefits, as various organisations are free to determine how generous or restrictive they are willing to be. Also, some of the operations that stipulate a certain age to qualify for benefits as a senior citizen, such as bus concessions, are private commercial concerns.

As our life expectancy increases, what would be considered "senior" now could also creep upwards in time to come. We would rather prefer to leave the cut-off age for dispensation of benefits to the respective organisations. For the purpose of compiling statistics and policy planning, however, we have used 60 years and above in the past to define "senior citizens". We have now adopted the international norm of defining "senior citizens" as those aged 65 years and above, so that we can compare across countries for policy analysis and planning, and also for comparison of situations.

The IMC on the Ageing Population has supported the call on bus operators to consider extending concessionary travel rates for senior citizens for the whole day. However, this is a proposal for bus operators to consider, and bearing in mind that being public listed companies, they are also accountable to their shareholders. So it would have to be their decision.

On the issue of elder-friendly features raised by Mr Ang Mong Seng, the IMC has recommended "ageing-in-place" as the guiding policy for our environment. This means that elder-friendly features should be included in our housing estates and the transport system as part of the infrastructure, including elder-friendly lifts, ramps and other features to make our environment "barrier-free" for our senior citizens. These features will be gradually put in place as we build our new estates, and upgrade the older ones.

Dr Ho Tat Kin spoke about eldercare leave and programmes to help change mindsets as well as to prepare the elderly.

Sir, eldercare leave was one of the suggestions proposed during the feedback sessions in the deliberations with the IMC. However, this is a proposal for companies to consider as part of the benefits package that they provide for their employees. I agree that changing of mindset is essential not only for the population, for the younger ones, but also for the senior citizens themselves. But this requires collective effort and my Ministry is working with VWOs to draw up a public education programme or plan to address this. For example, some VWOs conduct seminars to help the young understand and communicate with their aged parents and grandparents. This will allow the young and the old to better understand and communicate with each other.

Volunteers from various VWOs also regularly visit the elderly who are living alone. For those elderly who wish to equip themselves with relevant skills, the Senior Citizen's Division in People's Association organizes continuing education classes on a variety of topics in the community clubs. To help our younger people to prepare themselves for old age, my Ministry is working with the Civil Service College on a training programme for civil servants. We hope to share with the private sector employers a similar programme, perhaps at a later stage.

Sir, there are now 17 day care rehabilitation centres and 14 social day centres. We have plans to set up more such centres over the next few years, as part of our Eldercare Services Masterplan. There are already guidelines on these centres and the guidelines will be progressively enhanced to ensure good service.

Finally, Dr Lily Neo spoke on financing for step-down care. Arising from the IMC's recommendations, I am informed that the Ministry of Health is studying a Severe Disability Insurance, or SDI, scheme to protect against the high costs of care required by those with serious disabilities and are unable to perform normal activities of daily living without considerable help from other people. So it is being studied and MOH will have to decide on this. 2.30 pm

The Member has also asked that the SDI scheme covers medical expenses of a chronic nature incurred in the outpatient setting. I am not too sure whether it is meaningful to cover such expenses because the treatments are generally affordable and are not low probability events. Treatment for chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and hypertension, is heavily subsidised at Government polyclinics and public hospitals. And Singapore citizens aged 55 and above already enjoy a 50% fee concession at the Government polyclinics. They are thus generally already affordable. At the same time, these chronic illnesses are more prevalent, making the premiums for such insurance cover very much higher. So, in the end, the elderly might be better off saving the money from the premiums to pay for the treatment.

But I share Dr Neo's concern that inappropriate use of medical facilities will lead to unnecessary healthcare cost increases. However, whether a patient ought to be cared for in hospital, community facility, or in his own family, should depend only on his medical condition. The decision has to be made by the doctor and not by the patient. Those who face genuine difficulty in paying for their outpatient medical expenses could apply for their fees to be waived at Government polyclinics. And needy Singaporeans who attend public hospital's specialist outpatient clinics may apply for Medifund assistance and no Singaporean will be denied essential healthcare services because of their inability to pay. Hence, Dr Neo's fear of patients abusing inpatient facilities for the sake of using Medisave or MediShield does not arise.

Mr Low Thia Khiang said that the Ministry of Health has got the ECU (Elderly Care Unit), whereas my Ministry runs the EDD or the Elderly Development Division, and as he has rightly pointed out, they run different services. People are confused. MCD runs social day care centres, for example, we run social activities and MOH runs other centres which have a higher health care content. I agree with the Member that sometimes the public are also confused about where to go, and sometimes they run from one type of centre to another, depending on the status and condition of their health. We at MCD are also concerned about this overlap and confusion and separation of roles which are not really clear for certain cases. We certainly agree with the IMC's recommendations and we are looking into it to see how this problem can be resolved between MOH and ourselves.

Sir, I think I have answered most of the questions.

Mr Harun bin A. Ghani (Hong Kah) rose ---

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, may I seek a clarification from the Minister?

The Chairman: Mr Harun has the floor.

Mr Harun bin A. Ghani: Sir, point of clarification for the Minister. The Assyakirin Mosque is meant for the people who are residing or living in Taman Jurong and the Al-Mukminin Mosque is for those who are living in Toh Guan and Jurong East. So there is no mosque around Jurong West, and the number of dwelling units there is more than 20,000. For his information, we have about 65,000 units. Could the Minister explain?

Mr Abdullah Tarmugi: Sir, as pointed out by the Member, the DGP criterion is actually 20,000, and our plan is based on 20,000 dwelling units for one mosque to be built. This is what the DGP allows us to do. It does not place a higher population ceiling for each mosque. Anyway, Sir, as I have responded earlier, if necessary, MUIS will review the criteria for a mosque to be built in a constituency and also the ratio for the number of dwelling units in each constituency.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, in his reply just now, the Minister appears to be very compassionate and sympathetic towards unwed mothers. I would like to ask him whether he is aware of lodging problems faced by unwed mothers with children, and whether he would persuade the HDB to allow unwed mothers with children to apply directly to HDB for a flat.

Mr Abdullah Tarmugi: Sir, this is for HDB to respond, but certainly, if you are talking about unwed mothers, especially those unwed mothers who are about to deliver their babies, there are at least two VWOs which run such homes. In other words, they can go to these homes to deliver their babies and they will help on how the babies ought to be either adopted or to be kept within the family. But with regard to whether HDB will provide accommodation for unwed mothers, I think he has to approach HDB.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, is the Minister aware that it is not only the part on delivery, but also bringing up the children. Very often, these unwed mothers face family pressures in between, so they have problems of living within the family, and if they are going to live with their friends, they are going to face uncertainty over accommodation. The question is how do they have a permanent home for them to bring up the child? They face this problem and the HDB will not allow them to apply directly for a rental flat. Since the Minister is so sympathetic, I would appreciate it if he could persuade the HDB because we have asked the question but HDB did not allow.

Mr Abdullah Tarmugi: I can have a word with the National Development Ministry. But, Sir, we must be careful. The HDB has got very valid reasons for insisting on that policy. We want to be compassionate to unwed mothers, especially when children are concerned and babies are also involved. But we must also consider the kind of signal we will be sending to the community in terms of how we condone having babies out of wedlock. We have to consider this. Compassion is one thing. I agree that we have to think about how we could save the baby, or we could do as much as we can for the baby, but we also have to look, if not through the HDB way, perhaps at some other ways.

Dr Lily Neo: May I ask the Minister on the multi-service centres. What kind of fund allocation has been provided for them? Earlier on, the Minister might have got me wrong. I did not ask for such centres to be set up immediately island-wide, but could I just have the timeframe of what kind of numbers will that be in the end.

Mr Abdullah Tarmugi: Sir, I am afraid I cannot give the Member any details because, as I mentioned earlier, we are in the midst of preparing our five-year plan on this. As regards the exact timing, I am afraid I cannot tell her now. But I agree with her sentiment that we ought not to build all these centres simultaneously. In fact, we cannot do that. How much we will put aside to build these centres and what is the programme will be the very subject that we have to discuss when coming up with our plan.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Community Development (Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon): Sir, I thank Dr Lily Neo, Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, Dr Jennifer Lee and Dr Ho Tat Kin for their keen support for more better childcare services.

Childcare is indeed a key family support service and has become all the more important with the increase in the numbers of dual-income families in Singapore. MCD promotes childcare services through a three-pronged strategy - ensuring availability of childcare places, promoting quality care and maintaining affordability. I would therefore take some time in responding to the hon. Members' questions on the supply of childcare centres, childcare standards and their continued affordability.

Dr Lily Neo and Mr Yeo Guat Kwang had asked about the supply of childcare centres. My Ministry has come a long way in meeting the demand for this very important service. In 1980, there were only 25 childcare centres in Singapore. The number has increased 20-fold to 535 today.

The Ministry has first encouraged voluntary welfare organisations and subsequently commercial operators to set up childcare centres. The Ministry has ceased operating childcare centres way back in 1979. Today, about 60% of childcare places are provided by commercial operators. They are able to set up freely as long as they meet minimum standards. We are therefore able to harness market forces to guide supply towards demand. MCD facilitates the process but childcare industry is primarily market-driven.

As pure market mechanism is unable to operate effectively at HDB estates, due to a shortage of suitable commercial property space for childcare centres, Government allows the use of void decks for use as childcare centres. In new HDB estates, MCD plans ahead of demand through regular meetings with HDB. This allows childcare premises to be built together with the housing blocks. For other HDB estates, MCD increases the number of centres in high demand areas that we identify through waiting lists, feedback from the ground, including MPs' feedback, and other data. We also monitor closely the number of children born each year so that we can plan ahead. Our development plans include both commercial and non-profit operators. Non-profit operators can approach us to propose sites and MCD would work with them to set up their centre.

For FY 2000, MCD expects nearly 49 new childcare centres, increasing childcare places by about 3,300 or 8% in this financial year. Over the next three years, this rate of development will mean an increase in capacity of about 20%.

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang was also concerned about the childcare development at Sengkang and Punggol. Included in these plans are Sengkang and Punggol. Today, Sengkang has six childcare centres. Over the next three years, around 30 new childcare centres will be set up. Punggol is a new estate that is still under development. We have already planned 10 childcare centres over the next two years in line with HDB's building programme.

Dr Jennifer Lee has suggested that childcare centres also take in children under 18 months. Any childcare centre can do so as long as they comply with our minimum standards. The same childcare subsidy is extended. Most childcare centres however prefer not to take in children under 18 months as they require much more care and attention. Many child experts agree that the first few years of a child's life are important for parent-child bonding and are best cared for at home. There is also the concern that centre-based care may expose the young infant to cross-infections. Granting higher subsidies for children under 18 months will send the wrong signal that parents should put the child in centres at such a tender age. 2.45 pm

Dr Lily Neo observed that some centres have long waiting lists. But double counting is common in waiting lists, causing the lists to be inflated by about 30%. For example, some parents place a child on the waiting list of many centres. Today, we have about 45,000 childcare places in Singapore. There are, in fact, more vacancies than demand at the national level. Even so, a waiting list exists because some parents are choosy and due to localised shortages.

To facilitate better matching of supply and demand, my Ministry will be delegating the local planning of childcare centres to Community Development Councils (CDCs) later this year, starting with the Marine Parade and Tanjong Pagar CDCs. CDCs, being closer to community, are better able to gauge and respond to local demand. MCD will continue to project demand for and plan the supply of child-care services at the national level, and focus on licensing to ensure that acceptable standards are met.

Dr Lily Neo had asked about childcare centres in the private sector. I am pleased to inform Dr Neo that besides promoting the setting up of childcare centres at private residential areas, we also encourage childcare centres in condominiums. URA levies development charges at the residential rate, instead of commercial rate, for childcare centres in condominiums. In addition, URA lately also lifted restrictions requiring such centres to serve residents only. That means, they are also open to outsiders. These measures will reduce the cost of setting up and running child care centres in condominiums.

I thank Dr Ho Tat Kin and Dr Jennifer Lee for their support for the steps my Ministry has taken to require diploma training for childcare supervisors. As Dr Ho has rightly pointed out, there is increasing evidence indicating the importance of a child's early years. To quote a World Bank publication, "It is well established scientifically that the early years are critical in the formation of intelligence, personality and social behaviour."

MCD has licensed childcare centres for more than 10 years. MCD has also an established training system whereby childcare workers can upgrade from a Basic level certificate, through the Intermediate level, to an Advanced level certificate. This system has served us well. Today, most staff in our childcare centres are trained. About 80% of our childcare centre supervisors have already attained the advanced level of training or higher.

However, with 60% of each cohort of our students being tertiary-educated, tapping on the certificate level group of each cohort is not enough given the importance of early childhood education. Hence, MCD will require all childcare supervisors to be diploma trained in five years' time. In addition, we are also targeting for each centre to have one teacher trained at the diploma level. This diploma requirement has not been introduced in isolation. Many other complementary steps have also been taken.

MCD issues a set of guidelines last year so that only diplomas awarded by training agencies that meet our standards will be recognised. We have worked with training agencies, such as Ngee Ann Polytechnic and the training arm of the NTUC Childcare, to provide a range of diploma programmes for different target groups.

Secondary school-leavers were able, for the first time last year, to take a Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education offered jointly by Ngee Ann Polytechnic and NTUC's training arm. There are also specially designed diploma courses which allow in-service childcare personnel to upgrade. Even diploma and degree holders from other disciplines will soon have a post-graduate diploma course to help them switch to the early childhood field. In addition, we have arranged for funding from the Skills Development Fund (SDF), as well as the NTUC's Skills Redevelopment Programme (SRP) to help to defray these training costs.

Currently, childcare teachers must have an intermediate certificate level of training in early childhood. We have no plans to raise this requirement in the immediate future. However, teachers and supervisors alike are encouraged to upgrade continually in a spirit of life-long learning. MCD has been working with the Association of Early Childhood Educators, Singapore (AECES) to raise professionalism and expertise in the early childhood field. From time to time, we jointly organise seminars and workshops to share best practices across the industry.

Dr Ho also mentioned about normalising standards. Sir, normalising standards means requiring all childcare centres to have similar standards and level of service. We prefer to set a minimum standard for all centres. Centres wishing to upgrade beyond minimum standards are encouraged to do so and many have. This approach gives parents flexibility and variety of choice.

Improvements are also in store for MCD's licensing system. My Ministry has developed a more effective system to evaluate the quality of childcare centres to ensure that unacceptable care practices are detected and corrected early. This system will be implemented in the next few months.

My Ministry will also be introducing a new web-based computer system that will link up all childcare centres to MCD electronically. This will improve efficiency and my Ministry's ability to track standards in centres. Parents will also be able to search for centres nearest their homes, to register with any childcare centre on-line, and access basic information of childcare centres, like opening hours and fees. MCD will announce more details of this system at a later date.

Coming to affordability, Dr Jennifer Lee was concerned that childcare fees might rise if centres have to pay more to attract better qualified staff. Based on data gathered in 1998, the average salary of diploma trained childcare supervisors was about $2,300 and that for non-diploma supervisors was $1,700. In comparison, the average starting pay of a polytechnic graduate, that is, across all fields of study, is about $1,400. The average pay of all workers with post-secondary education, including polytechnic graduates and those from JCs, is about $2,400. As you can see, the pay that childcare supervisors are getting today is already similar to that of diploma holders elsewhere.

The Ministry had examined the impact of its higher diploma requirements on fees and found that the increase is unlikely to be significant. Currently, about 40% of our centres already have at least one staff trained at the diploma level. A centre without a diploma-trained supervisor is expected to pay about $600 more to attract a diploma-trained supervisor. For a typical centre with 75 children, this translates to about $8, 2% more per child per month. The timeframe for implementation of the diploma requirement is five years. This rise would, therefore, be spread over a five-year period. The impact is therefore minimal and is a small price to pay for higher standards. MCD monitors the affordability of childcare centres closely. Dr Lily Neo would be glad to know that we do not control fees. Rather, we employ a range of strategies to maintain affordability.

MCD's plans to increase the supply of childcare centres is an important factor in fanning competition which keeps childcare fees in check. The childcare subsidy for working mothers at $150 per month for full-day also helps make childcare affordable for many families. Each year, about $60 million is given out. Low-income families may also apply for additional financial assistance which are means-tested. The schemes help low-income families pay both the monthly fees, as well as initial start-up costs, such as uniforms and fee deposit. MCD also allows an extension of childcare subsidy of up to 9 months to mothers who are affected by retrenchment and single fathers who are in financial hardships. Some centres provide additional subsidies to low-income families.

Given this wide range of fee assistance schemes, my Ministry does not feel that it is necessary to increase the childcare subsidy at this stage. My Ministry, however, does agree with Dr Jennifer Lee that these fees assistance schemes, like all such schemes under MCD, must be reviewed regularly.

Let me turn to my colleague, Mr Sin Boon Ann, who talked about marriage to foreigners. I would like to thank Mr Sin for raising this issue. With globalisation, there would certainly be more marriages involving foreigners. The majority of such marriages are successful and happy. There will, of course, be instances of unscrupulous foreign grooms and brides. But marriage is a very personal decision and it is up to Singaporeans to think wisely and choose their partners with their eyes open.

