SPEECH BY MR HAWAZI DAIPI, SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, AT THE AMP AWARD CEREMONY AT AMP@PASIR RIS ON SATURDAY, 25 JUNE 2005, 3PM

SPEECH BY MR HAWAZI DAIPI, SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, AT THE AMP AWARD CEREMONY AT AMP@PASIR RIS ON SATURDAY, 25 JUNE 2005, 3PM

Mr Yang Razali Kassim

Chairman, Board of Directors, AMP

Mr Imram Mohamed

Chairman, Board of Management, Al-Hijrah Division

Honoured guests

Ladies and gentlemen

I am very happy to join you this afternoon, and share in the pride of our 40 award recipients. This afternoon also sees, I understand, some bright and promising young individuals from the STAR Youth Group coming forward to take up positions of responsibility. I commend each and every one of you here – you are, each, a shining example of the progress that you can make, whether it is in your studies, or your personal development. Altogether, your younger peers can look upon you as their role models. We can also take a leaf from your life stories as emblems of the progress that we, as a community, can make together.

Continued Progress in Malay Performance

2. On that count, we have much to be cheerful about. A look at performance statistics over the past ten years reveals that at all levels, we are seeing more Malay pupils do better, and going further in their educational pursuits. Today, more than 92 per cent of Malay pupils who sit for the Primary School Leaving Examinations qualify to go on to secondary education. This five percentage point increase from the 87.6 per cent in 1995[1] should give us confidence that in the coming years, we can look ahead to even more, if not all, of our primary school Malay pupils proceeding to secondary education.

3. I recently shared with Berita Harian that admission statistics of the Malay P1 Cohort into post-secondary education institutions (PSEIs) are also improving, year on year. Today, some three-quarters (73% in 2003) of our Malay pupils go on to polytechnics, Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs) or universities upon completing their ‘O’ or ‘N’ levels. Ten years ago (1994) less than half of them (42.5%) did. This is an improvement of more than 30 percentage points over a period of ten years.[2]

Comparison in International Benchmarks

4. Another way to evaluate our Malay students’ academic performance is to see how well they have done compared to their international counterparts. It is, by now, a well-known fact that Singapore’s Primary 4 and Sec 2 students perform outstandingly in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). MOE took a look at the performance of our Malay students in the latest study in 2003, and I am very encouraged to see that Malay students, in both Primary 4 and Secondary 2, have performed very well. They ranked well above the International Average for both Math and Science. For example, in Maths, our Secondary 2 Malay students performed as well as students in Netherlands and Belgium, who were the top performing European countries in the study. They also performed significantly better in Math than students in the United States, Australia, and Sweden.[3]

Beyond Academic Achievement

5. To succeed in an innovation-based world, however, our parents and our schools cannot remain narrowly focused on improving academic grades. Outside of the school, our youth are faced with all sorts of challenges. If making the grade is at the top of their list of priorities, if they strive for this at the expense of cultivating integrity, personal accountability and social responsibility, then all is lost.

6. For many young people, a good grounding in values will take place naturally, through their shared school experiences of taking part in Co-Curricular Activities, Community Involvement Projects, as well as in their families. We cannot ignore, however, the powerful influence exerted by the media and their peers who might have taken wayward routes in life.

7. What burdens me, particularly, is reading about a growing sector of young people who pursue dissolute, wanton lifestyles. Sadly, there are indications that many are experimenting with sex in their teenage years. The debilitating problem of substance abuse continues to haunt our Malay-Muslim community. Although the number of arrests of new drug offenders has declined in the past 3 years, a new trend of synthetic drug abuse is developing and is on the rise.

8. All these point to the need for our young to be guided in their values, their worldviews and belief systems. They need to engage in activities that will enrich their growing up years, not detract from them. They need to explore avenues in life that purposefully develop their many talents, not leave them buried and unidentified.

A Need for Peer Role Models

9. I would like to suggest that making young people accountable to one another is a powerful way of transmitting a sense of personal responsibility. The best among us are not only those who are the brightest. Let me cite an example. Now a civil engineering undergraduate at NTU, Iskandar Bin Khairuldin impressed his NTU Admissions interviewers not just with his academic grades. Iskandar was offered a place at NTU as a result of his achievements in leading various Co-Curricular Activities, both in his secondary school and in polytechnic. He served as the President of the Singapore Polytechnic Student Union in 2002-03, after doing a term as its Vice-President in 2001- 02.

10. In Iskandar’s secondary school, he was awarded the Best in Service Award, for his contributions in many parts of his school life. Not only was he a cadet of the National Cadet Corps and a member of the prefectorial board, he also acted as a peer support leader, and was involved in a school musical. We need more Malay students who are willing to step out and be an integral part of their school community, like Iskandar has been. His leadership is not, I believe, unique to just the top rungs of academic achievers. It simply calls for a conviction that what we do impacts someone else, which in turn, cements in us a desire to make the best of ourselves, particularly in the years of our youth.

A Joint Effort of Stakeholders in Education

11. Parents play an all-important role in their children’s lives. Their attitudes towards the educational development of their children have evolved in recent years. We now see parents placing a greater premium on their children’s education, with more sending them to pre-schools. More are also subscribing to enrichment and education programmes run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and self-help groups – a happy sign that they see the importance of investing time in their children’s education.

12. This is where we see the NGOs take on an expanding role of supporting the work done by our schools. I am heartened by the concerted efforts of groups such as Mendaki, Sinda, CDAC, the Eurasian Association, and AMP. Programmes run for young families, such as AMP’s Family Life Education modules; Tuition & Education Programmes for students in early primary through to post-secondary levels; all of these bridge the joint efforts between school, family and the wider community.

13. My heartfelt appreciation goes especially to AMP for the programmes it has mounted to introduce young people to activities that build character and moral integrity. Programmes like the AMP-ITE Personal Development Programme and the Youth Enrichment Programme are initiated with the goal of developing the whole person – i.e. a balanced individual who is able to realise his personal ambitions, and fulfil his roles within the community and society he lives in.

14. Today’s event is to honour the students who have embodied the spirit which the programmes have been designed to achieve. There is no doubt in my mind that the recipients of today’s awards will be ready to take up their place in the community, given the exposure and experiences that they have been through as a result of their participation and performance thus far.

15. I am also honoured to present Letters of Appointment to a group of young adolescents who have shown a readiness to take on more responsibilities as Executive Committee members of the STAR Youth Club. The five young people, alumni of the Youth Enrichment Programme, are wonderful examples of the difference that AMP’s effort can make. We would do well to continue to develop many more of such determined, proactive, and exemplary youths.

16. I have also learnt that two proposals from this group have been selected for the Citibank-YMCA Youth For Causes 2005 Social Entrepreneurial Programmes. You must be very proud of yourselves – my heartiest congratulations to all those involved.

17. On that note I would like to congratulate AMP and all the youths involved for your success in making a difference in the life of our youths and to our community in general.

18. Thank you.

[1] Source: Performance by Ethnic Group Press Release on 22 Nov 2004, Chart Al: http://www.moe.gov.sg/press/2004/ChartA.pdf

[2] Source: Performance by Ethnic Group Press Release on 22 Nov 2004, Chart D. Url address is http://www.moe.gov.sg/press/2004/pr20041122a.htm

[3] Source: Taken from speech delivered by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam at Launch of Cahaya M (MENDAKI) on 2 April 2005. http://www.moe.gov.sg/speeches/2005/sp20050402b.htm For SPS’ info only, comparison tables are found in the Annex of the speech, provided by MIRB.