Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Decay of Moral in Singapore

MOE develops tool kit for character education
08 November 2011


SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education (MOE) has developed a resource package to help schools create their own curriculum for Character and Citizenship Education (CCE).

The tool kit provides checklists and broad approaches that teachers can take.

Teachers will need to be supported through professional development courses and relevant research materials.

But Minister for Education Heng Swee Keat said parents must not be left out of the equation.

"Parents play the most critical role in the upbringing of the children, in inculcating the right values and building the character of their children," he said.

"Indeed, parents are the ones who know their children best. So there has to be a very strong partnership between the parents and schools, and also between the schools and the broader community.

"If you look at the sources of influence on the values and the character of our students, the sources are much more diverse and varied than it was in the past.

"Therefore, it's important to pull all these elements together into a coherent whole."

The tool kit sets out several broad approaches.

These include integrating CCE into the school's academic subjects, co-curricular activities and staff development programmes, as opposed to treating it as a standalone subject.

Schools should also customise their programmes based on the profile of their students.

In North View Primary School, for instance, students put themselves in the shoes of others during lessons on empathy.

They take turns manoeuvring their classmates on wheelchairs, and picking out safety pins from rice while being blindfolded.

These are some ways to give students a feel of what it is like to be disabled.

Primary 6 student Wong Xin Pei said: "I was starting to get irritated after only a while. Then I realised how hard it was for the visually handicapped to go through their entire lives without being able to see what's around them."

Examples such as what's taking place at North View Primary are included in the new tool kit, to guide teachers along.

The tool kit lays out some broad approaches, including treating values not as a separate subject, but something to be integrated into everyday school life.

Teachers will be given the flexibility to customise programmes based on the family background and profiles of the students, and they'll also be given the support and resources to do so.

But schools can't do it alone.

Unlike other subjects, determination, responsibility and self-confidence can't be tested.

Mr Heng said the effort will take time to bear fruit, and the only gauge is how well students internalise these values.

North View Primary said it will form focus groups involving students and parents to ensure that the teaching of values is on the right track.



It’s about time they start to emphasis more on the moral of our youth.

They may be too late as the parents of these youth already has not much morals and they certainly will influent their children more then what the school can.

I have seen countless selfish parents letting their child run wild, screaming their head off at public area causing a nuisance to the pubic while they either chat with their friends or doddle on their phones.

I have seen countless parents behaving badly in front of their kids not settling a good example.

They grab as more they can eat at buffet, cut queues, litter and are rude to others.
So what moral will a child have if he or she grows up in this kind of family?

Children imitate adult and they spend more time at home then school.

If you don’t have time to love, educate and discipline your child then don’t have kids.

They will only grow up to be another irritating adult.

No wonder youth these days have screwed up life and even beat up their parents.