Sir, we all know, in reality, love is sometimes blind. The greatest prevention against a bad marriage is marriage preparation. That is why my Ministry encourages couples to attend marriage preparation classes. MCD works with Family Service Centres and social service agencies to run these classes. These classes help couples share more deeply about themselves, discuss their expectations of each other and deal with differences and potential conflict before the marriage. Grassroots organisations can work with MCD to organise such courses for their residents. For example, the Sembawang-Hong Kah CDC organised a marriage preparation programme for its residents last month. If Singaporean overseas clubs are also interested in organising marriage preparation courses for Singaporeans stationed overseas, they can approach MCD for advice. Couples encountering problems during marriage are also encouraged to consult social work professionals in the Family Service Centres and social service agencies.

Sir, Mr Sin said that there are some cases where Singaporean men are cheated by their foreign wives who use marriage as a means to get rich. They may abuse the Women's Charter for this purpose. However, the Women's Charter also protects men when their matrimonial assets are divided in a divorce. If the wife is not taking their marriage seriously and contributes little to their marriage and family, she is not likely to get away with a large proportion of the husband's assets easily.

Mr Sin Boon Ann (Tampines): I would like to thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for her answer. Would the Senior Parliamentary Secretary please tell us how the Ministry is able to determine that the majority of such marriages are happy?

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: Sir, I did ask my officers this question and according to the figures on divorces, most of the marriages so far are still intact. There were only a few cases who filed for divorce among this group of couples.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Mr Chan Soo Sen): Sir, I would like to thank both Dr Lily Neo as well as Mdm Claire Chiang for their support on the CDCs. In fact, they are so confident in the CDC concept that they have been asking CDCs to do more. As you have heard, the Minister as well as the Senior Parliamentary Secretary have both announced that CDCs will indeed do more, starting from Marine Parade as well as Tanjong Pagar. 3.00 pm

Just to recapitulate what CDC is all about in response to Mdm Claire Chiang's point. CDC is, in fact, a Government programme to facilitate the development of heartware, in order to enhance social cohesion as well as community bonding. This is done by empowering the community, by encouraging more community self-help effort as well as through greater community involvement. In doing so, the community feels more stake in CDC's work. And by organising themselves to help themselves, the community will be more energised and more active.

Certainly, the implication is that there will be more consultation, and more discussion amongst the community, to solve community issues. There will be less and less cases of imposition from management of the CDC, because the CDC management is really under the influence and control of the local community.

Certainly, I agree with Mdm Claire Chiang that officials will need to be more people orientated, behaving less like bureaucrats. There should be more service orientation towards the community, as PS21 says. I have indeed talked to a few Administrative Officers who have been seconded to the CDC as general managers. All told me that it was a very, very good experience. They have learned a lot, but they are still learning. If the general managers, as administrative officers, are still learning, then the rest of the officers are also learning. Let us not forget that the CDC is still new. I will acknowledge that there is still a lot to learn. But give us a little bit more time. Give us more work. We will learn. We will improve. Things will be better.

I will also acknowledge that there is a need to do more to enable the grassroots organisations as well as the voluntary organisations and the CDC to communicate better. This is a never-ending task, because these set-ups are all so different. Their working style and their approaches are different. But is that not the point? That when we talk about team work, we are talking about getting people who are very different to work towards a common goal? And because of the differences, all contribute their strength and, as a result, we achieve synergy. And through synergy, we do more. Grassroots organisations have very good reach. They can reach the community. But they are relatively less skilled in handling, for example, social problems. Voluntary organisations, on the other hand, have a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of expertise, but they do not have good grassroots reach. But getting both to work together, we will have expertise, enthusiasm as well as grassroots reach. We acknowledge that we need time to get to know each other better. However, I am not so sure the correct approach is to ask the National Community Leadership Training Institute to organise conferences involving many. I think it would help to start with. However, in the longer run, it is more important for voluntary organisations, the grassroots organisations and the CDC to arrange on their own to talk to each other. They should recognise that they have to work together. They have a common objective of serving the residents. They should just get on with working with each other. In the process of working with each other, they would communicate more and they would be able to do better as a team.

Both Mdm Claire Chiang and Dr Lily Neo have made suggestions on what CDCs should do. For example, Dr Lily Neo mentioned that CDC should pick up the tab for medical screening for everybody, especially the poor, and that the CDCs should subsidise Centres of Activity for Retired and Elderly (CARE). Mdm Claire Chiang suggested that the CDCs should look into the setting up of virtual neighbourhoods for senior citizens. Since I said earlier that the style of CDCs was consultation, the Ministry and the People's Association could not impose all these on the CDCs. Hence I will pass the suggestions on to the CDCs for consideration. But let me also give some preliminary comments. On virtual neighbourhood, I do not understand why we want the old people to talk to each other over the Net. Is it not better to encourage them to come out, meet each other face to face and talk? So I think we should continue to work on our senior citizens' activity programmes, instead of just encouraging more virtual neighbourhoods. I do not think it is very healthy for the senior citizens if they spend all their time on the Net.

As regards picking up the tab for the health screening of the poor, let me also say that the Minister for Health yesterday announced that the screening costs only $5 to each resident - above 55. $5 nowadays can only buy a ballpoint refill.

An hon. Member: That is for a Mont Blanc refill.

Mr Chan Soo Sen: I understand Parker refill is about $5. Mont Blanc refill is $7.50.

I think the small fee is a reminder that all of us have a stake in our health. I do not think we should just expect somebody to pick up the tab for our health screening. We must be responsible for our health. So we must pay something towards health screening. But I would accept that for those who cannot even afford $5, perhaps the CDC could consider picking up the tab.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, if the CDCs were set up for cohesion and bonding of residents, why must the head of a CDC be a Mayor? It is such an awesome position. I think it is difficult for people to be close together.

Mr Chan Soo Sen: I think we did say that we wanted to develop the CDC into a local administration. We need somebody to be accountable for CDC's activities and programmes. Since Government money is going to be channelled towards the CDCs to run local services, somebody ought to be accountable for how public money was spent. Therefore, there should be somebody who is called the Mayor to be accountable for all these. Having said that, I think we have also talked about CDC's working style and the Mayor's working style. I do not think the working style is a very awesome one. In fact, our two Mayors spend a lot of time meeting people, encouraging residents to support and come for community self-help activities. We read all these in the press. I must say I have not heard anyone saying that our Mayors are awesome characters.

The Chairman: Dr Vasoo, there is no bonus time.

Dr S. Vasoo (Tanjong Pagar): Sir, thank you very much for allowing me to end the debate.

Sir, I would like to thank the Minister for his reply and for providing us the future direction of his Ministry. However, I would like to urge the Minister to persuade his Cabinet colleagues to review family policies, because many of these family policies are at the moment segmented. There are too many captains playing in the family field, each playing their own game, to some extent. But I think there is a need to have a recess, so that we can get them to come together to review family policies and to come up with a more comprehensive plan to help families to be stronger. I think the Minister would have to persuade them and maybe they need a directive from the Prime Minister to really look at it. I am very serious because family policies need to be strengthened. Various players are playing, like the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health. A lot of the Ministries are involved. We need to look at family policies very critically, and I would suggest that there is a need for us to revisit these areas in order that we can find fresh strategies to deal with the problem. We are a compassionate GPC, because we have to spare time for GPC education.

Sir, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

The Chairman: It is a rather long speech just to withdraw your amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Chairman: Amendment No. (2), Mr Ravindran is not speaking. Amendment No. (3), Mr Ibrahim Othman.

Mr Ibrahim bin Othman (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head J of the Development Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code JC 5100.

Sir, the Syariah Court has jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to divorce, custody, maintenance and division of matrimonial property where the parties are Muslims or were married according to Muslim law. With the amendments to the Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA) in 1999, the Syariah Court has been conferred additional powers that will make it more efficient and effective in administering justice to Muslims in family matters. After more than a year, I would like to ask the Minister whether he could give us an update on the performance of the Syariah Court.

During the sittings of the Select Committee on the AMLA amendments, there were reservations on the amendments. One of them is that they are afraid that more Muslims would turn to civil courts when they should be going to the Syariah Court. The other is that the civil law applied by the civil courts may contradict Syariah law. I wish to ask the Minister whether these reservations are valid. Specifically, I wish to ask how many Muslim couples have gone to the civil court to settle their matrimonial problems.

Mr Abdullah Tarmugi: Sir, the Administration of Muslim Law Act and the attendant Muslim Divorce Rules came into force on 1st August last year. Since then, significant improvements to the court system and its work procedures have taken place. For example, four ad hoc Presidents have been appointed, two of whom are experienced syariah law trained judges, and two are civil law trained judges, in addition to the incumbent Senior President and President of the Syariah Court. With their depth of experience, they will add to the development of the Islamic law jurisprudence in Singapore. In fact, night court sessions have also been introduced to better serve the public so that more cases could be cleared.

Sir, a Registrar, as you know, has been appointed to conduct pre-trial conferences (PTC) of cases daily, and the PTCs have been effective in instilling discipline and expeditious disposal of cases and enable the court to dictate the pace and progress of these cases. 3.15 pm

Another aspect of the court which has been significantly improved is the introduction of the proxy power of the court, which empowers it to enforce its orders relating to the division of matrimonial property. In other words, if the husband refuses to transfer the flat or property to the wife, because he did not sign the transfer papers, the court will be able to exercise that power and transfer the property to the wife.

With these appointments and procedures, the court has made significant progress towards maturing into a more efficient judicial organisation without compromising justice.

At present, the waiting time for a case to be heard is about two to four weeks after the pre-trial conference. The number of backlog cases had been very much reduced from 421 to 175 at the beginning of this month.

The court has also gained the confidence of the Muslim community in its ability to dispense justice efficiently, speedily and fairly. Thus far, there is no application made by parties to have their ancillary matters heard in the civil court. In other words, what has been feared that people will go to the civil courts in droves has not happened. The Syariah Court will strive to further enhance the level of its services to mirror the standards achieved and maintained by the civil courts. It is hoped that by doing so, it will continue to meet the high expectations of the Muslim community which it serves.

Encik Ibrahim Bin Othman: Sir, I thank the Minister for his explanation and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Encik Ibrahim Bin Othman: Sir, the Minister has explained in his speech just now about the setting up of sports schools. As such, I will not be speaking on the next amendment.

The sum of $378,227,160 for Head J ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $231,562,000 for Head J ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.

The Chairman: Order. I propose to take the suspension now.

Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House.

Mr Speaker: Order. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 3.45 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 3.20 pm until 3.45 pm. Sitting resumed at 3.45 pm

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Debate in Committee of Supply resumed.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Head L -

The Chairman: Head L - Ministry of Education. Amendment No. (1), Dr Wang Kai Yuen.

Dr Wang Kai Yuen (Bukit Timah): Sir, I beg to move,

That the total sum to be allocated for Head L of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100.

Sir, when it comes to education, every Singaporean has an opinion, sometimes a rather strong one. This is not surprising because most adult Singaporeans below the age of 45 have gone through the Singapore education system and know the system well. Furthermore, for those of us with children, we have endured the triumphs and tribulations as they progressed through school. In many cases, it is as if we ourselves have gone through school once again.

Our education system could be visualised as a process where at one end, in go young, bubbly and fun-loving young children, and at the other end, out come disciplined, trained and educated young adults. From Primary 4 onwards, the school children are graded every two years and streamed to different ability streams. They will move on to career paths depending on their achievements. Some 20% go on to the universities, another 40% to the polytechnics and the rest to ITE. They would have been imbued with the Singapore values, ensuring a strong Singaporean heartbeat. We can affirm that our education system is an efficient and a well-oiled one. Of course, from time to time, there are hiccups, for instance, the Straits Times' report on its front page today on the blunder in the administration of examination for third-year medical students. In the year-end examination they have just sat, some old questions were inadvertently used. As a result, the students had been told to re-sit the paper this Saturday. The University authority had rejected their appeal to waive that examination.

Sir, I understand that by bringing this subject here, we will bring undue pressure on the University administration and might be considered as uncalled for interference. With your indulgence, I think it is nonetheless useful to discuss some basic principles. I believe that so long as no students are given undue advantages through the use of past years' questions itself, while undesirable, there is basically nothing wrong. So long as the syllabus remains unchanged, I believe questions about the same topics are by and large in the same ballpark. In fact, some repetitions are unavoidable. We all remember our "A", "O" level days where we practised ourselves extensively on past years' papers in the 10-year series. Hence, I would say that in handling such a blunder, the students, who are the innocent parties here, should not be unduly penalised for enduring to sit through the examination one more time.

Sir, of course, besides this, there are other issues of concern. Over the past decade, as our students become more proficient in scoring high marks in examinations, it is beginning to become difficult to differentiate the very good from the good students. So, from time to time, we are aware that standards were raised and the screw was tightened a little bit more. As a result, stress in our education system is high. Everyone's focus is on the examination results and the holistic development of the person is relegated to a distant second place.

Our students learn too much facts and problem-solving methods in a structured environment. But we did not learn enough reasoning and problem-solving skills in an unstructured environment that would allow us to handle real-life problems. Nonetheless, this system has served us very well in our economic development where up to now, we need only to adopt established technologies and procedures and improve upon them. Furthermore, we are also able to cater to the less academically endowed so that when they leave school, they have acquired some basic skills enabling them to function in an urbanised society and an industrialised workplace. This, Sir, is not something to sneeze at. Now that we have arrived at the developed stage and the next stage of our economic development is knowledge based, we recognise that the focus and the emphasis of our education system must change.

As the US economy becomes the centre of innovation and wealth creation, we are also becoming more inclined towards the US education system, to an extent that it is tempting to think that if we adopt more western education practices, the problems in our school will be by and large solved. This is not necessarily so. It is useful to remember that many high school graduates in the US have such poor command of reading and writing that the employers have to send these new workers for remedial classes. While the western education system might be more conducive to the brighter students, they could also be quite unforgiving to the weaker students.

Furthermore, to make the comparison less meaningful, our bilingual policy is the cornerstone of our education system. As a result of our emphasis on bilingualism, our pupils in primary school only learn four subjects, namely, English, Mother Tongue language, Mathematics and Science; the last two combined as a single examination subject. For many pupils with Chinese as the mother tongue, they spent a disproportionately high percentage of their effort in learning Chinese. Some have told me that they spent as much as 60% of their effort on Chinese. Consequently, few of our primary school graduates have been exposed to other more interesting aspects of human endeavours such as music, arts and history.

Sir, we must adapt our current system to cater to the needs of the new economy while retaining what has worked for us all these years. The question is how to cater to the creativity of the bright and yet ensure that the weak are not left by the wayside. How do we reduce the stress level without compromising the high standards we have attained in our schools? How do we fully exploit technology to make education better tailored to the capability and interest of the individual students? How do we encourage greater student participation in sports? The list is long and the journey is an equally long one.

Since taking over the Ministry, the Minister has instituted many changes. For instance, course load for students has been reduced. The compensation packages for teachers have been enhanced to render teaching a more attractive career choice. But the impact of these changes would take some years to show results. As we look forward to a Singapore in the new millennium, would the Minister elaborate on his vision of the education system as well as the areas where he would focus his attention on? Could he lay out the milestones where the various changes introduced by him would produce visible and tangible results?

Mr Ong Ah Heng (Nee Soon Central): (In Mandarin): Sir, for many years, academic performance has been the focal point in our Singapore education system, as what Dr Wang has said just now. Examination scores are more important than anything else. This is what matters most in admission to the junior colleges, universities and even jobs, especially in the civil service. School rankings depend on it, so does the assessment of teachers. Academic performance by examination scores is the easiest to measure, just like output of workers. Perhaps that is why such yardstick has been around for so many years.

To meet the needs of the new age of technology, the Ministry is working out a new school excellence model that is not only concerned with academic achievements, but also achievement in areas like arts, sports, uniformed groups and physical fitness. The new model widens the scope for schools to be assessed - not just in their academic results, but also in other areas. With these new criteria, it means that schools can encourage students to excel in other areas.

This is a major leap and I applaud the Ministry. Having been steeped in the culture of academic excellence, it will take some time for teachers and parents to re-orientate themselves to the new possibilities, especially when academic performance continues to matter most when it comes to admission to universities, junior colleges and jobs.

Also, in any education system, we must always bear in mind that the aim of educating our children is to enable them to contribute to the community. There is no point nurturing wizards who end up caring for themselves.

Let us have competition, but not at the cost of neglecting other areas of life - the camaraderie, the need to care for others, the need to contribute to community. There should be enough activities in school to let our young learn these values in life. Only then can we say that education in Singapore is a success.

I must commend the Ministry for having begun the process of revamping the education system to meet the needs of a knowledge-based economy.

One of the measures that I cannot agree more is the implementation of the double-degree programme at the NUS this year, allowing undergraduates to earn two degrees from separate faculties at the same time. This paradigm shift, according to NUS, is to give students a more well-rounded and broad-based education. This is a good start. I hope the Ministry does not stop here, but allow such a programme to be extended to other universities. Also, the Ministry should consider allowing Singapore or even overseas graduates to take up second or even third degrees at our universities. The rationale for this proposal is the same as the one for the double-degree programme for existing undergraduates.

The benefits are many. Graduates can acquire more broad-based knowledge that they need at work. The option helps them to become all rounders. Graduates who want to pursue a second career can do so, without having to spend a lot of money overseas or leave their families. Undergraduates can learn from those who have been exposed to the workforce before.

We need to open up our universities to provide more options for Singaporeans if we want to inculcate a culture of a lifelong learning in Singapore. We have arrived at a stage where the university is no longer a place to acquire knowledge alone, but a place to search for further knowledge and development. More changes and flexibility have to be introduced to bring this about.

