Parliamentary Replies
Cyber Wellness Programmes
Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Ms Joscelin Yeo, Nominated Member of Parliament
Question
To ask the Minister for Education (a) what studies have been done to assess the effectiveness of the Ministry’s current cyber wellness programmes; and (b) whether the current programmes contain a component to assist parents to detect and deal with cyber-related issues of their children.
Response
Cyber wellness is an integral component of the Ministry of Education’s third ICT masterplan for education (mp3) which was launched in August 2008. This included a framework to guide all schools in planning and developing cyber wellness programmes.
The framework defines the principles to guide the actions of students, and processes to explore issues as well as partner parents in promoting cyber wellness among the students. Schools were also given a starter kit of resources in the form of lesson plans on topics, such as, netiquette and cyberbullying.
As parents play a critical role in managing their children’s behaviours, MOE distributed a handbook containing parenting tips and warning signs to detect and deal with cyber-related issues of their children. This handbook was given to all primary and secondary schools, junior colleges and centralised institute in 2008.
Starting in 2009, MOE will be monitoring the implementation of cyber wellness programmes in schools through mid- and end-of-year reviews of the implementation of ICT programmes by schools. The recent mid-year review indicated that all schools had put in place cyber wellness programmes. These included talks and seminars for parents to equip them with skills to manage cyber-related issues. MOE is also developing assessment tools, which will be piloted in 2011, to evaluate the effectiveness of cyber wellness programmes.