Looking for help during the Christmas season?

Dear NYF participants,

Please take note, both Yao Long and Jessica will be out station until after Christmas. If there are any problems with your project or anything you are suppose to update/ submit to projects committee, please send it directly to ng.chew.yee@nyf.sg. Any urgent matter please call/sms 96315648 (contactable 24/7).

Thank you.

Best regards,
Ng Chew Yee
NYF08 Projects Chairperson

NYF projects

Dear NYF participants,

I believe by now you would have received the feedback from projects committee on your project. The deadline for the final proposal was 5th December 2008, but up to date I have only one received final project proposal. Only a few groups had asked for extension of deadline. Please send in your project proposal by 9th December 2008, 2359Hrs, to the respective project committee members in charge of your group. If you have any questions or problems, I strongly urge that you give me a call at 96315648 if you are unable to contact the project committee members.

There will also be a meet up with the project committee this coming weekend. Please book a time slot with me either by email, ng.chew.yee@nyf.sg or by sms.

The available timeslots are:
Friday, 12 December 2008, 6-10pm
Saturday, 13 December 2008, 8am-6pm

For this meet up, please ensure that your project proposal is ready. Also, each group should be represented by at least 4 of the group members. Every group is given an hour to discuss their project with the projects committee.

You can download the project template at
http://www.box.net/shared/9h0a606s64

Best regards,
Ng Chew Yee
NYF08 Projects Chairperson

Summary of pre-dialogue discussions

(Click image for next slide...)

These are the slides that were presented by Johnston at the PMD on behalf of NYF 08. I have put it up as I think it is a good summary of what was discussed at the pre-dialogue session. These are some of the issues that you might want to keep in mind while you think of your projects. I hope to be able to compile a more comprehensive one too. Look out for that soon!

Watch fullscreen | Download PDF

Risque of teens at risk

This article reports on the statistics of teenagers having casual sex in Singapore and what is being done by various groups to curb the growing trend. The issue is both a health-related one (spread of STDs) and also a social one (more under-aged teens engaging in casual sex and the rise of teenage pregnancy).

Here are some excerpts:

"Sexually active teens are on the rise but many are ignorant of the deadlier aspects of unprotected sex. ..."

"... Even in supposedly conservative Singapore, the number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among teenagers last year hit a high of 820, up from 775 in 2006, according to the Ministry of Health. In addition, there were 833 pregnancies in girls 19 years and under last year, 16 of whom were below 15 years old. There were also 1,363 teenage abortions. ..."

"... Sarah (not her real name), 17, a secondary school student, said: "It's almost like no one's talking about it but everyone's doing it." ..."

"... Sexual health experts Mind Your Body spoke to said that for youths who are already having sex, combining oral contraceptives with the use of condoms is the best form of protection against STIs and prevention of unwanted pregnancy.

However, some, like Focus On The Family - a charity body dedicated to the strengthening of Singapore families - and DrChristopher Ng, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at GynaeMD Women's & Rejuvenation Clinic, mooted teen abstinence. ..."

Read the rest of the article here or download the pdf.

British pre-schoolers to get sex education

With teenagers getting exposed to all kinds of information through the internet and mass media these days, the question is, at what age should sex education begin? The British believe that it is necessary for children as young as 5 to be educated about the birds and bees. When the new policiy is implemented, Britain which has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe, will see sex education brought to all schools, including kindergartens.

Here are some excerpts:

"... At the very earliest stage, sex education will mainly be about self-awareness, he said.'We are not talking about five-year-old kids being taught sex,' he said. 'What we're talking about for key stage one (ages five to seven) is children knowing about themselves, their differences, their friendships and how to manage their feelings.' "

" ... 'I am not the parent who calls her son's penis a wee-wee. But I should decide if the word penis enters my child's vocabulary at five or not,' said Ms Elizabeth Talbot, of London, who has two sons, aged four and six months old. ..."

"... 'When parents fail to educate their kids properly, the government has every right to step in,' said Ms Gayla Coil, a Londoner and mother to two kids aged 13 and 10. 'Me, I welcome the help.' "

In Singapore, there is Breaking Down Barriers - a broad-based sex education programme taught at Secondary 3 level, that is disseminated through science, health education and civic classes. The Ministry of Education will also be introducing a customised programme which aims to raise awareness of STIs in November this year (2008).