Dr Tan Boon Wan (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, in the next few minutes, I would like to touch on four areas: first, the undermining of our traditional values; second, the importance of a holistic education; third, the importance of multi-racialism; and fourth, the allocation of resources to our schools.

The shift to a KBE dictates the need for change in our education policies. The importance and urgency of the task are not in question. We must imbue in our people, especially our young, the capability to search and use information. We must encourage our young to be more creative and innovative. These additional skills and aptitudes would make our people more effective in the new economy. I commend the Ministry for its vigorous response to this challenge. But the response should not undermine the traditional virtues, such as hard work, effort and discipline, that we have worked hard to cultivate in our society. These values will always be relevant. In our push for change, we must not inadvertently demean these traditional values. Take, for example, creativity. Are we overselling it? Do we need everyone to be "creative"? The impression now given seems to be that unless you are "creative", you will have no role in the future. As some of my learned colleagues in the House have pointed out earlier, many jobs that involve using our hands will remain. Besides, is everyone good at being "creative"? 4.00 pm

So my concern is not the call to our young to be creative and innovative, to be willing to take risks, but I am concerned that we may oversell these qualities, sometimes, even to the exclusion of the traditional virtues. It takes a long time, perhaps a generation or two to effect a mindset change. If it is not done right, it will take an equally long time to correct it.

Sir, Singapore needs wholesome and confident citizens capable of adapting to and operating in different and changing circumstances. We must be able to function effectively as individuals, as members of our families and communities in which we live and work and as citizens. To be able to do so, Singaporean needs a holistic education. This is a task that our Ministry has set for itself to provide. One of the things the Ministry has done in order to achieve this goal is to establish the Desired Outcomes of Education for the various levels of education.

It would be interesting to know the mechanism that the Ministry has established to measure the achievement of these outcomes by our students. Based on the results obtained, is the Ministry satisfied with what we have achieved so far? The success with a holistic education is especially important as we become a global city by plugging ourselves into the international economic network. What more can our schools do to enhance this important goal of producing wholesome and confident citizens?

Sir, we have been very successful in bridging the differences between our races and building strong bonds among ourselves. We have every reason to be proud of our achievements in this area. However, we must never take our racial cohesion and harmony for granted. Some may say we have arrived at our destination. And even if we have, we cannot take for granted that we can stay here without further efforts and care. Recent events in Kosovo, India, Nigeria and, closer home, in Indonesia, show how deep-rooted the feelings of race and religion are. We must never take each other for granted, even if we can. We must continue to build on the respect and understanding we have for each other. With more time and effort, our bonding will strengthen even further. We must never relax this important aspect in the education of our young.

Sir, I come now to the last issue of my cut. Some people have advocated that more money should be spent to educate our good students so that they can be even better. We need capable people to lead. This makes sense. Others have advocated that more money should be spent to help those who are less able. They need more help to level up. This also makes sense. On the latter line of argument, many parents therefore have suggested that more and better resources be deployed at the primary school level. If primary students have a good and strong foundation, they will need less help in the future years. The allocation of resources for education is thus perplexing. Just how has the Ministry of Education been allocating its resources? Many would like to know how the money budgeted to the Ministry of Education is allocated to the schools. The neighbourhood schools in my area and both elsewhere in Singapore could make do with more help to become even better schools.

Mr S. Iswaran (West Coast): Sir, over the last few years, there have been several significant changes in our education system. We have moved from an emphasis on rote learning towards greater creative thinking, away from an academic orientation towards a wider scope of methods through which students can express themselves and be assessed. Curriculum has been reduced in favour of that objective and we also have improved infrastructure and facilities. And perhaps, most important of all, we also have developed IT teaching in schools and used it as a vehicle for creative expression. All these are very important changes in keeping with the times and they prepare us for the so-called new economy.

But, Sir, a certain bias appears to have crept into our vernacular. We appear to talk of the old economy in somewhat disparaging terms and the new economy in somewhat glowing terms. If I may illustrate. In this House, we have numerous references on the need to work at Internet speed, the need to embrace the new economy, otherwise we risk being left behind. The suggestion is also that if we do not do so, then we might be somewhat remiss in the task of governance. In the media, we find front page coverage to young junior college students who have become entrepreneurs or technopreneurs, as the new vernacular will suggest, taking risks and being prepared to fail and wear failure as a badge of honour. We also have less than complimentary references in the media to the old world economy veterans, like Warren Buffet that he has not embraced the new changes with as much speed as he should have.

Sir, these are important messages in their own right. But they should be kept in their context. Ultimately, the Internet and the new economy is just another way to create wealth. It does not represent a new paradigm for the way we organise ourselves, or the way we govern ourselves, or the way we relate to each other. And I think this is the point that must be communicated effectively to our students, through national education, and other measures, that we must be fast but not hasty in decision making, particularly when it comes to policy that affects millions of Singaporeans; that we must be connected but not confuse connectivity with being involved with everything, everywhere, all the time; that we must be informed, especially when making important decisions, but that we should not be overwhelmed by this information that is available out there, to be able to sieve out what is important and what is not.

Sir, ultimately, the so-called Internet speed has its limits, particularly in terms of in what context it can be applied. You cannot have family relations at Internet speed, you cannot parent your child at Internet speed and certainly, you cannot build a nation at Internet speed, with the values of multi-racialism, meritocracy, integrity and diligence, the values on which Singapore was built.

Sir, I think national education is the key to maintaining that balance in our education system and I would urge the Minister to pay particular attention to how this balance is brought about in the message we give our young so that they do not get so enamoured of the wild wild west of the Internet that they forget the old home with its yellow brick road.

Mr Davinder Singh (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Sir, my question is how is our education system being reviewed to keep it in step with what is needed in the new economy? We have had a great deal of discussion both in and outside the House about how we should anticipate and meet the challenges of the knowledge-based economy.

We have identified two goals, and I speak rather apologetically after Mr Iswaran has spoken. First, to transform our universities into what has been described as "incubators for inspiration". Second, to develop a pool of entrepreneurs willing to take risks and a large group of workers with a thirst for knowledge and a high degree of creativity.

These are highly commendable objectives. They signal a determination to transform our economic culture from one which breeds conformity of thought and embraces prudence to one which celebrates intellectual dissonance and aims to remove the stigma of failure.

We are on the right track. There is no question that the system will, in a few years, throw up more entrepreneurs and innovators that we now have. But that is not the point. The real issue is whether we will churn out a few more or many more. The answer, in my view, depends largely on our education system. I do not contend that the education system should be tweaked to teach entrepreneurship. I subscribe to the view that a person is either born with the stomach and inclination to go off the beaten track or he is not.

Therefore, in my view, the true question is not whether the education system can nurture entrepreneurs. It is whether it can avoid dampening, or worse, extinguishing the potential of the few who have it in them to make a difference.

We have to be realistic. We do not have the numbers which the United States or China or India enjoy. They have a far larger pool of school children. It stands to reason that their odds of producing thinkers and innovators are much shorter than us.

We cannot seriously compete on numbers. So we have to concentrate on quality. The question is: does our education system preserve or lengthen our odds in this game?

Let us examine our education system. It imposes standards and norms, whether of behaviour or achievement. This is not a criticism. It is a fact. From young, children are taught that there are prescribed methods of finding solutions.

You are made to believe that your test and examination results reflect your ability and potential. That has served the country well. But are we hurting our chances in the new world? I was not surprised when I read that the report by the National Youth Council suggested that many young Singaporeans feel that scoring "As" is enough to ensure them a bright future. Can you take these same people, who for 12 years have been told that they should play by long established rules and that grades are everything, and suddenly transform them into hungry and curious participants of the new economy?

Today's Straits Times carried a report that parents of pre-schoolers believe that discipline is more important than creativity. 80% of parents who were interviewed felt that pre-schoolers should have worksheets. This is not surprising. Singaporeans are very practical people. They have become system smart.

It is going to be a mammoth task to change the mindset of administrators, principals, teachers, parents who have so skilfully adapted themselves to the system and are very comfortable with the existing norms. Unless we make the effort and overcome the resistance, we will continue to have scores of school leavers who will see no sensible reason to stick their necks out or go against the flow.

Many of you will remember an athlete by the name of Richard Fosbury. Until 1968, for those who follow athletics, high jumpers moved from first to the fourth gear and then up they went over the bar. In 1968, Dick Fosbury came along and he did the unthinkable. He moved from first to third gear, and just before the bar, turned direction, engaged reverse gear, and soared over it. He won the gold medal but that is not as important as the fact that he changed the game. 4.15 pm

What are the chances of our system preserving the spark of a local Dick Fosbury? Consider this. In Mathematics, our children are taught that getting the right answer is not enough. The method must be right or marks will be deducted. He is taught that he has to stay in his lane. I am sure there is a good reason for that, but do you think that we are shortening or lengthening our odds?

We must move away from prescription and regurgitation in the schools. Children should be assessed not only on content, but also on the ability to think on their feet and around problems. The answer does not lie in giving them more projects. The sooner we realise it, the better because most of them will end up being done by the parents.

It is not going to be easy to develop a pool of entrepreneurs and a creative workforce. We need to find ways to preserve the potential of the very small numbers that we have. It will be a terrible waste if the education system continues to transform the street-smart into the system-smart.

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua (Marine Parade): Sir, we all appreciate the need to have clearly defined desired outcomes of education so that we will not stray from equipping our scarce human resources with the necessary skills for sustaining both our economy and society. We are also mindful of the competing demands for school time. Many an argument has been made to allocate more time to deserving needs, such as national education, inculcation of values, sex education and the list goes on.

I would now like to urge the Minister to seriously consider including technology as a compulsory subject, at least from the secondary school onwards. This is not just to make them entrepreneurs or Net savvy. This is because technology literacy now ranks as high as language literacy. Without a working knowledge of technology or specifically of computers and the Internet, we will be handicapped. The world is now a little smaller if we go by traditional means of acquiring knowledge, such as reading hard copies of newspapers and periodicals, books from the library and news over television. If we explore all that is at our disposal via the Internet, we get the opposite effect, that is, information overload, too many sources, too many channels and too many possibilities. But obviously, to operate and survive in a global economy, we cannot afford to limit our ability to do more and know more.

Hence, we should aim at ensuring that our students understand the Internet and related technology enough to navigate and choose. With technology literacy, they have a tool which they can exploit to maximise their own potential. Having computer-based education in schools is not quite the same nor good enough. Students probably regard the computer as a means to an end, say, completing a Mathematics lesson. Beyond the lesson, there is little understanding of how it works. Even if certain skills were picked up, such as logging on and logging off and the differences between the different disk drives, the emphasis is still very much on the content rather than the technology itself.

Sir, we all know that we are experiencing ever-changing needs for a knowledge-based and driven economy. There is no doubt that technology is ever-changing and we can never master it perfectly. But it will be far better to be a part of its evolution than to have a long lag after proper schooling.

I am asking for schools to incorporate the equipping of such skills in a timely fashion as curriculum proper and not be left as co- or extra-curricular activities, such as leaving IT club to teach web design.

Finally, I would like to raise a related issue regardless of how technology is introduced in schools and ask the Minister to help change the mindsets of those involved in technology-related education, from being a teacher to a facilitator, so as to allow innovation to spring forth spontaneously.

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang): (In Mandarin): Sir, in this budget, the Ministry of Education made out a long list of achievements in its educational ideals. However, from two recent incidents, I cannot help but ask myself what are the educational results that we have attained.

First, we have this random survey conducted by Dr Chan Han Ying of NUS which revealed that one-quarter of the Chinese students did not wish to be Chinese in their next life. On the other hand, the vast majority of Malay and Indian students wished to remain as Malays and Indians respectively in their next life.

Singapore has been implementing the unified education system and bilingual education for many years. All the students from the various ethnic groups are educated in the same educational system. How is it that there is a great difference in their basic sense of belonging for their ethnic groups? Some commentators felt that this was a result of the impact of western culture on Singapore and some people were saying that this was an inevitable result of Singapore's globalisation.

However, all the ethnic groups in Singapore are subjected to the same western culture and the same globalisation. How is it that the survey reveals that the inclination of the Chinese students is so different from that of the students from the other ethnic groups?

Over the last 30 years of nation building, all the policies of the Government have been such that the emphasis is on the use of English as the main stream. This has affected the Chinese community most. Apart from the language and the family traditions, there is no effective method under the Government's policy to nourish their sense of belonging to their own ethnic group. Unlike in the Malay community, when the Malays go to the mosque and attend the various activities connected therewith, their sense of belonging to their own ethnic group is strengthened, and the use of their language enhanced. On the other hand, apart from the Government's Speak Mandarin Campaign and some related activities, there is nothing very much in our social framework to make the ethnic Chinese in Singapore enhance their sense of belonging to their community.

Now with the education system turning to use English as the main medium of instruction, learning of English literature made compulsory in the secondary schools, and some schools offering European history rather than Asian history, many Chinese students have very limited knowledge of their own history and their own literature. No wonder they do not have a sense of belonging to their own racial group. I do not know whether the aims of our education system is such that we want to blur the students' sense of belonging for their own ethnic group in order to enhance their sense of belonging to Singapore as a nation.

The second incident was this report on 2nd March in the Straits Times that one top student from a neighbourhood school was originally from a well-known school. However, during his younger days, he committed a number of offences and had criminal convictions. As a result, many schools did not want to take him. Fortunately, this neighbourhood school admitted him and gave him a second chance. He seized the opportunity, turned over a new leaf, and scored many 'As' in his 'O' level examinations. While we are talking about a holistic approach to attain our educational ideals, some schools are using this unilateral policy. Some schools want to attain high ranking, and they are only concerned with students scoring good results for them to attain their target. To them, it is better that those students who do not behave well do not come as they may ruin the reputation of the school. If the mindset of the school administrators is such that they are so eager for quick results and instant benefits, then how can we expect them to educate our students in a holistic educational approach in order to attain the desired outcomes of our education policy?

Mr Inderjit Singh (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, our drive to develop a nation of entrepreneurs with the required creativity to invent and innovate and to inculcate the concept of life-long learning further reinforces the need for us to re-look at our current system of education which served the purposes of the nation in the past and, which in my opinion, requires changes in a number of areas if we are really serious about achieving these goals of developing every Singaporean to his or her full potential.

I believe that one of the key considerations of the education system that we have in place today is to achieve efficiency in the delivery of education and hence, we have been doing things like streaming, teacher postings, assessment, measurement of school performances and other like things. While from the point of view of the system and those managing the system, this looks very good and the outcomes of which are easily measurable, the negative impact is that we develop a nation of people who fit into just one model of success.

To develop a nation of entrepreneurs capable of participating in the knowledge economy, and I am not saying that every Singaporean needs to be an entrepreneur, but if you want to get a few of them, then we really need to set our sights into something very high. At least some of them will make it. We need to ensure that our people will always be able to adapt to changes by constantly learning new skills, and it is time that we took a serious look at how we should modify our education system. Because the impact of the education system will only be felt 10 to 15 years from the time it starts, in my opinion, the issue has also become an urgent one.

My question to the Minister is whether we are looking at the right models of education from around the world and to adapt the best practices to suit Singapore. In my opinion, our system basically trains our children for one-career model of life, very much like the traditional Chinese and Japanese systems which placed scholars among the top rung of society. As BG George Yeo recently put it in one of his speeches, such a system actually prevented the Chinese from exploiting the benefits of trade and new technology and, therefore, they are losing out in this competition to western countries. In my opinion, we really need to look at some western models in order to achieve the new outcomes of our education system.

Sir, without doubt, the Americans were the leaders for innovation, technology and economic development in the past century, better than any other nations around the world. Similarly, they will have an excellent chance to remain the leaders in this century. I therefore feel that it is about time we learned from the Americans and other western models of education, not to copy them wholesale, but to pick the best practices among them and develop our own model for Singapore. I really feel that we can learn a lot from their systems, which may not be the most efficient in the world, but do produce the results. So, what good does it do to score the highest marks in the Science and Mathematics competitions around the world when the desired outcomes of an education system cannot be achieved? So I suggest that we be prepared to give up some amount of efficiency in our system to achieve the end results for the country.

I also feel that we should re-look at the practice of early streaming of our children. This has been my pet topic for some time. The system basically divides our children into categories and put the people of the same capabilities in the same place and segregate people of differing talents. This is once again good for efficiency, but bad in that it does not allow our children to benefit from learning from people of differing talents. I strongly believe in the strength of diversity that if they can learn from people of different talents or different abilities, they probably would turn out to be better students or adults in the future. Our children are missing out on the important opportunity to learn from others.

Sir, all of us in this House, including the Minister, came through an education system that mixed people of differing abilities together for many years of our school system. I am sure that you must agree with me that the outcome has not been a bad one, where all of us have been able to compete effectively with the world's best countries. I would like to ask the Minister whether there is any other education system in the world that practises streaming in the way that we do here in Singapore.

Sir, if we are serious about the concept of life-long learning, then our current methods of measuring success and failure need to drastically change. It is more important to ensure that a student has learned the ability to learn in the future than to learn to score well in examinations and in doing so, achieving academic excellence which we very much want our children to achieve today. Learning to score well in examinations is not going to inculcate the value of life-long learning, so we really need to develop other measures of success in our education system. Similarly, the measures of creativity and EQ deserve more emphasis as we move ahead and ECA, project work and life experiences should feature strongly in our new measures of success. To be successful in the 21st century, we need to develop a more adaptable society, able to pick up new capabilities and skills all the time, and not just once in their lifetime. 4.30 pm

Finally, Sir, I am curious to know how the concept of mass customisation of our education system is working. The Minister announced this some time last year. The question I have is: is it really possible to implement the system? Perhaps the Minister can share with Members of this House how this system can be practically implemented.

