Ms Goh's GP blog

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The education system in Singapore today is effective in preparing youths for the future. To what extent do you agree?

With the implementation of the Community Involvement Programme (CIP) by the Ministry of education as well as the offering of overseas and outreach programmes by many institutions, schools today are taking the learning experience out of the classrooms, enabling students to develop their character and experience many life-changing lessons that certainly cannot be learnt in the boundaries of the classroom. With these programmes, students would be thought values of life such as compassion, kindness, learning to appreciate the finer things in life etc. The learning of these values certainly challenge the social norms that youths today are selfish and will definitely aid them in the future once they enter the extremely stressful working world. Furthermore, these programmes would also help youth in developing confidence as well as charisma which would certainly be an added bonus in the future. Once such institution that has been conducting such programmes that focuses on student development would be that of the 'Outward Bound' schools. Having been started in Europe and slwoly branching out into parts of Asia, Outward Bound has played host to many schools in Singapore today. Though some might argue that these sort of overseas and outreach programmes are mostly offered to more 'branded schools', this is through no fault of the education system in Singapore as students from supposedly less 'branded' schools tend to be disinterested in such programmes and aren't offered these programmes as the requirement would be that they should be more focussed on their studies. Furthermore, there is no doubt that these programmes are effective in student development and therefore just shows the effectiveness of the education system in Singapore.

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Hi

Please put up comments to this post in the following format:

Name:
Question:
My Topic Sentences: (at least 3)
My Improved paragraph:
My Reflections & Learning Points: [write down what obstacles you had and what you have learnt from this assignment]

Let's push towards great achievements together!

Cheers
Ms Goh

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Qn 2. “Youth is wasted in preparation for adulthood”. Do you agree?

No of scripts: 65 Marks Range: 15 - 33
No of passes: 39 (60%) No of failures: 26 (40%)

Comments

 Good candidates offered a balanced perspective by explaining as well as challenging the assumption in the quotation. They were able to have a clear stand and make an argument without contradicting themselves.

 Analyse keywords, key phrases and requirements of the question carefully.
 Some went off focus discussing how youth can be wasted (by not studying hard & failing exams/ by watching TV & being addicted to computer games/ by mixing with bad company and turning delinquent/ unwanted pregnancy) without addressing the crucial key phrase “in preparation for adulthood.”
 Some simply regurgitated the lecture notes describing the physical and emotional changes that youth experience and tried to make an argument that all the acne, awkwardness, voice change, raging hormones and so on prepare youth for adulthood and therefore, youth is not wasted. This is a weak argument as the key phrase “preparing for adulthood” here actually refers to “preparing youth for his roles and responsibilities as an adult”, not so much the biological preparation.
 Some went on to describe the qualities of youth at length, claiming that since youth are physically and mentally at their peak and they can do all these exciting things like bungee jumping, rock climbing and so on, their youth is not wasted. However, they failed to explain how these are “in preparation for the roles and responsibilities of an adult.”

 Do not limit your examples to Singapore when the question does not ask for “in your society” or “in your country.” Weak candidates described at length the Singapore education system and the piano, ballet, tuition lessons that Singaporean parents force their children to take, instead of making an argument.

 Weak candidates have a limited scope – by insisting that youth is always wasted in preparation of adulthood and refusing to consider other perspectives.

 Have a topic sentence to focus the paragraph to address the question. A topic sentence needs to have 1) the main idea of the paragraph and 2) an argument to address the question. Analyse why most of the paragraph below lacked focus.

John Dewey, an American educationist said. “the word education is the process of learning.” This is indeed true. Most people are alert and learn fast during their youth. Young people understand concepts and knowledge better than adults. They can absorb knowledge and remember them more easily. Thus education often starts from young. The process of learning of learning not only allows young people to gain knowledge but also in a way shapes their personality and mould character. Correct moral values have to be taught as it is crucial to society. Young people are most easily tempted and lured by new things. They are curious but often this may lead them to the wrong path. For examples, there are cases of theft and drug abuses among young people all over the world. This is because they are most easily influenced by peer pressure and the mass media. They have to be taught right and wrong so as not to commit unnecessary crimes. Knowledge can enable them to have a broader view of the world. They will become more mature …
Thus, youth is not wasted in preparation for adulthood as they have to be moulded into responsible individuals. Relevance to
qn not clear

Merely
describing
qualities of
youth &
importance of
education and
need to impart
moral values –
argument still
not directly made
Finally! The argument is revealed.

A good writer will state the main idea of the paragraph and make his argument clear in the topic sentence in the beginning of the paragraph and then go on to develop the argument. Having made the development, he will then reinforce his argument in his restatement sentence at the end of the paragraph, as shown on the next page:
The process of educating youth to be morally and socially responsible is essential to prepare them for adulthood.(TS) This is because …. (devt)
Thus, providing young people with a moral compass to guide their actions as adults is definitely not a waste of youth. (RS)

Main idea of paragraph Argument that addresses the question

 Youth - not confined to teenagers. While 21 is the legal age to vote, it does not mean that once a person hits 21 years of age, he is no longer “ young” or “youthful”! A young adult still qualifies as “youth”! (I hope!)