Whose responsibility is it to educate our children? Should parents have a right to opt out of a programme if they feel their children are not ready for such lessons? Should sex education in Singapore be targeting teens from Sec 1, since research shows that out of 833 pregnancies in girls 19 years and under last year, 16 are below 15 years old. What do you think?

Download the full article here.

Talks Mena Trott: Building a friendlier world through blogs

Mena Trott and her husband Ben founded Six Apart in a spare bedroom after the blogging software they developed grew beyond a hobby. With products Movable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox, the company has helped lead the "social media" revolution.

I remember in the early days of blogs, Movable Type was one of the frontrunners where it came to exploring a whole new medium of self-expression. Today, they are probably the largest paid blogging service in the world. I thought it was an interesting point Mena brought up, about how blogs have a way of flattening the world we live in and connecting strangers together just by reading each other's blog. A cancer patient is able to touch many around the world with her daily musings, her passing away afftecting those who have never met her before but have cheered her on from a thousand miles away. On the other spectrum, we now have blogging celebrities whose daily entries are fodder for the gossip mongers among us. It is even possible to earn a living out of being a full-time celebrity blogger. Imagine that 10 years ago. Welcome to the world of the new media.

Football and the Mass Media in 1920s Bueno Aires

Sports has the power to build culture and bring about a collective national identity. In this article, the author studies how football as a sport might have brought about the emergence of a new urban culture in the city of Bueno Aires in the 1920s. Here's an excerpt:

"... In these accounts, it is the massness of football, its capacity to fill stadiums with thousands of spectators, that makes it a useful hegemonic tool. In this sense, football represents one example of a familiar phenomenon in the history of Latin American popular culture. As the cultural practices of poor people are disseminated and repackaged by the mass media,
they are sanitized for a heterogeneous, multiclass audience, and they lose their oppositional meanings. In this form, they are available for nationalist appropriation by the state. ...

Download the full article here.

Mr Masagos Zulkifli BMM: The Education Landscape - Catering to Excellence

This is the Keynote Speech by Mr Masagos Zulkifli BMM, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Education, at the Association of Muslim Professionals' (AMP) Community In Review Seminar in January 2008. He speaks about how as a nation, we have moved from a survival-driven phase of education, to an efficiency-driven model and since 1997, towards an ability-driven and aspirations-based model. It is in this phase that the government hopes to cater to and build on the strengths of our students, so that all Singaporeans are set on a path towards excellence from young. He goes on to highlight 3 principles on which we will do so.

1. Every Singaporean has Access to a Foundation for Excellence
2. We Cater to All Strengths
3. There are Multiple Pathways to Success

Below are excerpts from the speech.

"... In many other education systems around the world, there is often a disparity between public and private schools, in terms of facilities, quality, programmes and outcomes. These disparities in the education system often set the stage for widening gaps between those from privileged and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. In Singapore, we want education to be the levelling ground to bring children of all backgrounds to a high average. Not surprisingly then, Singaporean students - all Singaporean students - emerge among the best in the world when their learning outcomes are measured. ..."

"... We cater for the development of a wide range of talents, and in so doing, have extended far beyond the development of academic talents. We have established new specialised schools in the Arts, Sports, and Maths and Science, so as to bring students’ talents in these areas as far ahead as possible. ..."

"... We created NorthLight School to provide another pathway to success for students who are not well-suited for a conventional academic education, and who found difficulty in assessing the PSLE curriculum. The school uses creative and unconventional teaching methods to stimulate its students, and focuses its efforts on building their confidence. ..."

Read the rest of the speech here or download the pdf.

Ernest Madu: Bringing world-class health care to the poorest

Ernest Madu founded the Heart Institute of the Caribbean, a revolutionary clinic for cardiovascular diseases in Kingston, Jamaica -- revolutionary for offering first-class health care in a developing nation. He proves that -- with careful design, smart technical choices, and a true desire to serve -- it's possible to offer world-class healthcare in the developing world.

Alex Steffen: Inspired ideas for a sustainable future

Alex Steffen is co-founder and executive editor of WorldChanging.com, an online clearinghouse of information and inspiration on the environment. He argues that reducing humanity’s ecological footprint is incredibly vital now, as the western consumer lifestyle spreads to developing countries.

Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis

Once the US Vice President, then star of An Inconvenient Truth, now Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore found a way to focus the world's attention on climate change. In this video, he spells out 15 ways that individuals can address climate change immediately, from buying a hybrid to inventing a new, hotter "brand name" for global warming.