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua: Sir, I would like to follow up on my colleague, Mr Inderjit Singh's theme to explore further afield for best practices in education. With the numerous developments on the education front as well as the fast-changing economy that we are trying to cater to, I would like to discuss the role of the private sector in education.

Currently, the private sector plays an active role in both the pre-school and university segments. There is a wide variety of choices on both fronts and within the desirable framework; families can decide the type of services they want for the children. However, the private sector, by and large, does not participate in the provision of primary, secondary and pre-university education for Singaporeans. Recently, the Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Tony Tan, mentioned possible alternative routes to university, including the International Baccalaureate (IB). Pending a complete review to see if it should be offered by schools across the board, can the private sector meet such demand in the interim, in particular, where students are unable to cope in the current school system, rather than to lose them, and possibly the parents as well, abroad? This could well provide a much appreciated alternative.

Dr Jennifer Lee (Nominated Member): Sir, I am going to start by begging your forbearance, because I am about to bring up two old subjects and, being new in the House, I have the advantage of not having heard the debates before. I will try however not to be too lengthy about it.

Sir, the single biggest stresser for Singaporean families is worry over their children's education. The Ministry of Education has, in recent years, introduced many admirable new initiatives. These include measures which address factors that contribute to the pressure on students, such as curriculum review with a view to decrease curriculum load and the review of university admission criteria to de-emphasise reliance on 'O' and 'A' level results.

When you talk to senior officers in MOE, they are enthused, convinced and sincere about these good efforts. When we talk to parents and teachers on the ground, however, we might be excused if we were to think that they were living in a different world. The pressure continues unabated. Why this incongruence? Because for all the good intentions and sincere efforts, certain fundamental issues have not been resolved.

Parents are anxious for their children on two counts. Firstly, they worry about their children being able to access tertiary education and hence, subsequently, earn a good living. Secondly, they worry about their children being labelled from an early age as slow, stigmatised, socialised differently in the system and written off as no- hopers. As the changes to the admission criteria start making their impact to the system, the first pressure point should ease. However, this takes time to happen. But the anxiety with regard to the early labelling of children will persist so long as we continue with our policy of streaming children as young as at primary four. The second pressure point remains as real as ever.

In the meantime, curriculum review notwithstanding, so long as ranking of schools remains, principals will continue to strive to push their schools up the academic ladder and apply pressure on teachers who will, in turn, continue to push their students. Even the additional refinement of measuring schools with most value added for their students, they still measure this value added in academic performance. No amount of exhortations that it is not necessary to push students to complete 110% of the curriculum by the first quarter of the year, so that the next two quarters can be spent on revision and drills, and no amount of assurances that other achievements also count, will have any effect so long as the Ministry continues to rank schools on their academic results.

Principals and teachers will continue to be convinced that their assessment, progress and promotions are tied to the academic results of their pupils and institutions. The pressure will not let up. I am not at all denying or dismissing all the benefits and advantages of ranking and streaming. There were obviously good reasons why they were introduced in the first place. But as in any policies, there are always two sides to the balance. It is a matter of which side of the balance sits heavier. And as time progresses, sometimes the balance shifts. For ranking, on one side is the ability to benchmark and assess the schools, and provide parents with information on how the schools rate. On the other side is the unhealthy competition that this engenders, and the resulting pressures that go right through the system. The question is truly: what would we lose if we were to drop the system of ranking schools?

For streaming, on one side is the purported ability to identify children who would otherwise not be able to cope, to help them with the less demanding load. On the other side is the labelling of the children at an early age with all the attendant consequences, to their self-esteem, the loss of opportunities open to other children not so labelled, and the loss to the system of late developers, and the loss of the diversity, which Mr Inderjit Singh has just referred to. The question is truly: is there no other way to help along slower children but to segregate them in this manner?

I know the Minister has received many calls in the past to review the policies of ranking and streaming, but I will venture to ask him to do so again. I believe it is time, the balance has tipped, because the pressures are weighing very heavily on the other side. I am sure that many Members of the Frontbench would also agree if only they were not constrained by the solidarity required of their positions.

Sir, my plea to the Minister is to please pause, throw out previous pre-conceptions and premises, and review these two policies. Before I end, Sir, I would also like to take the opportunity to invite the press to make their contribution towards easing off on this undue adulation of academic results. We have just missed an opportunity as this year's 'O' and 'A' results have just been released. But from next year, I suggest to them to propose a blackout on coverage of the top students in the PSLE, 'O' and 'A' level examinations. All they are going to disappoint are a few proud parents, but it would be their contribution in the cause of promoting a saner society less preoccupied with the paper chase.

Mr Hawazi Daipi (Sembawang): Sir, one of the desired outcomes of education is to have the young generation of Singaporeans to be prepared as knowledge workers of the future. The Ministry launched the IT Masterplan to equip our young with skills for the knowledge-based economy. IT skills are tools that should help our students learn better and develop the ability to apply what they have learnt. To be able to teach students these skills, obviously we need teachers who are knowledgeable in the use of computers and have IT skills. We know that the Ministry has a plan to train teachers in the use of the computer and IT skills. What has been the progress in this area? Have there been problems in training the older teachers?

Sir, I applaud the IT Masterplan of the Ministry because it allows our students to learn skills that they must have to operate in the KBE era, irrespective of whether their families own computers at home or not. The plan allows our students to level up together. But to ensure that students who do not have computers at home have equal chance to learn and practise IT skills, we must have enough computers in schools for them to use and practise. The long-term plan of the Ministry is to equip every two students with a computer. Are we anywhere near the target? Do all schools, especially neighbourhood schools, have equal opportunities to teach IT skills to their students?

Teachers too will be supplied with notebook computers at a ratio of one computer for every two teachers. Can teachers really share computers when they have to prepare lessons and reports using the MOE-supplied laptops? Sir, I would like the Minister to give us an update on the IT Masterplan for schools which has been implemented for the past two years.

Dr Wang Kai Yuen: Sir, on this cut, I would like to address two topics, namely, single session schools and primary one priority allocation.

Sir, a major step was taken on 2nd January this year by MOE when all remaining double session secondary schools were converted to single session schools. It is a significant conversion that took place quietly without causing any disruptions. Conceptually, a conversion of this scale would require having twice as many schools this year compared to last year. That the schools were able to do so in a clean sweep point to the tremendous amount of planning and effort that have gone behind the scene.

Sir, now that the school children have greater access to the school facilities, I would urge the teachers and students to make full use of the facilities. We should avoid carrying on business as usual. We should aim to make attending school a more enriching experience for them. Furthermore, we should aim, through core curriculum activities, to create common educational experience that will imprint the Singapore value on these students.

I would like to find out from the Minister whether the Ministry is monitoring how schools are adapting to the single session schools and whether he is satisfied with the situation. I understand that there is some resistance from some parents regarding single session school, because they have grown used to half day schools. Many had made use of the half days to send their children to other enrichment programmes and part-time religious education programmes such as part-time madrasahs. For these students, single session schools actually take away their half days that they used to have.

Sir, on this point, I think it is useful to point out that half day schools are actually not the norm in most countries. In fact, half day schools in Singapore are left-overs from the time when the nation experienced a rapid population growth in its early days of nationhood. Now that we are back to the norm, it is up to the parents and teachers to fully exploit the opportunity to benefit our students.

Sir, on the allocation of primary one places, the recent case of Michael Ong who wrote to the Minister regarding his long school day struck a chord with many people. Many questions were asked. Why should pupils spend so much time on commuting, for instance? Should not the pupils in general be allocated schools closer to their homes? In Michael Ong's case, his father actually has clarified their position. Nevertheless, his case highlighted the unique primary one allocation scheme in Singapore. Under this scheme, parents sometimes would go to the extreme to get their children enrolled into their choice schools. I wonder whether the Minister will review the scheme to see whether it is still relevant or whether it could still be further improved.

Mr Kenneth Chen Koon Lap: Sir, the Ministry of Education has initiated a change in the direction of the school curriculum towards a more open and creative path. The change proves to be most timely in view of the demand on more creative line in the IT age. The emphasis on creativity would enable us to prepare our younger generation to face the new challenge of the demand posted by the rapid development in the Internet and IT. The policy is already in place for a few years. I would like to know from the Minister the progress made so far and whether there is a need to implement more changes in view of the fast pace of changes. I would also like to know how the schools as well as the students and the teachers are responding to the change. I have received feedback both from teachers and parents that although the policy is in place, the implementation is hampered by the fact that the rigid system of recognising the achievement of the students based purely on the academic performance still remains. The entrance to schools, junior colleges, the polytechnics or even the universities is still based strictly on the grades achieved. One point short of what is required, he is out. For many, their career is over. No consideration is given to ECA performance. It is not important how committed the student has been or how good leadership he has shown. Therefore, some of the parents have told their children not to be too active in taking part in many ECAs, but to concentrate more on their study as taking part in more ECAs may affect their academic results. 4.45 pm

The ranking of schools also led to some principals to demand that their students obtain the highest academic results at all costs in order to make the school look good. With this mindset still prevailing, can the Minister tell us how can we ensure that the education of our students be more open and creative, learn how to think instead of how to memorise in order to remain relevant in this fast changing world?

Mdm Claire Chiang See Ngoh (Nominated Member): Sir, I have six suggestions for making secondary school life a little more interesting for the total development of students. These came from teachers and students whom I had conversations with. I notice in the gallery there are some young minds. I hope they listen to this closely. These suggestions are not about Internet and technology or technopreneurship. It is more about nurturing the self, connecting the self with community, about developing emotional intelligence and multiple intelligences.

Sir, the ages of 13-16 are the most restless, rebellious and uncertain. Students in this age cohort do not need more structures and conformity in their learning experience. They need diversity, creativity and application of their talents and interactive relationship to enjoy the learning process.

These suggestions are:

(1) Regularise internship programmes in secondary schools. Students are getting bored with simply staying in schools. They are restless and want to get connected with the reality of work. Can we encourage a tie-up between schools and private as well as public sectors which provide internship programmes for secondary 3 and 4 students so that they learn the values of work, leadership and organisation of management by shadowing a manager and observing board meetings, etc. We could credit the hours spent with an organisation as part of character development component or as an extra-curricular credit. I had the opportunity to experiment this with Raffles Girls Secondary School and with Nanyang Girls School. It had proven to be mutually satisfying.

(2) Develop mentoring programmes. Students love to hear stories and old people love to tell them. Could we encourage old persons, not necessarily teachers, to speak to students or work with them on specific programmes? Story-telling as an art form is a new teaching method that should be encouraged and it is best done by an interesting and educated elderly person.

(3) Writing neighbourhood stories. As part of nation-building programmes, students should be encouraged to write stories about their homes and neighbourhood, including the CDCs and other social institutions within the vicinity that they live in. This exercise offers enriching essay writing materials and it helps to plug our students to the real life of Singapore. The Joo Chiat story published by Joo Chiat CCC was a case in point. If students were invited to participate in the project, I am sure they would have enjoyed that thoroughly and it would be a good bonding process between students and their neighbourhood.

(4) Student mix in overseas field trips. I have read a number of reports by students who have been abroad with their schools to do community work. The experiences that they have accumulated were invaluable and I hope the Ministry will expand the subsidies to include more students from the neighbourhood schools to go on such trips. It would probably be a good experiment to mix a SAP school and a neighbourhood school in such a field trip to achieve social integration at some level among students from different backgrounds.

(5) Community service. I have asked for more community service for students in other sittings. So I shall not belabour the point here. I hope the Ministry will review this in a concerted manner with the National Council of Social Service and neighbourhood community agencies to render the experience a fruitful community bonding process so that students will experience the growth of a community and how they can contribute.

Lastly, the implementation of the revised criteria into NUS and NTU will shift the emphasis from a purely academic criteria to one which encourages total development of the individual. This direction, I hope, will moderate the school of thought that believes in getting distinctions as the "be all and end all" of all students. I hope the Government's continued emphasis on merit and scholarships will be looked into. While we want to nurture the creme de la creme of the nation, this should not be over emphasised at the expense of the majority who are non-scholars. I am glad to hear that MOE was looking into developing niche areas like sports as a desirable outcome in student development. By broadening the school curriculum to include interesting bits that are non-academic in nature, we reap the benefit of discovering and strengthening the diversity of talents in our student population.

The Minister for Education (RAdm Teo Chee Hean): Thank you, Sir, for allowing me to come into the debate at this point in time. There are many cuts and I think I will take the cuts as they come along so that we can have a better exchange. First of all, I would like to thank Members for their comments and suggestions. As usual, there is quite a diversity of views, not all of them are consistent with each other. If I implemented all of them, we will have quite an argument over whose view would prevail.

Sir, over the past two weeks, there has been extensive debate in the House on how Singapore can continue to thrive in the "new" economy. Education has been cited as one of the factors critical to Singapore's success.

Dr Wang Kai Yuen, Dr Tan Boon Wan, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua and Mr Davinder Singh and others have asked how the Ministry of Education (MOE) is going to help our young meet the requirements of the new economy. Have we changed the education system? Is our education system suitable or not?

First of all, let me say that our education system is a remarkably strong one. It is a strong one for our good students. It is also a strong one for our weak students. Some Members have asked whether we have looked at the systems in other parts of the world, and the answer is yes. One of the things that I have consciously done, and which I have encouraged the officers in the Ministry to do, is to go and look at what others are doing. I would say that after looking, I still come to the conclusion that our education is one of the strongest in the world, catering to the weak students as well as to the strong students. While we may criticise our education system and, very often, we are our own harshest critics, and it is as it should be, we should remember that it is a system that substantially works very well and that when we make adaptations to it, it is to strengthen the system and to make it better, and not to dismantle the whole system and throw away parts of it which really are working very well and which many other countries are coming to Singapore to have a look at. When I visit other countries I ask them as many questions as they ask me. So bear that in mind when we discuss our education system.

Over the past few years, the Ministry of Education has taken a hard look at what we are doing. Re-examining and re-affirming fundamental beliefs and practices where these are still relevant, and setting in place necessary changes to take our education system to the next stage of development.

[Mr Deputy Speaker in the Chair]

4.55 pm

The Minister for Education (RAdm Teo Chee Hean): In January 1998, the Ministry published the Desired Outcomes of Education, which set out the end-objectives of formal education. These outcomes encapsulate the skills and values which are important for our young to have, not just in the new economy, but also in the new globalised world. How do we keep our people as one, united and cohesive? We have also introduced measures to bring us closer to achieving the Desired Outcomes. These include:

Initiating key programmes, such as the IT Masterplan, National Education, and the Community Involvement Programme.

Changing the way that we assess students and appraise schools to re-orientate the focus of the education system; basically changing what counts. Because if we do not change what counts, then the behaviour, as many Members have pointed out, will continue to be the same. But we have to strike a balance between what counts. Among the things that count I think that it is still important for students to do well. It is still important for them to do well in examinations. If we want to be creative, we have to start from some basis. An architect cannot design a house if he does not understand the mechanics and the basic relationships between things. The house may not stand. So we have to have the basics upon which we can build so that people do have a platform from which to lead further forward. One example that we have changed is the new university admission system which moves away from the current reliance on the `A' level examinations towards a more well-rounded evaluation of a person's ability and potential. Other areas that we have introduced to recognise other areas of achievement are Edusave Awards for Sports, the Arts and Community Service.

Last year, I also shared with Members the important shift we are making in the education system, from an efficiency-driven system to an ability-driven paradigm. Under this new paradigm, the emphasis will be on developing and harnessing of the talents and abilities of every child, to the maximum extent possible, through a mass customised approach in Education.

Mr Inderjit Singh has asked whether it is really possible to mass customise education. To some extent, our education system is already mass customised. Since 1980, we have ability-based streaming. This has provided opportunities for students of different aptitudes to learn at a pace that they are comfortable with. I know that many Members have raised a number of times, Dr Lee for the first time for herself, but many times for the rest of us, about streaming. Actually, streaming has provided the opportunity for students of different abilities and aptitudes to progress and do well in education where otherwise they may have dropped out. The statistics are there to be seen. In 1980, before streaming, nearly 24% of the P1 cohort attained 5 O' levels or more. With streaming, the proportion attaining at least 5 O' levels has increased. It was 59% last year. So streaming has allowed many more of our students to benefit from the education system whereas otherwise they might have not. Because if we have a system in which everybody is forced to take four years to take the 'O' level and it is the only benchmark, then many people would not be able to do it.

In our system today, if you can do it in four years, you do it in four years. If you need five years, you do it in five years. If 'O' level is not your cup of tea, and you are more inclined towards something practical and so on, there are other programmes that you can take, and you can move on to post-secondary education and further education, and there are cross-over paths. So the doors are not closed.

I think Mr Inderjit Singh is probably looking at the past with rose-tinted spectacles. If I recall, when I was in school, we always had people being collected in classes of different abilities. We have "A" class, "B" class, "C" class and so forth. I am not sure which school Mr Inderjit Singh went to. But most of us have been to schools where that has been the practice. Teaching students in a mixed ability group poses considerable problems because some students would be bored, some cannot cope and the teachers would not know where to pitch the lesson. But outside the class, in other settings, the students work together, play together and mix together. I remember in my school, we idolised the sportsmen. They may not have been the top in academic performance but they were the top in sports. So there was a mixing and mutual respect among the different students.