 Youth = both males and females; youths = males only (regardless of the Singlish version you read in Singapore newspapers)

 Do not use the pronoun “you” in GP essays.

 Avoid using “one.” This is because once you embark on using “one”, you’ll have to follow it through and this makes the sentence rather cumbersome.
e.g. “if one only studies, one will not enjoy life because one will lose out on other experiences”.

 Avoid using “ he or she” (e.g. “if he or she only studies he or she will not enjoy life because he or she will lose out…”). It is redundant and cumbersome. Choose only one pronoun and use it throughout consistently.

 Use pronouns consistently.

“It is because of the time and effort one had spent that he or she is able to enter their adulthood with accumulated life experiences and the you can get satisfaction out of this”. (sic)

Analysing the requirements of the question


“Youth is wasted in preparation for adulthood”. Do you agree?




not children evaluate statement
offer a balanced perspective

to prepare for the roles and responsibilities of an adult by
providing the necessary skills to enable him to be useful citizen



education


for career social skills values (moral compass)
character development










Suggested Approach

Introduction

Consider the different definitions and qualities of youth but it is not necessary to give a specific age range (as this is subjective). Consider the key phrase “in preparation for adulthood.” Discuss the expectations society has of youth. Discuss the various ways to prepare youth for adulthood. State your approach to the question by explaining the assumption underlying the quotation and then challenging it.

Body

1. Discuss the assumption underlying the quotation. Why is youth perceived as being wasted in preparation for adult roles and responsibilities?
 youth is said to have been wasted when there is a lack of balance ie. over-emphasis on studies & trying to fulfil adult expectations of academic excellence and a good career to the exclusion of personal development and other experiences, causing young people not to enjoy their youth nor maximize their youthful potential. This is often the case in very competitive, pressure-cooker societies.
 It can also be argued that young people from less privileged families who have to shoulder the burden of looking after parents or siblings or getting a job to help the family make ends meet have to be prepared for their adult responsibilities at the expense of their youth.
 Youth is said to have been wasted when, as adults, these people look back on their lives and remember only the stress and the regrets of youthful enthusiasm, curiosity and passion stifled, dreams and potential unfulfilled, and losing out on what is seen as the necessary experiences of youth such as first love, partying, experimenting and generally having fun.


2. Challenge the assumption – that this is not necessarily always the case.
 Many youth able to find a balance and are able to live their youth with zest and passion even as they are being socialised with the necessary skills & responsibilities for adulthood. Contrary to stereotypical belief, many do have an active social life within and outside school. Despite the demands of a heavy curriculum and the pursuit of paper qualifications required for adulthood, many do have meaningful relationships and participate in exciting activities (through CCAs, overseas community involvement programme, and so on). Many do feel youth is the best time of their lives after they settle into the world of adult responsibilities and if this is the case, how can their youth be said to be wasted?

 Youth is a time for exuberance, fun and much social interaction. Youth have boundless energy that they can channel to pursue interests which are of importance to them. These things may well become passions. As the youth grows, so does his passion and this may become a goal in life, giving him direction for adulthood. For instance, many world class professionals, athletes, artistes and astronauts alike were driven when young to pursue their passions. The fulfillment of youthful dreams is the focus of countless people who leave behind legacies. What is often overlooked are the steps that had to be taken before success is achieved. Such stepping stones are encountered during youth and can hardly be called a waste of time or youth.
He Siying, Tanya (SCG 28/05)

 The development of values and character in the classroom or through CCAs to prepare youth to be useful, productive citizens in future cannot be dismissed as a waste of youth either. The development of leadership and organizational skills, resilience, teamwork, independence, entrepreneurial spirit, good work ethic, healthy lifestyle … (and the list goes on) provides youth with the necessary traits and confidence to deal with the challenges of adulthood. The best part of youth is that society generally allows youth to experiment and make mistakes. Just because youth are disciplined or counselled for their failures and mistakes, again does not necessarily mean their youth is wasted. This is invaluable to teach young people to be accountable for their actions and to learn from their mistakes so that they become responsible adults.

 While the theories and subjects learnt and studied to pass examinations may not always be relevant to one’s career or adult life, the value of the hidden curriculum to prepare young people for adulthood cannot be dismissed as a waste of youth.
- cultivation of a critical and inquiring mind, inculcation of discipline, stress and time management skills, how to cope with competition and the pressures of juggling multiple tasks and responsibilities are all necessary and valuable. If this helps the young adult cope with the demands of his career in a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive world, and enables him to prioritise and effectively balance the demands of career, family and social responsibilities, then his youth has not been wasted preparing for this.

 Internships, job attachments, grooming and etiquette classes, inspirational workshops and seminars all add up to provide youth with that competitive edge when he enters adulthood. As such, how can youth be seen as wasted when every new experience adds value to the adult as a member of the workforce and society?