Alan Kay: A powerful idea about teaching ideas

With all the intensity and brilliance for which he is known, Alan Kay envisions better techniques for teaching kids by using computers to illustrate experience in ways -– mathematically and scientifically -- that only computers can.

Dave Eggers: Once Upon a School

Dave Eggers won the 2008 TED Prize Wish with this personal project. An accomplished novelist in his own right, Dave came up with an idea to partner local schools to help improve the literacy level of students. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own centres and reach out to others in their own communities. Dave's passion to create positive change is deeply moving. His idea is a simple one, but extremely portable to our local context in Singapore. Perhaps the way to a better education for Sinagporeans lie not just in our public education system but also on how non-governmental groups can come in to integrate, providing a more wholistic solution to our challenges especially with regards to the less academically inclined.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. In doing so, I feel he raises some important questions on how and why we are in the business of education. I thought this is especially relevant for us in Singapore where the Ministry of Education has tried ways to include creative thinking in our local syllabus. While the intention was brilliant and indeed timely, its execution was not always beneficial. Sir Ken Robinson provides some interesting ideas in this video.

Research Topics Write-up

1. “Sports beyond 2010” (Download research pack)
Context: Next year July, Singapore would be hosting the ASEAN Youth Games and following that the inaugural Youth Olympics in 2010. Singapore has already begun work on providing top class facilities and services for the upcoming events. The question however, is not whether the facilities and services would be completed on time but rather on sports culture in Singapore.

Will there be a continuum of the sports culture and sports spirit once the events come to an end and the anticipation and excitement dies down?
Will we be able to leverage on these events to revive the same national spirit that we saw in the years of the Singapore Malaysian Cup?
What can youths do to encourage the development of our youth talents in sports?
Are the media blasts on sports effective or can we do more?

2. “Expressions – Yours or Mine” (Download research pack)
Context: Many a times, we have heard the words, ‘Freedom of expression’. But what does it mean in today’s high tech world? With new devices such as citizen journalism, online blogging and new media, the term freedom of expression has become a double- edged sword. Does it cost to practice freedom of expression in Singapore?

Even with channels such as new media and citizen journalism, are we truly allowed to express our views? Are we ready for the new boundaries that new media sets? How accountable should people be for their choice of expression?

3. “Education For All” (Download research pack)
Context: Singapore has been in the forefront in trying to provide a holistic, qualified and equal education to its citizens. Singapore’s education system has been often lauded overseas while more often lambasted at home for its actual or perceived inadequacies. The system is sometimes described as a manufacturing process.

But the real question is, what does education really mean to Singaporean youth?With constant revision and introduction to the education system, are we truly bettering or worsening the quality of education?

Is our education system becoming more elitist in nature?
Is the education machinery producing marketable graduates?
Singapore practices meritocracy, giving people equal chances in terms of education. But is being meritocracy the way to go or is it widening the education gap even further?
Do the products of our system reflect the desired outcomes of our education?

4. “Taking It Green” (Download research pack)
Context: Our urban planning has been one of the most highly regarded in the world and a much sought-after model for many of the world's developing countries. The green factor is one of the reasons why the thousands of visitors that throng our streets every day remember us when they return home. Singapore has gone even further to answer the call of global warming by taking appropriate measures. Efforts such as bringing your own shopping bag instead of using plastic bags, using the media to teach people how to save energy and rewarding them when they reduce electrical energy by giving them a chance to win a hybrid car, has set to encourage people to go green.

The question however is, are we truly green?
Can Singapore do more?
Can one of Singapore’s driving industry, tourism expand on Eco- tourism?
How can youth in particular help in this issue?

5. “Sex: Lies & Reality” (Download research pack)
Context: Recent reports have painted an alarming picture of increased incidences of STDS, HIV and teenage pregnancy in Singapore.

To many of us, it is a health issue that needs to be addressed but the key question is, what does this tell us about how sex is viewed by youth in Singapore? If more of such problems are rising then are we really giving the proper form of education to our youth on the issue of sex? Is sex just a private issue or has it become a social issue?

Singapore is slowly opening up to new social identities. In that case are we given the freedom to uncover our own sexuality despite what has been taught to us?
What are the consequences if we choose our own sexuality?
Is society still as discriminatory as it has been before?
What are our youth’s view on the issue of sexuality?