Mass customisation of education has also taken place in other ways. We have introduced programmes to cater to groups of students with special abilities or who need more support. For example, we have elective programmes in languages, art and music already. We have the learning support programme for P1 and P2 students to boost their English proficiency level because some of the students come to P1 and P2 and have difficulty with the language. And because of difficulty with the language, they have difficulty with the other subjects. So we have managed to mass customise for these children so that we can boost their reading age and the programme has been quite successful. 5.00 pm

As some Members have pointed out, the Ministry is also encouraging autonomous schools to develop niche areas to nurture the talents and abilities of their students, and has widened the entry requirements so that those with talent and interest in these niche areas, but who may not have qualified strictly on academic results, can still gain admission. So this is another signal that there are other things which can be considered other than pure academic results. But, do not forget, academic results are still important.

The next several years in Education will focus on the implementation of strategies and plans to encourage further mass customisation of education on a wider scale, so as to bring about ability-driven education in schools.

Dr Wang has asked what are our areas of priorities. I will focus on the four key areas that we are working on. They are: hardware and infrastructure; the curriculum; school management; and people.

Let me, first, touch briefly on hardware and infrastructure. Dr Wang and Mr Hawazi Daipi have asked about the progress of the Single Session Programme for secondary schools and the IT Masterplan.

I am pleased to inform Members that with the exception of four secondary schools whose transition to the single session system is tied to the completion of their new school buildings, MOE has met its target of having all secondary schools go single-session by this year.

Implementation of the IT Masterplan is also progressing as planned. It is currently at the half-way mark, and thus far has met all its targets, and this has put Singapore really at the forefront in the world in terms of readiness of our schools, teachers and students for IT. I will ask Mr Peter Chen to elaborate on the status of these two programmes a little later.

Sir, putting in place the hardware and infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient. We also need to ensure that the "software" in our education system is aligned to the Desired Outcomes. Let me mention two at this point - the curriculum and school management.

The Desired Outcomes spell out the general attributes which our young should possess at the end of each stage of formal education. But these outcomes need to be translated into specific skills and values which the curriculum will deliver.

The Ministry has spent some time, over the past year, thinking through and distilling from the Desired Outcomes, the set of core skills and values which schools should aim to develop in their students. I would ask the Clerk of Parliament to please distribute the handout. [Copies of handout distributed to hon. Members.].

Eight core skills and values have been identified. They are: Character Development; Self-Management Skills; Social and Cooperative Skills; Literacy and Numeracy Skills; Communication Skills; Information Skills; Knowledge Application Skills; and Thinking Skills and Creativity.

I am told that this is [indicating] supposed to look like a tree, with the leaves up there, and the stem and the branches. So basically what happens is that the core skills are the ones which are the horizontal bars at the bottom and they are taught, delivered through the curriculum, which are vertical bars, and the tree grows and flowers into the Desired Outcomes of Education.

They are being used now as part of the framework for the revision of the various syllabuses which is now ongoing.

Mr Iswaran, Mr Kenneth Chen, and Mr Davinder Singh have all raised issues related to how we can achieve this, in particular, the progress made by the Ministry in developing thinking skills and creativity, and strengthening National Education in schools.

First, thinking skills and creativity. Since last year, we have implemented the Thinking Skills programme in all secondary schools, and it has worked well. Students now apply these thinking skills to the learning of the different subjects in the curriculum. The feedback that we have received has been positive - the programme has helped the students to enhance their ability to think rationally about issues, to approach problems creatively, and to make decisions confidently based on sound judgement.

Besides the Thinking Skills programme, the Ministry is also introducing Inter-disciplinary Project Work to all schools over this year and next year. And eventually when the system has settled down and we are confident of it, it will become a requirement for entrance to university. Through such project work, students get to appreciate the inter-connectedness of disciplines, acquire useful problem-solving and communication skills, and learn to work in teams, all of which help to develop their creative capacity. As Mr Davinder Singh suggests, parents will then do the projects for the students. There is not much that I can do about it. Parents can do the homework for their children too. I think parents have to allow their children to learn on their own and to grow and develop.

Two years ago, I informed this House that we had made a cut in the current syllabuses while a comprehensive review of the syllabuses for all subjects is carried out. The revised syllabuses and instructional materials, which will give greater emphasis to the development of critical and creative thinking skills, and these core skills and values will be rolled out from next year.

Let me now turn to National Education. This programme was implemented in schools since 1997. Within the formal curriculum, National Education is incorporated into Social Studies, History, Geography and a few other subjects. This is reinforced by the many programmes and activities which students take part in. Our students now commemorate events like Racial Harmony Day and International Friendship Day. They also participate in activities, such as Learning Journeys, where they visit key national institutions such as sewerage treatment plants and refuse disposal plants. These are all very instructive when you go and visit these plants, and you get to learn what are the constraints of living in a city and how and why the streets are clean and the air is fresh, and we have quite a healthy city. Through these activities, they learn about respect and tolerance for Singaporeans of different race and religion, and acquire a deeper understanding and appreciation of the challenges, constraints and vulnerabilities facing Singapore.

As part of National Education, our students also take part in the Community Involvement Programme, where they undertake projects to serve the community. We can debate about whether the number of hours is enough and so on. But that is a question of degree. Last year, more than 400 of our JC and CI students participated in community projects outside of Singapore, in regional countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and Nepal. This was very successful and we are working together with other agencies to see how we can expand this.

The National Education programme has contributed greatly to a stronger social conscience and our students have come to value and appreciate the good life they enjoy in Singapore and not to take things for granted.

As with the National Education programme, many of the core skills and values are best learned not in the classroom but through activities outside the classroom. Someone might develop another Fosbury flop. You never know.

MOE's recent move to re-name "Extra-Curricular Activities" as Co-Curricular Activities is to send a strong signal to our principals, teachers, students and their parents that such activities are no longer "extra", but are an integral part of the curriculum and the development of the students and the children.

We have also reinforced this emphasis on Co-Curricular Activities through other initiatives, such as the introduction of Sustained Achievement Awards for schools, and a new category of Edusave awards, I mentioned earlier, for sports, arts and community service.

The community too can play its part in promoting participation in co-curricular activities - I think a suggestion raised by Mdm Claire Chiang, she said only six, I wish she had more. The schools, I am sure, if they find them interesting and useful, will take them up.

While we can put in place key programmes like Thinking Skills and National Education, and delineate core skills and values which the curriculum should deliver, and encourage participation in areas which help to develop these core skills and values, there is no set formula for achieving the Desired Outcomes. Every child is different. Each school has to decide how best to meet the needs of its students.

Given that curriculum time and resources are limited, it is important for school leadership to recognise that it is not possible for them and their teachers to do everything that might be beneficial to students - even with single session schools. With single session schools, the temptation to do ever more and more in the schools is very, very great. But trying to do too much within the school curriculum and in the schools can be counter-productive. Students and teachers will be overburdened. They need some space and some time. So schools need to prioritise to ensure that the workload for students and teachers remains manageable.

To help schools do so, the Ministry is working out guidelines on how the different subjects and activities which make up the curriculum today contribute to developing the eight core skills and values. The guidelines will be made known to schools later this year. And this helps the schools to manage their time and allocate their resources more effectively.

I move now to school management. We are unlikely to produce creative students unless we have innovative schools. So the processes have to change. I agree with the Members who have spoken on the subject. It is important to have the right systems and policies in place in managing the schools.

The Ministry recognises that mass customisation requires a judicious mix of national policies as well as local adaptations and initiatives. For example, we have an Education Innovation Fund which was started at the end of 1998. There are 20-over projects running. Schools can apply for it, and they can try things. There are also Cluster Funds. Schools can draw on these resources and try things, and we encourage them. Schools know the needs of their students better and also what their teachers are capable of. Hence, we plan to steadily give schools more autonomy:

First, the School Cluster scheme will be rolled out to another 82 schools this year. They add to the 168 schools which are already grouped in 20 clusters. The scheme, I think, has been well-received by the schools, and it will be eventually extended to all schools. When that is finished, there will be about 40 clusters altogether.

Second, MOE will double the number of autonomous schools from the current number of 18, in the coming years. Autonomous schools will be given greater flexibility in their student intake to help them develop into schools of distinction in selected niche areas. By doing so, we hope that they will spark new ideas and help uplift the quality of the entire school system; and

Third, we are also reviewing how the Ministry HQ can be better organised to support schools. We are not quite prepared yet to allow more private sector involvement in the primary and the secondary school sectors, although we have independent schools.

As we give schools more autonomy, we need to ensure that their efforts are directed towards achieving the Desired Outcomes.

To help schools focus on the Desired Outcomes and to reflect on what they are doing, the Ministry has adopted the School Excellence Model for all schools this year. The Model broadens the scope of the way schools are appraised, by moving beyond academic grades to school achievements in other areas which contribute to the Desired Outcomes. Emphasis is given not only to results but the processes applied to achieving the results.

Again, there has been extended discussion on ranking. We are not the only people to do ranking. We did not invent this idea. In fact, ranking was going on in many other countries already before we started. In fact, our ranking is a very mild ranking system. We do not rank primary schools at all. Some countries do. We only rank the top 40 or 50 secondary schools, not all 160 or 170 of them. So it is a very mild form of ranking by comparison with the ranking in other places. In many states in the United States, they are adopting ranking with a vengeance. They rank schools from the top to the bottom, every single one of them. In the US and the UK, the avowed aim of ranking in some places is to name and shame, so that schools will buck up and get on with the work that they are supposed to be doing. 5.15 pm

So our ranking system is a very, very mild one, and it serves a very useful purpose. You will want to know, and parents want to know if there are two schools which have roughly the same resources, the same students at entry, and they produce quite different results. Any sensible system of management must know that such differences have occurred and it will want to know why and find out so that best practices can be transferred from one school to another. If we do not have a system for measuring such things, it will all be hit and miss. There will be no method of knowing what happens. And in any case, it is a fiction to believe that if we do not rank schools, people do not know. Everybody knows. Before we ranked schools, people knew which schools were at the top and which schools were not at the top. It is a fiction to believe that if the newspapers stop reporting on who the top student is, nobody will know who the top student is. These are things which parents legitimately want to know and we should help them to know and provide them the information rather than hiding the information from them in the belief that if we did so, they would not know and nobody would know.

I would like to thank Mr Ong Ah Heng for his comments on the School Excellence Model. I agree with him that it will take time to change the culture in schools, and the perception of teachers and parents. Feedback from the schools which participated in the field-testing of the School Excellence Model has generally been positive. There are of course one or two little things which have to be resolved. The schools have found the Model to be a useful tool for carrying out self-appraisal of how well they are achieving the Desired Outcomes, and they have also found it useful in integrating and prioritizing the different initiatives in the school. It has helped them to re-orientate the outlook of their teachers, to view education provided by the different departments in the school in a more holistic and inter-connected way.

With the measures mentioned earlier to give schools more autonomy, and the School Excellence Model in place to guide them towards achieving the Desired Outcomes, the Ministry of Education is confident that we can further mass customise to bring about ability-driven education in our schools, and create an innovative culture.

Last but not least, the Ministry will continue to give every support to our principals, teachers, and our HQ officers as well, sometimes they are very much maligned to do their jobs well. To solve that problem, we post the HQ officers and the teachers back and forth. There is a natural tendency for people in the headquarters to say, "Well, the people in the schools really don't know what they are doing. You give them a simple instruction, they can't follow." And the people in the schools would say the people in headquarters really do not know what they are doing either because how could they possibly give such an instruction, unless they are totally ignorant of what is happening in the school. The way to solve it is to post them back and forth. So in the end, they end up scolding themselves. That will solve the problem. Several Members are scheduled to speak later on the subject of teachers. So I will elaborate on the people issues after I have had the benefit of their views and suggestions.

A number of Members have asked how would we know how successful we are. What are the benchmarks? There are quantitative measures, such as ranking, comparisons internationally, and so on. But there are others, perhaps more long term, more intangible measures, but more important ones which we may not be able to measure very well. Will our people remain employable in the future? Will we really be able to venture forth with new inventions, technopreneurs, and so on? It is very hard to measure that and attribute it and make the connection directly with the education system.

Will our nation remain cohesive and united? The education system has a part to play in it but it is not the only player. Some of these things are intangible and imponderable and we will not know. We will know when we will have succeeded, we will know when we will fail, but to try and measure it along the way is not so easy. But as Members have said, we cannot stand still. The world is changing, the environment around us is changing. So we must move on.

Sir, to conclude this section, when I visit schools, the principals and teachers I have spoken to have welcomed the increased autonomy as being timely. They see it as an opportunity to bring out more from every child, to raise the quality of education to a new level. This augurs well for the future.

My colleagues and I in the Ministry HQ will give them our full support. But our efforts alone will not be enough. We will also need parents, the community, and in particular, Members of this House, to continue to give their support and ideas as we strive to help them meet the challenges of the new economy.

I will request Mr Peter Chen to give an update on the IT Masterplan.

The Chairman: Mr Inderjit Singh wants to clarify.

Mr Inderjit Singh: Sir, as far as I remember, we have no streaming in our primary school. The only time I got segregated from the rest of my classmates was after my PSLE examination. And the next streaming was at secondary 3 when we were streamed to Science or Arts stream. So the system that I went through did not have any streaming until the PSLE. So I actually cannot understand the system that he went through.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: We have been in schools and there have always been A classes, B classes and C classes. That also is a form of ability streaming. I am sure that the school that Mr Inderjit Singh went to must have had some form of that too.

Mr Inderjit Singh: To clarify, the day that I went into my class, we never streamed after that. In fact, I cannot remember whether it was A or B. But we went through that together, none of my classmates got segregated into the various streams as we went along. Yes, it might have been A or B. But we had nothing to measure how we were streamed into A or B the day that we went into primary 1.

Dr Wang Kai Yuen: It seems this is clarification time. May I get the Minister's clarification on my comment on the requirement for the 3rd year medical students having to resit their examinations?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: My apologies. There were two points that Dr Wang raised, one was the third year medical students examination. The other one was P1 registration. P1 registration is a very complex matter. We try to strike a balance between many, many factors. If Dr Wang has any suggestion on how I can solve this problem, please tell me and I will implement it straightaway.

On the 3rd year medical examinations I think this is a matter which I will leave to the university. The university has to take these things seriously and I am sure they do, and the academic matters are matters for the university to settle. And they have to make sure that the integrity, the reliability of the assessment system that they have including the examination is maintained and the people have confidence. So this is a matter which I will leave to the university to resolve and I am confident that they will get to the bottom of this. If there is a mistake made, they will correct it and they will restore the confidence in the system.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, the Minister has not responded to my speech. I do not know whether he is going to respond.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: I am unable to respond to Mr Low's speech because he made some very general remarks, some of which can be attributable to the education system, but some of which cannot. So I am not quite sure how to respond to his speech. It seems to me that Mr Low was suggesting that we go back to a segregated education system where we put emphasis on Chinese, and so forth. We had a long debate in this House on SAP schools, and whether they are suitable or not. I am not sure what Mr Low was suggesting.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, in fact, I asked a specific question as to whether the survey that I referred to is part of the desired outcomes that the Ministry aims to have and whether it is the objective of the Ministry to promote a sense of national identity and thereby minimise the ethnic identity. It is specific.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Sir, this was not a survey conducted by the Ministry. So I am unable to comment on the detailed results. But whether or not we want to build national identity, the answer is yes. Whether we want to have the students understand their ethnic roots, the answer is yes. But if I heard Mr Low correctly, he was asking to go further than that. He was asking why we have not done more for the Chinese sense of identity, and he was attributing it to our teaching English in the schools, and so on. I am not sure exactly what Mr Low is suggesting. But it seems to me that he was suggesting quite a departure from what we have as principles in our national education system and perhaps even advocating going back to where we were in the 50s. I would not support that.

Dr Jennifer Lee: I just want to follow up on Mr Inderjit Singh's point because it seems in response to me the Minister has said that there were a lot of benefits after streaming came in. The results became a lot better. In response to Mr Inderjit, he said that there was streaming before in the form of A, B and C classes. So I am not sure what was the streaming before, in whatever form, or was there no streaming before, and therefore all those good results, were they that clearly identifiable to streaming in the way that we have it now. The other point which I want to say is: is there not some other way of helping the slow students apart from this very clear and distinct segregation?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Mr Inderjit Singh was making the point that students were never segregated in any way by ability. And the point that I was making is that that is not true. That has been going on for quite a long time in the schools as it goes on in practically every school system that I know of. Specifically, on streaming, the time that I was going to school and probably the time Mr Inderjit was going to school, I am not sure how much younger he is, we did not have such a wide variety in streaming. In fact, for many of the students who were unable to cope, they just simply dropped out.

In fact, as recently as seven years ago, before we introduced the Normal (Technical) stream in the secondary schools, something like 15% of our students were not going to secondary schools, because they went to Primary 6, did not do well, went to Primary 7 and Primary 8. And some of them went to the old VITB, and some left and went to the workforce. But with the Normal (Technical) stream, for example, in our secondary schools, these students now have the opportunity to go to secondary schools when they otherwise might not have. In these four years in the secondary school, they get a much stronger foundation in Mathematics, in Science, in language, which allows them to go on to post-secondary education. Mr Peter Chen is very proud of the fact that something like 75% of them have gone on to ITE, something which they would not have been able to do before.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, I thought the Minister would not want to respond because the survey was not conducted by the Ministry or not related to the Government. But the second part of my speech is related to the Ministry, ie, the school's attitude towards students and failing to give students a second chance. Is their attitude going to be helpful in bringing out the results of the Desired Outcomes of Education?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: In the particular case of this student, he did go to school and he did get very good results. So I am not sure what point Mr Low is making.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, the point is that there were schools which refused to accept him. Of course, he went to school at the end of the day. But the fact is that he has gone through quite a lot of schools and obviously there were schools which had the attitude that since he had this problem, it was better for them not to accept him. Is this the right attitude of the schools?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Mr Low was making a general point that these people do not have a second chance. This young man had a second chance and he did very well in school. And I am very happy for him. When students run into difficulties, they sometimes find it better to move to another school, to a new environment, where they can make a fresh start. That may be a sensible thing to do, than to continue in the school that he is currently in. And sometimes because of that, they blossom, they solve their problems and they do well. If that is the case, then that is good. Sometimes, when meeting students who have had difficulties in the past, the principals would want to talk to the students and the parents and say, "Look, are you willing to buckle down, resolve not to get into the difficulties that you had in the past, buckle down and get down to work? If you are, come. If you are not, even if you come to this school or that school and you continue with your past practices, you are not going to do well." When faced with such a choice, sometimes they buckle down, and they get down to work. They get their second chance and they do well. Sometimes, they do not. 5.30 pm

The Chairman: Order. RAdm Teo, I think that is enough. We have to proceed.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: One more clarification, Sir.

The Chairman: All right. Just one more.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Will there be a situation whereby every school will say that the student refuses to buckle down? Is it possible that a student who may have made some mistakes in the past could end up with no school to go to?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: If there are students who wish to continue with their education and no school would admit them, please let me know. I know of no such case. But if there are students who do not take their education seriously, they go to school and create difficulties, not just for the school but for the other students, and make it difficult for the other students to study, then, I would think very carefully about whether or not we want to insist on having that student attend school and sit in the class. I have received many letters from parents on subjects like that too, complaining," Why did you allow this student to continue in this class where my child is because he is creating a nuisance?" But the schools actually try very hard to allow the students to stay. The teachers are very compassionate and they try their very best to do so.

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Mr Peter Chen): Sir, thank you for finally allowing me to come in at this stage to speak on behalf of my Minister.

Sir, over the last few years, the Ministry of Education has rolled out various initiatives to put in place hardware and infrastructure that will support our schools in bringing about an ability-driven education. I will now take this opportunity to share with Members our progress in some of these initiatives.

Mr Hawazi Daipi has asked about the status of the Masterplan for IT in Education that was launched in 1997. The Masterplan, which is being implemented in three phases, has met all its targets thus far:

Phase 1 involving 22 schools has been completed.

Phase 2, involving another 108 schools, will be completed by the middle of this year. These schools are fully-networked and have access to MOE's Intranet, the Internet and Singapore ONE. Start-up targets for students to computer ratio have also been met. I wish to explain here that the target that has been met is the start-up target, and for secondary schools and junior colleges, the ratio is 5 students to 1. The Ministry of Education will review the need to go beyond this particular ratio. We will go beyond this ratio when we are satisfied that the equipment can be fully made use of.

There is also some concern that neighbourhood schools may not have enough computers for their use. I would like to point out also that although the overall ratio is 5:1, there are some segments in our schools, and in particular the Normal (Technical) Stream, the ratio is much, much better than that. It is a matter of need, and whether or not the equipment can be well used.

There is also some concern expressed that teachers themselves may not have enough computers. I would like to point out that there is a computer purchase scheme for teachers. Under the scheme for desktops, teachers pay 80% of the cost, with MOE subsidising the balance, and if it is a laptop or notebook, teachers pay only 60% of the cost, the rest being borne by the Ministry. To date, there are 8,000 teachers who have taken advantage of the scheme. All this has enabled about 15% of formal curriculum time in these schools to be IT-enriched.

Full implementation of the third and final phase of the Masterplan for the remaining schools has already begun, and is scheduled to finish in the next few years.

With the setting up of a central unit to source, review and recommend suitable resources, schools can now purchase from a wide selection of courseware and electronic resources. In areas where there is a lack of good educational software in the market, the Ministry has collaborated with local industry to produce the software.

A whole-school approach has been adopted in the training of teachers to create a critical mass of teachers who are IT-savvy and help the IT culture take root more quickly in schools. We have so far completed IT training for 6,500 teachers in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 schools. By September this year, another 15,500 teachers in the Phase 3 schools will be IT-trained. Teachers receive an average of 40 hours of training in IT.

There is also some concern expressed whether or not the older teachers may be able to cope with it. I would also like to point out that under the training programme, there is an arrangement called "hand holding sessions". In these sessions, the teachers and colleagues and their peers all come together and those who are IT savvy will help the others who are less so in sharing their knowledge and even in designing courses which are IT-enriched. There is special attention given to this. We know that not all teachers can move at the same pace, just as not all students can move at the same pace.

However, the Masterplan goes beyond the provision of hardware, infrastructure and training. It has also put in place a clear policy on the use of IT in education that is widely supported by principals. This has helped to bring about a mindset change in the way schools make use of IT in their instructional programmes.

Today, our students are reaping the benefits of the IT Masterplan not only through IT-enriched lessons, but also participation in IT-based projects with students from other schools, both local and overseas. These projects have helped to broaden the outlook of our students, and provided opportunities for them to learn IT and teamwork skills.

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua has asked MOE to consider including technology as a compulsory subject. We share Mrs Lim's objective of ensuring that our young are technology literate. We have chosen to achieve this objective by first building a strong foundation in Mathematics and Science throughout our entire education system, and also by infusing IT in subjects and other learning activities. Our aim is for our students in general to learn to make the best use of information technology in particular in their own learning, rather than for them to study the subject of technology in isolation. But for students who are technically inclined, there are specialised subjects like Computer Applications and Computing which they may take.

Singapore is also widely acknowledged internationally to be a leader in the use of IT in education. In the recent Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES), an international study involving 26 other participating countries and economies, including Japan and Hong Kong, Singapore was ranked top in having a clearly articulated policy on the use of IT, the provision of some of the world's best computers and peripherals to schools, and IT training for its teachers. Our students have also won top awards in international website design competitions like Thinkquest Internet Challenge.

I now move on to Single Session Programme for secondary schools. Dr Wang Kai Yuen has asked about the Single Session Programme for secondary schools and how these schools are adapting to the single-session system.

The implementation of the Single Session Programme is a significant step forward for our secondary schools. It has allowed schools to benefit from greater flexibility in the use of curriculum time and resources, a wider range of enrichment programmes to cater to students of different abilities and family backgrounds, and a more vibrant school culture.

The single-session system is still relatively new for many of our schools and MOE has been monitoring its implementation. So far, we are generally pleased with the ways schools have made use of the single-session system to enrich the learning experiences of their pupils. We will continue to provide advice and guidance to the schools in their implementation, and help them to strike a balance between optimising the use of their resources and not overloading our teachers and students.

Dr Teo Ho Pin has suggested during the Budget debate last week that we boost the number of construction projects by building new schools and upgrading old ones. The Ministry of Education builds and upgrades schools to meet educational objectives. If these activities provide a welcome stimulus to the construction industry, it will be an added bonus. In the last two years, we have been constructing new school buildings at the rate of about 12 per year. Members would also be aware that in May last year, my Ministry launched the Programme for Rebuilding and IMproving Existing schools (PRIME). Under PRIME, a total of 290 schools will either be rebuilt or upgraded over a period of seven years at an estimated cost of $4.5 billion. Thereafter, we will upgrade schools to the prevailing standard once every 5 years.

PRIME will be implemented in 5 phases. There are 96 schools in Phase 1. To date, the construction for 9 of these schools has been completed and construction for most of the other schools is scheduled to complete by the end of 2001.

Sir, putting in place the necessary hardware and infrastructure has great influence on total education and children's achievement in school. The Ministry will continue to strive to provide the best school facilities and environment to afford students a broad range of educational activities and programmes.

Mr Tay Beng Chuan (Nominated Member): (In Mandarin): Sir, in October last year, the Ministry of Education announced that it was retraining more than 8,000 English language teachers on the teaching of English Grammar and conversational skills.

Many people cannot help asking what has gone wrong with our education system that so many English language teachers have to be retrained. I hope that by doing so, the Ministry of Education will not deal a heavy blow on the morale of our teachers, and I sincerely hope that the parents will not lose their confidence in the teachers.

Compared to 10 years ago, our primary and secondary students are consistently scoring better results in English. This is mainly attributable to the efforts of the teachers in preparing the students for the examinations. But now, they are sent back to the classroom for retraining. I think, basically, the problem does not lie with the teachers, but rather it was because the Ministry of Education had failed to take into consideration the expectation of the public and private sectors on the school graduates. As such, I would like to appeal to MOE to touch base with the various Government agencies and the business community to establish the actual requirement of the employers on the proficiency level of the graduates in conversational and written English, so as to set the appropriate and relevant standard for passing, for the teachers and students to follow.

Under the bilingual education policy, in order for our students to spend more time and energy to learn English, the learning of the mother tongue is lowered to that of second language or even to a "B" standard. Psychologically, they would not be able to put in full efforts to learn the mother tongue well. Consequently, when they leave school, the standard of their mother tongue proficiency will be so inadequate that it will be rendered useless. 5.45 pm

Sir, according to feedback from the business community, generally speaking, there is plenty of room for improvement in the ability to write Chinese and English for our university graduates. Therefore, the Ministry of Education should look at this matter squarely, and conduct a thorough review to improve our bilingual policy. This is to ensure that graduates of our primary and secondary schools and tertiary institutions have enough proficiency in both English and their mother tongue to prepare for their future employment, and do not treat the passing of the requisite examination as the sole purpose of learning these languages.

The Minister has also announced that we must use the teaching of the mother tongue to inculcate understanding of the students' own mother tongue culture and heritage, and to enhance their moral values as well as a sense of belonging to society and the nation. But for those who have opted for the mother tongue (B) paper, because of the constraint in the contents of their lessons, they may lose the opportunity of learning the moral values through the learning of mother tongue. I do not know whether the Ministry of Education has any remedy for this.

Sir, last year on 19th March, at the sitting of Parliament, I proposed that the Ministry of Education should introduce Malay language as a non-examination subject in primary and secondary schools. I am glad to know that the Chinese High School and Nanyang Girls' High School have already introduced such lessons. I suggest that the Ministry of Education give substantial assistance in sending more good Malay teachers to conduct such courses in more schools so that more students can learn Malay, thereby strengthening their understanding of the Malay language and culture, and laying a stronger foundation for the promotion of our social harmony and friendly ties with our neighbouring countries.

Mr Inderjit Singh: Sir, I have a slightly different view. I think at least the result of what the Member was talking about is that our university graduates are not proficient in both English and Chinese languages precisely because we have had too much emphasis placed on mother tongue in our education system.

Sir, I believe that the recent changes in allowing students the flexibility in choosing different mother tongue options through the implementation of the CL(B), ML(B) and TL(B) options are good and timely. That is going to make it even more difficult to be proficient. I feel that all this time, we have placed too much emphasis on mother tongue in deciding on the streaming of students, computation of aggregate marks for the PSLE and other school examination levels. This has resulted in unfair ranking and student performance measurements. Many students who did very well in all other subjects, but did badly in the mother tongue were penalised by streaming them to lower streams or in them not getting the best subject options in secondary schools. While I am not doubting the importance of learning one's mother tongue, I however feel that it is about time we changed the way we treat this subject as compared to the other more important subjects in the school system. Mother tongue is important but, as a subject, I think we need to reconsider how we treat it.

Sir, we are not going to create successful knowledge workers by doing well in the mother tongue subject alone. But because of the importance and heavy weightage we place on this subject in deciding things in our school system, our children end up spending a disproportionately longer time in studying this subject, and I think some Members talked about a lot of time is spent on studying the mother tongue, tuition and extra classes and so on, so much so that you leave very little time for the three other important subjects - Mathematics, Science and English. I therefore feel that it is about time that we stopped using the mother tongue subject as a restrictive gauge to measure a student's academic ability.

Sir, I would like to ask the Minister three questions. First of all, will he consider changing the education policy to place less weightage on the mother tongue subject in computing the landmark examinations' aggregate score by placing more emphasis on subjects like mathematics, science and English? While we can still place some weightage on it, I think the weightage needs to be much reduced, and we should emphasise more on the other subjects. Because we are using this to measure whether the student did well or not, whether this student is going to become a scholar or not.

Secondly, in practising streaming, will he consider excluding completely the mother tongue subject as a criterion for measure? While we can measure all the other subjects, maybe we should not use mother tongue as a criterion. As I mentioned, the current practice is unfair for those who may have done very well in other subjects but not in mother tongue.

Thirdly, will he relook at the university admission criteria and maybe we should exclude this mother tongue pass requirement at 'O' levels as an admission criterion to university.

Sir, I feel we have already achieved our objective of requiring every Singaporean to learn his mother tongue, in order not to lose our traditions and cultures. But I feel that we now need to look into the future and not let the mother tongue be an obstacle in developing our own local talents to be world ready.

Encik Ibrahim bin Othman: (In Malay): Sir, I welcome the steps by the Ministry of Education to upgrade the learning of Malay language in schools. I am very impressed by the policy of the Ministry of Education to allow every Malay to study Malay language all the time and also to the highest level that he is capable of. Having reached the objective of ensuring that Malay students are taught effectively, we have to give focus on the standard of the Malay language among our students. Often, we find and we meet our Malay students who speak Malay in poor syntax. The syntax is based on English. Often, their speeches are mixed with English words. If we want to upgrade the standard of our Malay language, it is important that we take firm action to draw up good teaching programmes so that we can produce students who have a high proficiency in Malay. These are the students who will be taking Malay at a higher level from primary five to university.

Sir, language is the spirit of the people and language reflects the identity of the people and community. The language is to channel our heritage to the next generation. So it is very important for us to focus on our young students so that they can learn Malay at a higher standard. I would like to ask the Minister for Education what are his plans to upgrade the learning of the Malay language in the schools.

Sir, the Ministry of Education will be conducting a programme to develop talent called MAS or gold glitters. We hope that the talents will glitter and this will start in the Bukit Panjang High School next year. If this plan succeeds, I would like to ask whether this plan can also be conducted in other schools in the eastern part of Singapore, because there are many Malay students living in the eastern area.

Next, I would like to move to the achievements of Malay students at PSLE, 'O', 'A/O' and 'A' levels. I would like to ask how many Malay students have achieved A star at PSLE and A1 in the 'O' and 'A/O' levels. I have received feedback from a number of students in the better schools in Singapore that they find difficulty in achieving excellent results, ie, A1 at 'A' and 'A/O' levels. Is this true? And what would be the comparison with the results in Mandarin and Tamil subjects?

Finally, I would like to ask the Minister for Education whether excellent Malay students who achieved the top 10% or 20% will be allowed to learn Mandarin, as a third language at secondary level. I understand that they are allowed to take German, Japanese and French. I would like to suggest why not we allow them, if they want to, to learn Mandarin as well. I say this following from the steps taken by two SAP schools, as mentioned earlier by Mr Tay, ie, Chinese High School and Nanyang Girls' High School, to allow their students the opportunity to learn Malay at secondary one and two. I think this is a step ahead towards closer relations between the communities in Singapore.

Mr Hawazi Daipi: (In Malay): Sir, I would like, first of all, to declare that I am a member of the Malay Review Committee formed by the Ministry of Education to improve the teaching of Malay in schools. As a member of the committee, I chair an advisory group which obtains feedback from the community on the problems in learning and teaching of Malay, and the means towards improving them.

Generally, the Malay community supports the decision of the Ministry of Education to meet the needs of various interests in relation to the teaching of Malay. The concern is the need to enhance the proficiency in Malay amongst students and to give opportunity for capable students who want to take higher Malay to do so. This has been done at secondary and junior college levels. It is also a proposal that teacher candidates with the capability be allowed to take Malay studies up to honours level. The Ministry has taken steps to open degree course studies to honours level for capable teacher candidates at NIE.

Those who are not able to study Malay as a second language, like other students, are given the flexibility to take the Malay (B) subject. This has also been welcomed by parents. I believe Indian parents also welcome the decision by the Ministry to allow students taking Tamil language to take TL(B).

Although, generally, the Ministry's decision relating to second language teaching is good, I would like to suggest that a number of feedback and suggestions raised at the previous session be given attention, particularly on the need to give wider opportunities to Malay teachers to upgrade their knowledge on Malay language and their ability to teach the subject. This is because there are concerns on the quality of teaching staff, particularly young teachers who studied Malay at only second language level when they were in school. To overcome this situation, among the younger teachers, there were suggestions that the Malay Studies Department at the National University of Singapore or NIE offer honours and MA courses to eligible candidates in Malay language. In other words, they want wider opportunities for eligible candidates. Among younger teachers who teach Malay language as ML2, there is also hope that wider opportunities be open to them to upgrade their skills in using and teaching Malay. I think this reflects their desire to be better ML2 teachers and I would support their hopes. 6.00 pm

More importantly, they should have teachers who are able to impart moral and cultural values in Malay through the teaching of second language generally. We should upgrade the abilities of the second language teachers, including ML2 teachers, by using better and more interesting methods so that students will be motivated to learn the subject, not just to pass examinations or to go to institutions of higher learning, but to appreciate the language as an element of their culture. We need more teachers who are capable of teaching the language because generally Malay students are less proficient in speaking Malay. Our teachers should be an example and motivator for the development of more effective speakers of Malay in the country. Besides improving the curriculum, this can be achieved if the skills of our teachers in speaking and using the language and also to teach the language are upgraded.

Mr Iswaran: Sir, the recent initiatives announced by the Ministry of Education arising from the review of the Tamil language teaching and education in our schools has been welcomed by the community. I have had the privilege of being a member of the Committee that the Minister chaired to review the education of Tamil language and also chaired an Advisory Committee to obtain feedback from the community on this matter. I must say that in general the recommendations accord well with the feedback we received from the community, in particular, the observations pertaining to the standard of the language as it is taught in our schools and the methodology used in the teaching of the language. In particular, the community welcomes the Minister's assurance and commitment on two counts. The first was that the standard of Tamil language would be set at a level appropriate to our circumstances in Singapore and at a level which would also enable reasonable students with reasonable effort to achieve reasonable results.

Sir, there are two reasons why this is important. Firstly, a growing proportion of students from Tamil homes speak English as the main language. In fact, more than 50% use English predominantly in their home and this proportion is likely to increase as the trend suggests. Secondly, the social and cultural context in Singapore is different to that in India or, in particular, Tamil Nadu, which would be used as a benchmark for Tamil. Therefore, any standard that we derive from such external sources must be suitably adjusted for our local context.

The second aspect of the Minister's assurance pertains to the accessibility to Tamil language during curriculum hours in our schools and there the Minister stated that it would be maintained at the present levels. In particular, three out of four primary schools offer Tamil during curriculum hours and more than half of the secondary schools, I believe 53%, offer Tamil during curriculum hours as well. In addition, the Ministry will be enhancing this availability at the secondary level through cluster schools. These are all very welcome initiatives on this score because this has been the bane of many students and, for that matter, their parents, who are taking Tamil because they have to miss out on the core curriculum opportunities as well as remedial opportunities that might have occurred outside curriculum time because they have to go for classes in Tamil as well. With the review complete, the key aspect is implementation and ultimately the success, it would seem, resides with whether the policy objectives are realised in the syllabus, the textbooks and in the classrooms.

In that regard, I would like to ask the Minister how the implementation of these initiatives will be managed and whether there would be scope for continual input from the community or, at least, certain parts of the community which may have knowledge that would be of value to the Ministry. Secondly, the teachers would be the key agents of this change, not just because they are teaching the syllabus but also because they are the embodiment of the language and would therefore be a model for these students in terms of what teaching and learning the language is about. What opportunities will be made available for TL teachers to enhance their own training and development? I would like to ask the Minister, in particular, two questions. Firstly, what proportion of Tamil teachers have tertiary education? Secondly, whether there are plans to introduce Tamil education or training in Tamil language teaching at the tertiary level at our NIE?

Mdm Claire Chiang See Ngoh: Sir, I put in a cut about Promoting Malay Language in our Schools and in my position it is not about mother tongue, it is really a cut on promoting Malay language in schools. Therefore, it is really about the other tongue. The Minister has earlier asked me to put in more suggestions for enriching the school curriculum. So this is my seventh suggestion.

The Minister has replied to me in the last sitting that if any school wishes to include Malay as an optional and non-examinable subject in their school curriculum, they are welcome to do so. He cautioned me not to set unrealistic targets as learning two languages is already difficult enough.

I would like to make three points here. In the early 60s before the independence of Singapore, we all learnt Malay, Chinese and English at primary level. What I remember is Malay was taught as a conversational language without our Malay teacher forcing us to read, write and take tests on it. It was relaxed and entertaining and I did not remember the resistance to it, which explains why perhaps more Singaporeans in the age cohort of 45-50 today all speak some Malay.

It is therefore the method of teaching and the climate of learning developed by the teacher which has the effect of our responsiveness to the language.

The second point about learning to speak Malay is an inter-personal one. A language is a great facility in drawing different nationalities closer. In the neighbourhood which I stayed in, at Race Course Road, which parallels Serangoon Road, the multicultural mix of Malays, different Chinese dialect groups and Indians in a relatively low-income, low-educated neighbourhood, the Malay language was the mode of communication between these different groups. The result was a colourful one, every ethnic group spoke a splatter of phrases in different dialects and languages.

The third point is the critical role of Malay in forging regional ties. Sir, we are surrounded by a Malay-speaking world. The usefulness of learning Malay to facilitate cross-cultural communication and promote regional closeness cannot be ignored. We do not need to compel every school to adopt the Malay Language policy, but some encouragement is in order to help nurture some cohorts of Singaporeans who can serve as bridges, networkers as well as broker on behalf of Singapore in its commercial, political and diplomatic development in the region. Language is the key ingredient that sparks the emotions of connections between people. In view of the pressing political developments around us, the ability to use the Malay language as a medium of communication, a tool in defining friendships and mobilising resources will become increasingly important.

Dr Wang Kai Yuen: Sir, the men and women who teach our children are key to our education system. On their shoulders are placed the heavy responsibility of transmitting their knowledge and inculcating values. Only the committed and dedicated will choose teaching as a career. They deserve our highest respect. Because of our system and because of our need to produce high academic results, the teacher's life is a stressful one. Fortunately, in recent years, compensation packages for teachers have been approved. While this is definitely welcomed, many teachers still find administrative workload on the heavy side. Would the Ministry explore work flow improvement process through the use of information technology to provide relief in this area?

Next, I would like to touch upon the age profile of teachers. For many years until recently, not many young people were attracted into the teaching career. As a result, Sir, if we look at the age profile of teachers, we will find two things: basically a U-shape curve. There is a group closer to the age of retirement and there is another group who has just joined the teaching career after graduating from NIE. So this presents some concerns and some opportunities. Let me describe the concerns.

It seems to me that within a very few years most of our experienced teachers would have reached retirement age. With their retirement, the core of teachers would have become a relatively young one that impact with the loss of experience on the ability of schools to educate our young and to inculcate correct values. Another aspect of challenge faced by some of the older teachers is the need to learn about computers and to incorporate IT into their teaching. For some, the challenge is indeed a great hurdle. I believe some of the older teachers do not even have the basic keyboard skills. Furthermore, the teachers are also concerned about the loss of authority and stature in front of the students when the students and pupils are probably more computer literate and network-savvy than they are.

I have spoken to a few teachers and some of them would prefer to continue their old ways of instructions and leave the new innovation in teaching to their younger colleagues. If this is indeed their desire, could the Ministry accommodate these teachers? The opportunity is that with the retirement of these senior teachers, the Ministry would probably be able to push the use of computers more extensively in teaching and administration.

Sir, the next topic I would like to bring up on this cut is the pupil-teacher ratio, a topic of interest to my colleague, Mr Chiam as well. The Ministry has maintained through all these years that pupil/teacher ratio is not the key determinant of the effectiveness in teaching. This is probably true in the range of the ratio that we are confined to. I am more interested in the effectiveness of teaching in primary one, in particular, in the first few chaotic weeks of the new school year. Many teachers told me that they spend more time maintaining discipline and keeping order in class than teaching the new pupils. I wonder whether the Ministry will consider having teachers' assistants in primary one classes to help the teachers, perhaps the trainee teachers in NIE could be mobilised to help in this particular area.

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang: (In Mandarin): MOE has been taking a long-term view and has been correct in its judgement when it formulates education policies to identify talents to be nurtured to meet the needs of the nation and society. This is to be applauded. I do not agree with the views expressed by Mr Inderjit Singh. Only a small minority of students find it difficult to study the mother tongue. Therefore, they should not undermine the interest of the majority of the students. The bilingual education policy must be continued.

Not long ago, MOE published a report by the Chinese Language Review Committee. Many of its recommendations on the teaching of Chinese language have been adopted and implemented. This includes the modification of syllabus, revision of textbooks and the teaching of Chinese literature and history in order to supplement the teaching and learning of mother tongue and to train more students to have a better command of the mother tongue, culture and language, in order to be effectively bilingual. But to achieve such objectives we must have enough CL teachers to help implement such policies.

Sir, I would like to know what is the shortfall of CL teachers in both primary and secondary schools. Will there be a shortage of CL teachers in the next five to 10 years' time? What measures are being contemplated by the Ministry to tackle the problem?

Sir, a language teacher's task is not just to impart language skills to the students. He must also inculcate correct values among the students and teach them to be good citizens. In this regard, CL teachers have all along taken upon themselves the sacred duty of imparting knowledge as well as instilling moral values in the minds of the students, thus achieving the twin objects of mother tongue education. The locally trained CL teachers are able to not only impart language skills to the students but instill in them a strong national identity. Today, we are faced with the serious problem of a shortage of teachers. Immediate steps must be taken to train more CL teachers. We should not be too dependent on foreign sources.

As for those foreign CL teachers we have recruited, are they required to undergo some orientation programme in Singapore to understand our local situation here before they are deployed to teach in our schools? This is because different countries have different education objectives. Are these foreign CL teachers familiar with our educational goals and objectives of our mother tongue education? This is something which we should take note of. Is MOE considering retaining the good foreign teachers and let them take on more important roles in our educational system?

Sir, I feel that recruitment of foreign CL teachers should be just an interim measure. In the long term, the solution lies in training more young Singaporeans to become mother tongue teachers.

Mr Peh Chin Hua: (In Mandarin): Sir, first of all, I would like to respond to what Mr Low Thia Khiang has said just now about the survey by the NUS on the Chinese students in Singapore who aspire to be of other races in their next life. Personally, I am not surprised by this finding because our young people are constantly influenced by the western culture surrounding them. Recently, when I was in Shanghai, I was told that many people in China are also aspiring to become Americans. The young people in China receive their education in Chinese. To each and every student in China, the Chinese language is always the first language. In fact, it is their one and only national language. Based on Mr Low's reasoning, they should not aspire to be anything but Chinese. Yet, the Shanghainese also want to become Americans. So when the Singapore students aspire to be foreigners in their next life, I think there is nothing to do with the education they receive here.

Now, let me talk about the subject which I have filed an amendment. Under our educational system, from the old days until today, students from primary one right up to junior college were passively sent to attend classes conducted by teachers appointed by the schools. Of course, to the primary school and the lower secondary school students, this is necessary. But with Singapore becoming a developed country and with the rapid emergence of the knowledge-based economy, competition in the future society will certainly become more and more intense. So when students go into society and face competition, they will have to depend on their own wisdom and their own hard work to solve their problems. But the education handed down by the teachers in their student days will be a source of great strength to back them up.

In order to learn new things, I think our educational model and educational methods should also be changed. In the past, the traditional model was such that the emphasis was on memorising knowledge and good examination skills. This must be substituted by cultivation of creativity and development of characters. The students and teachers should establish a kind of interactive relationship between them.

Perhaps the MOE should consider allowing students from Secondary 2 onwards to have the right to choose the teachers they like. If a teacher is very popular and his class size is so big, say, more than 35 students, then arrangement can be made for his lessons to be conducted in the larger lecture theatres. In the primary schools, the students may not be experienced enough to know whether the teacher is good or bad. When the students go to secondary one, they may not be familiar with the new school environment. So let them wait until secondary two, then they should be allowed to choose the teacher of their own choice. This is a new creative type of school planning. The teachers can have a sort of competition among themselves. It will also motivate them to do their work better. Then the students will be attracted to come and learn under them. In the old days when the students were attending classes by certain teachers whose teaching was dull and uninteresting, they were bored and hence lost their interest in the subject. But if they can choose the teachers they like, they will be inspired to learn better.

When the school adopts this method where the students can choose their own teachers, promotion of the teachers can be based on the number of students they have in their respective classes in addition to the results that he has produced by his teaching. Of course, we have to avoid letting some teachers pleasing their students by deliberately setting some easy questions so that the students can score higher marks in their examinations or could give tips before the examinations. The schools should then conduct common tests or common examinations, as a precaution.

Nowadays, teachers have not only to know how to teach the subjects, they should also care and love their students, so as to cultivate them and to invoke their interest and confidence in their learning. If a teacher can transform a student from a problem student to an outstanding student, then he or she is a valuable teacher. So, good teachers should be commended and promoted and be given an increase in their salaries. On the other hand, those not so good teachers should be eliminated. We should not allow these bad teachers to exert bad influences on the students.

Of course, if we want to reform any traditional method, we cannot just change it overnight, like the way we change a computer. It has to be a gradual process. Put in some new ideas to the old system and gradually replace the old system. Perhaps some people will say this will remain just an ideal. But I feel that this is something to be considered seriously.

Now we will talk about computers. Computers are very popular now. Everybody now knows how to use a computer. We can teach by means of computers. One teacher can teach many students at the same time. Nowadays, we have a lot of new teachers. In the old days, we had a shortage of teachers. But now we have an ample supply of teachers. I think if we have this enthusiasm to fully develop our human resources, this will be a very creative way to help Singapore develop into a knowledge-based economy and to develop our high technology. I hope MOE will consider my suggestion.

Dr Tan Boon Wan: Sir, teachers are critical national resources. They help to educate our children. We need to have enough teachers to meet the needs of our schools. But do we have enough teachers in our Ministry? Not only is the total number of teachers important, but there must be sufficient numbers of them in the various disciplines. Here, again, how do we fare in this latter criterion? How many new teachers did we recruit in the past two years?

Our teachers are committed and dedicated but some have found the job stressful and unsatisfying and, thus, they leave. Could the Minister share with us how many teachers left the service again in the last two years and how many of those who resigned were already trained? Where a teacher resigns, this is a waste of valuable resources to the education service, especially when he or she is already trained and productive. Did the Ministry make an effort to find out why these teachers decided to throw in the towel? What has the Ministry done to retain our teachers? What more can the Ministry do in this area?

With the continued strengthening of the economy, I would also like to ask the Minister for his view of the situation this year. Sir, I think it is important for the Ministry to reassure our teachers of their importance and that it will make all possible efforts to provide teachers with meaningful and satisfying careers.

Mr Hawazi Daipi: Sir, with the improvements in the salary and career package of teachers, we have successfully attracted candidates into the teaching service. Indeed, every year we see more and more graduates interested to take up the challenges of the teaching profession. The stories of the dedication, innovations and care given by today's teachers are heartwarming, to say the least. Moreover, there have been tremendous changes in the curricula, training of teachers and policies in the last couple of years. The annual recognition given to teachers and chances of speedier promotions for young teachers have helped attract new trainee teachers. While the Ministry has been able to recruit, has it been able to retain? How many young teachers left the service immediately after they have completed their bond?

On the subject of recruitment of teachers, we must indeed try to get the best candidates to teach our students. Towards this end, the Institute of Education and MOE normally recruit those who study what are called the teaching subjects. Do we really need to restrict ourselves in teacher recruitment as at primary level any graduate should be able to manage teaching Mathematics, English and Science? Many subjects are increasingly becoming multi-disciplinary, so there is room for graduates who may not have studied specific teaching subjects to be recruited into the teaching service.

Sir, I am raising this matter as I have been approached by residents whose applications to get into NIE have been rejected presumably because they are not holding degrees in teaching subjects. Interestingly, at least one of them has been teaching as a relief teacher. Further, their applications have been rejected without any reasons stated. This gives rise to general unhappiness among those affected.

Sir, it might be useful in cases of rejection that there should be reasons given why some degree holders were rejected. Perhaps there should be clearer guidelines so that those who are unsuitable need not apply in the first place. I can only say, from feedback given, that it is particularly difficult for those who have applied, because they seem to have a passion for teaching, to be rejected out of hand without any explanation.

Finally, should it not be possible to have an appeal board to reconsider those applicants who really want to teach? Perhaps, after a period of time, the Board can consider the applications of those who were rejected. This would, in effect, form a cooling off period on both sides where an opportunity to re-consider can be taken. Then if the candidate is exceptionally keen and has the aptitude to teach and decide to follow through with an appeal, should there not be some latitude given to those who are in earnest?

Dr Jennifer Lee: Sir, like Dr Tan Boon Wan and Mr Hawazi Daipi before me, talking on the subject of recruitment and retention of teachers, a fair amount of the dissatisfaction we hear expressed by parents would be alleviated if we had more teachers. We can have smaller class sizes, more attention to students, better interaction with parents. The problem, it seems to me, however, is not at all an unwillingness to provide more positions for teachers. The problem is in filling those positions already provided.

From the Budget book, if I read it correctly, I note there is an establishment of 31,169 for the Education Service last year, FY99, of which only 24,842 positions were filled, and that actually gives us quite a staggering vacancy position of 6,327. In this year's main Budget Statement, we hear again of an additional 2,344 positions created for MOE in general to take care of an increased student intake. I can imagine the challenge in finding enough new recruits and I am sure there is difficulty as well in retaining existing staff. 6.30 pm

Therefore, I wonder if the Minister could give us the whole picture to share with us the Ministry's efforts in this area, how successful our efforts to recruit locally both trained teachers as well as young people into NIE programmes, how we might be supplementing this with foreign recruitment of teachers both in the interim as well as for the longer term, how we could relieve teachers of administrative duties so as to optimise use of their time, and in fact, saying that, is there also a problem in finding administrative staff because our manpower position in Singapore is very difficult. How successful have been our efforts to retain teachers? I know there have been a lot of efforts made in terms of new promotional grades, through remuneration packages. In fact, whatever other initiatives that the Ministry has taken and planned in its effort to fill the vacancies in the Education Service.

Mr Zulkifli bin Baharudin (Nominated Member): Sir, by now, I am fully aware of the long list of requests made to the Minister by Members of this House. But, nevertheless, I want to add mine to that list. Specifically, Sir, I want to make a pitch for sportsmen and hope that the Minister will consider expanding employment opportunities for sportsmen in schools and within his Ministry. Specifically, I would like to ask whether there are existing recruitment policies that allow our sportsmen to be employed as PE teachers or coaches, or if not, whether the Minister would consider changing the recruitment policies and organise the structure to make this possible.

Sir, we now have seen the growing number of people who want to take a career in sports. But the harsh reality about sports is that they have very short career lifespan, and, certainly, many hope to become teachers. And we do not have that many sports associations, and all that, to employ many of them. I hope for the accomplished ones, people who have done well, at least at the national level, or until national level, I am sure we can find ways where we can employ them.

Certainly, if they are good enough to become coaches for professional leagues, I am sure they can be good coaches in schools as well. Now you see a lot of very formal structured certification programmes in place and recognised world wide, or regionally, and I am sure we can also use this as one of the admission criteria. Certainly, we know of many sportsmen who are personalities themselves who can inspire students and I can think of some who are actually good role models for students. Unfortunately, not many can qualify to be teachers if we use the normal admission criteria. But I hope this is one area that we can make an exception. If you look at some places like the US, for example, basketball, or baseball coaches, had seen accomplished sportsmen in their earlier years. I hope the Minister would seriously consider, if you cannot employ them as full-time in one school, perhaps, part-time, or have a cluster of schools to do that. I think this is important so that while we not only allow for more flexible recruitment, we can also help people who contribute to Singapore, people who want to make a career in sports to see that they have very long and successful careers.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Sir, earlier I shared with Members the Ministry's efforts to build up the "hardware" and "software" of our education system and now we are talking about what is the heart of the whole education system and, that is, the 24,000 teachers who make up our teaching force.

Let me first touch on the recruitment, retention and staffing situation, which Mr Hawazi Daipi, Dr Tan, Dr Jennifer Lee and others have asked about. Over the past few years, the Ministry has made it more attractive to join and remain in the Education Service through more competitive remuneration, better promotion prospects, strong emphasis on continual upgrading and professional development. We hope also that our teachers will derive more professional satisfaction in their work as schools get more autonomy and teachers have more opportunities to try out their own ideas for the benefit of their students. I have always considered teaching as one of the most satisfying jobs because you see the children grow in front of you and they always remember later on in life. People walk up to you and say, "Hello."

As a result of these efforts, we have been able to recruit more teachers. I am happy to report to this House that last year, 1999, we recruited 3,300 teachers, the largest number that we have recruited for as long as I can think perhaps the largest number we ever recruited. This exceeded our target of 3,000. We were able to do so in part due to the economic downturn, and because we were able to attract people from previous cohorts of job entrants who were keen on teaching but at the time when they entered the job market, found the previous employment terms unattractive. We do not expect to be able to sustain such a recruitment rate. A more realistic recruitment rate is between 1,700 and 2,000 a year. In the previous two years, 1997 and 1998, in 1997 the economy was still quite strong, we had been averaging 2,100 teachers a year. This is double the average of 1,000 teachers per year that we had been recruiting prior to 1997.

The annual resignation rate among trained teachers has also remained quite stable in the last few years, averaging about 2%, that is, about 400-500 teachers a year. This figure may look large, but is very reasonable given the size of the teaching force. If 400 teachers resign in a year, it is slightly more than one per school which I think is manageable. And teachers resign for a number of different reasons: some go and look after their families, some want to try something else, and some come back after that, so that is all right. The figure is quite reasonable when compared to the rest of the civil service, and certainly very reasonable when compared to the private sector where turnover rates are typically double digits. So 2% is quite reasonable.

Dr Jennifer Lee has expressed concern at the few thousand vacant teaching posts in MOE. I have to explain what is happening. We can only employ people if there are posts for them. And we employ people as soon as they join the teaching service, that means, before they go to NIE, while they are in NIE, while they are overseas, and so forth, so the number includes all these. And the Ministry of Finance has been very supportive in giving us posts so that we can recruit them if we are able to do so. So that is the reason why there is a very large number of such posts and the vacancy rate looks quite alarming. But in fact, the vacancy rate is much more reasonable than that.

I think the more important figure is what we actually have in the schools. One of the things we have been able to do in the last few years also is to create new teaching posts in schools in anticipation of being able to fill them. In the last two years, we have increased the establishment in schools by 1,500 posts, and not all of this increase has been filled yet. The actual number of trained teachers has gone up by 1,000 from 22,500 in 1998 to 23,500 at the end of 1999. So we had 1,000 more trained teachers in the space of two years. The other teachers that we have recruited are still in the pipeline being trained and they will come into the system soon. We have about 380 schools. So, put in another way, over the last two years, every school in Singapore has on average three more teachers than they had two years ago. So that is a welcome increase, with more shoulders to spread the load on in the schools. But because we have increased the establishment, there are still additional posts in the schools yet to be filled. The situation will improve in May this year, when about 1,700 NIE graduands will be posted to schools upon completion of their pre-service training.

Dr Wang Kai Yuen has asked whether a better pupil-teacher ratio at the lower primary level will be beneficial to children's education. I think we have to differentiate between class size and pupil-teacher ratio because a class size is how many students there are in a class, while the pupil-teacher ratio is how many teachers there are to students and that may not be directly related to class size. Smaller class size is only one of many factors which influences the quality of education. The quality of our teachers, the curriculum, the school environment, all play a part in determining their level of educational achievement. We need to take a total perspective of all these factors. Of all these factors, teacher quality is perhaps the most important. In the end, whatever we may say in the Ministry of Education HQ, or for that matter whatever we may say in this House, as pointed out by a number of Members, what actually goes on in the classrooms is what determines the quality of education that is received. The delivery of education is, ultimately, at its heart, a completely human enterprise.

To maintain quality in the teaching profession, the Ministry aims to recruit those with teaching aptitude roughly from about the top one-third of each cohort. We have a cohort of about 40,000 a year, and one third is about 13,000 people. If we recruit 2,000 a year, we have to recruit one out of every six-and-a-half persons in this cohort. I am not optimistic that we will be able to recruit many more than that. Any significant reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio, even at the lower primary level, is likely to lead to a sharp drop in the quality of our teachers. And we have to ask ourselves whether we are better off if children are taught in smaller classes but taught by teachers of low quality. So this is a trade-off that we have to think about. And I think teacher quality is probably the most important factor in the quality of education.

We do recruit teachers who are in the so-called non-teaching subject areas, particularly for the primary schools, and we have been doing so for some years now. The way we recruit teachers is actually to have an interview panel of experienced teachers who will talk to the aspirants to see whether they are suitable, ie, those who are called up for interview. In some cases, when we offer the appointment, it is not so much that we are not prepared to offer the appointment, it is that the level of the appointment that we are offering is not something which the applicant is happy with. So the applicant declines.

For class size and pupil-teacher ratio, the Ministry's philosophy is not to adopt a "one-size-fits-all" approach of stipulating a smaller class size for our schools. Instead, our approach is to build up and maintain a high quality teaching force by recruiting and retaining as many teachers as possible - with the right qualities - in order that schools can be given the additional resources. As I have explained earlier, we have succeeded in doing that. Principals have the flexibility to decide on how best to organise and deploy their teacher resources, according to the needs of their students and the nature of the activities. Some schools where they think they need to give the students a boost in English have organised it in such a way that teachers give more attention to students. Some schools where they think that teaching in larger classes and lecture halls, and so forth, works better, well, they have done that too. So we can leave that with principals to experiment, to innovate and see what works best given the teachers and the students that they have.

With the larger number of teachers recruited in recent years, and stable retention, we have been able to give schools more teacher resources. In particular, there has been a net increase of almost 2,000 primary school teachers since 1996. This is quite significant. This has enabled us to lower the pupil-teacher ratio in the primary schools from 26.5 to 25 during this period, even though pupil enrolment in the primary schools has increased by about 37,000 or 13.6%. Even in the face of that, we have been able to improve our pupil-teacher ratio. If we can maintain our recruitment rate, we may be able to improve this, but gradually over time. I do not expect any dramatic or sudden changes to pupil-teacher ratio. 6.45 pm

Sir, Dr Tan Boon Wan and Dr Jennifer Lee have raised the issue of teacher workload. The Ministry recognises that new initiatives mean greater demands on the schools and teachers. Our teachers support these new initiatives as they feel these are good for the students. Being dedicated teachers, they want to do more for their students. Their efforts are commendable. However, while they have the students' interest at heart, school leadership and teachers need to prioritise in order to focus on the key essentials, so that both students and teachers are not overburdened. This is a balance that they have to strike and in single session schools where the schools are available for the whole day, there is a great temptation to do more and more, but the correct balance has to be struck.

I move on to the selection and training of teachers. Mr Hawazi Daipi has asked about the selection of trainee teachers, particularly those who obtained their degrees overseas. I have already covered that just now. We set stringent criteria for the selection of teachers, regardless of where they have obtained their qualifications, whether local or overseas institutions. Candidates are assessed not only on their records, but also their aptitude for teaching.

Mr Peh Chin Hua has suggested allowing students to pick and choose their teachers. Teaching quality is not necessarily a function of popularity. Nevertheless, I am open. Any school which wants to try it is free to go ahead and do so.

With large numbers of new teachers joining the Education Service, teacher training has taken on even greater significance. Over the past two years, the Ministry, together with the National Institute of Education, has made important changes to the teacher training system to ensure that it remains aligned to the needs of our education system.

One aspect of this is the framework for continual teacher training which NIE will be implementing from next year to encourage serving teachers to continually update and upgrade themselves. To complement this framework, the Ministry will continue to expand the scope of opportunities for serving teachers to pursue upgrading courses through its various study leave and professional development schemes.

Mr Zulkifli has asked about sportsmen becoming teachers and coaches. We already have a number of teachers who are national sportsmen. We have people like Lee Wung Yew, Mah Li Lian, Melanie Martens, and so on. But not all sportsmen would necessarily make good teachers nor even good coaches. We have quite a number of sportsmen as coaches already. And for those who are able to do so, we are, in fact, more than happy to have them for precisely the reasons that Mr Zulkifli has mentioned. They are good role models.

One group of teachers whom we will be providing greater upgrading opportunities to are the mother tongue language teachers. I am pleased to inform Members that with effect from Academic Year 2000/2001, the Ministry will be introducing a new award to sponsor mother tongue language teachers for full-time undergraduate studies in the mother tongue languages. Under the award, teachers will be paid salaries for up to two years while undergoing the full-time programme. The award, which is tenable both locally and overseas, will complement other improvements made to the teaching and learning of the mother tongue languages announced over the past year. This will be particularly useful to our Tamil language teachers. Because of the numbers involved, I do not think it is practical to organise degree level programmes in Singapore. This is an avenue which is open to them which they can make use of. I do not have the statistics on the number of tertiary educated Tamil language teachers. I can provide them to the Member later.

Mr Hawazi asked about opportunities for upgrading for Malay language teachers. We have just introduced an Honours programme in NIE for Malay language and I would like to see how this programme develops first before taking any further steps.

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang has asked about Chinese language teachers. The Ministry has been able to recruit about 60-70 Chinese language teachers per year for the secondary schools. This is sufficient to meet the needs in the secondary schools. We do recruit a small number of teachers from overseas and they are subject to stringent criteria before they are deployed to secondary schools. They do go through an induction programme before doing so and this includes national education and the Singapore education system.

The situation in primary schools is different. There are many older CL teachers. As these older CL teachers retire, the need to fill vacancies in the primary schools becomes greater. We have several measures to recruit as many Singaporean teachers as possible. We have introduced the 4-year mother tongue language Diploma in Education. We have the Postgraduate Diploma in Education to provide "conversion training" for graduates who did not specialise in CL at university, but who have good grades. We also have for retired Chinese language teachers to be re-employed to teach Chinese language. This scheme has been quite well-received. As at end-January this year, about 100 retired Chinese language teachers have been re-employed under the scheme. This will help to smooth out the retirement pattern.

We hope to meet the demand for Chinese language primary school teachers using this multi-pronged approach. If there is a need, we will recruit from overseas. However, we would prefer Singaporean Chinese language teachers in the primary schools because the teaching of mother tongue language at the primary level has a significant element of values transmission which requires familiarity with our own local environment and social contact.

As for upgrading opportunities for serving non-graduate Chinese language teachers, there are many avenues open for full-time and part-time courses. One example is the BA degree run by OUDP in collaboration with the Beijing Normal University. Since its inception in 1999, I am told a total of 155 serving teachers have enrolled.

Let me now turn to languages in the school. Why are we retraining English language teachers? It is because we felt that we need to strengthen the teaching of English language in schools and to return to teaching a little more grammar than we were before. We did a re-evaluation as we do from time to time, and we felt this was necessary and so this is one of the things we are doing for English language teachers in school. We must understand that from time to time, teachers need to be retrained. So re-training of the teachers is something which should be expected and normal, and it should be welcomed and not seen as something which is fundamentally wrong with the education system.

Obviously, Mr Inderjit Singh, Mr Tay Beng Chuan and Mr Peh Chin Hua do not quite agree on the importance of mother tongue languages in the school. But a bilingual policy is in place and we need to have this bilingual policy for reasons which I have explained earlier. English is a unifying language and is a language for international communication and business. Mother tongue is for values transmission and to have an understanding of our ethnicity and culture so that we have a cultural ballast in this new globalised world.

Mr Inderjit Singh feels that there is too much emphasis on mother tongue and streaming and so on. The weighting of the four subjects at the PSLE has been adjusted over time and currently, it strikes a good balance between our various objectives that we have described, and there is no need to change this. We do not intend to do so. It is not true that there are many students channelled to the Normal stream in secondary schools who are not doing well in their mother tongue, even if they have scored top marks in the other subjects. While there are students who score within the top 30% in English, Mathematics and Science, but bottom 30% in mother tongue language in PSLE, none has been channelled to the Normal stream.

Streaming at P4 is based on performance in English, Mathematics and mother tongue, while the PSLE counts performance in 4 subjects, only one of which is the mother tongue language. As you go to secondary school, the mother tongue language is in fact de-weighted because it is only a threshold requirement to get D7 to go on to the next level. We have also introduced the syllabus `B' for students facing exceptional difficulties so that they would continue to learn their mother tongue, get some cultural transmission, and get some foundation so that later on in life, if they do want to pick it up again, they have some foundation. This is not meant for the general students but for students who are facing exceptional difficulties.

I would like to thank Mr Iswaran for his comments on the various mother tongue language reviews. In line with the recommendations from these reviews, the Ministry is currently revising the syllabuses, instructional materials, examination formats and so on. Mother tongue language teachers in all schools have been briefed on the changes. Workshops and group discussions will also be organised. We will see how we can continue to include feedback from the community as we implement these programmes.

With regard to Mr Ibrahim Othman's query regarding students who are eligible for the Malay language elective programme, they are either within the top 10% in PSLE, or in the top 11-30% who have done well and have scored either an A*' in Malay language or a distinction in Higher Malay language, and at least an A' in English language so that they can cope with the heavier study load. Likewise, those who qualify for the Malay language elective programme at the JC level must have scored at least a B3 in Higher ML or an A2 in ML in their `O' level examinations.

Mr Ibrahim has also asked whether the standard for A1 or A* in Malay language in the O' level examinations and other examinations is set too high. The standards of the papers and the marking are subject to careful control of difficulty level and to ensure consistency in marking. I can confirm that it is not any more difficult for Malay students to score an A1' or A* in Malay language in the `O' level examinations or any other examinations, than for Chinese students taking CL and Indian students taking TL. Our statistics bear this out. For the EMAS programme, in fact, we are just starting it up in Bukit Panjang and we will see how this develops before we take any further steps.

Finally, Mr Tay Beng Chuan and Mdm Claire Chiang have suggested again that MOE conduct non-examination courses in Malay language. My position remains the same. We have heard views of Members that studying two languages already is quite a load. I would let them persuade Mr Inderjit Singh that doing even more than that is good. And we can leave it as an option to those schools who think it is a good idea for the students to do it on an enrichment basis. But I have no intention of making it compulsory. Mr Ibrahim suggested allowing top Malay students to take Chinese. I will think about it and see whether that is possible.

Sir, as I said in this House last week, I would provide some flexibility to the schools to decide on how to implement some of these programmes and not mandate them, as some Members have suggested.

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): Sir, the Minister says that the quality of teachers is most important. Can he just explain what does he mean by a quality teacher?

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: In the two minutes I have left, he must have the basic subject knowledge, basic pedagogical knowledge, a love for the subject and be able to communicate with the students.

The Chairman: I think it is a nice time to stop the discussion.

Thereupon, Mr Deputy Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House.

RAdm Teo Chee Hean: Mr Deputy Speaker, I beg to report that the Committee of Supply has made further progress on the Estimates of Expenditure for the financial year 2000/2001, and ask leave to sit again on Friday, 17th March 2000.

Mr Deputy Speaker: So be it.