Conclusion

 Since youth is a transitional stage to adulthood, all the accumulated experiences are certainly essential and, hence, not wasted to prepare youth for adulthood. (stand)

 Our youth is the time when our decisions usually determine the kind of lives we lead upon reaching adulthood. Thus, it is vital for us to make full use of our time to learn as much as possible and, in the process discover our hidden talents, who we are and what we would like to do. It is during youth that we gain the skills and maturity to cope with the emotional, mental and social challenges of adulthood. (possible insightful statement)
Chua Ming Jie , SCG 28/05 (adapted)

 However, many youth let time fly by or travel down the wrong path. They turn out as confused individuals or woefully inadequate adults, unprepared for the pressures of adulthood. Their youth has been wasted and the reasons for this cannot always be clearly defined. The preparation for adult life was either too little or done wrongly or both. (another possible insightful statement)
He Siying, Tanya, SCG 28/05 (adapted)





Report prepared by marker, Ms Norsheha

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Is the woman the salvation or the destruction of the family?

Keywords

1. Woman: Woman in her key roles (as wife or mother in a family), having great influence in determining the fate of the family
2. Salvation: Responsible for ensuring the family’s continued survival, that the family stays cohesive. Necessary for the family’s well-being.
3. Destruction: Responsible for the family falling apart, becoming dysfunctional. Could also consider “destruction” in terms of termination of the family line.

Minimum requirements

1. Must take a stand either way (salvation or destruction) or develop a line of argument in response to the question.
2. Need to develop points (with examples) to show how women are key to the family’s salvation, or otherwise
3. Need to also consider other factors that impact the family’s well-being (e.g. the role played by the father)

Pitfalls

• Disagreeing with the statement, with the largest part of the discussion focused on other factors that determine the family’s destiny (e.g. role of father, media etc)
• Not providing a balanced argument in response to the question

Good points / Bonus points

1. Considering the other roles that women play, and how they affect the family (e.g. role as daughter, grandmother)
2. Considering the power women increasingly have over their own biological reproduction (idea of contraceptives, determining own reproductive destiny, lowering birth rates, rise of DINKs phenomena as the women delay marriage and childbirth, or decide not to have any children at all)

Potential Lines of Argument
1. Woman is the salvation of the family, she is the pillar of the family and has prevailed against the demands of the modern world to keep the family together.

2. Woman is the destruction of the family, particularly in this demanding and challenging (modern world). This is the result of what Francis Fukuyama calls the Great Disruption (to society, to family) caused by women going out to work, women controlling their own fertility. Correlation between soaring divorce rates and women going out to work

3. Woman is both the salvation and the destruction of the family, because of the power she wields within it. Key to the family’s destiny is how well she manages the demands of family care and the workplace. The man in the family is just as important in determining the well-being of the family. (Note: if the candidate offers this line of argument, he MUST FIRST take on the PREMISE of the question, to show how the woman is both the salvation and destruction of the family, before discussing the important roles man plays)


Possible Points/Ideas/Reasons/Examples

Areas/ Salvation /Destruction

Psychological /Woman as mother plays key role of nurturing, values development, the first teacher that a child comes into contact with.
/The mother is the primary caregiver
More emotionally involved with children in the family.
Role-models positive role of motherhood and parenting for her children, especially her daughters. Examples of how the family is vulnerable to become dysfunctional when the mother does not play the role of caregiver well.

Emotional /In cases of incomplete families (due to divorce), often the default parent is the mother. E.g. While this isn't true in all countries and all courts, in general, courts still prefer mothers over fathers when it comes to custody of children. /In demanding modern economy, women are often emotionally spent, emotionally absent from the children even when they home from work.

Physical/Biological /Emotional identification with mother as a parent: E.g. A girl whose mother is afraid of storms and large animals is tempted to assume that she, too, is afraid of these dangerous events; a girl with a relatively fearless mother will come to the opposite conclusion. In addition, children share vicariously in some of the experiences that occur to the parents with whom they are identified. If the parent displays/models healthy interpersonal relationships with others, including those within the family, the child too would more easily conclude that he can form healthy relationships as he grows up. When a woman decides not to have any babies, the potential for family creation is lost.

Religious Bibilical perspective: When she has a family to consider, a woman’s primary responsibility and duty is to care for and nurture the young.
Islamic perspective: While not the head of the family, the woman is considered the main pillar of the family.
In Judaism: Judaism has great respect for the importance of that role and the spiritual influence that the woman has over her family. Women are exempted from all positive commandments ("thou shalts" as opposed to "thou shalt nots") that are time-related (that is, commandments that must be performed at a specific time of the day or year), because the woman's duties as wife and mother are so important that they cannot be postponed to fulfill a commandment. After all, a woman cannot be expected to just drop a crying baby when the time comes to perform a commandment. (Can’t think of anything in scripture that says anything remotely negative about mothers. About women, plenty, but mother’s role is revered)

Economic Dual-income families the norm these days. More mothers have to make a sacrifice by going out to work, in order to share the financial burdens of the family. Managing the financial load reduces strain felt by the family and spousal relationship. E.g. Amongst the Malays in Singapore, a key factor which causes divorces is the financial difficulty faced by married couples. Recent data released by MCYS showed that forty per cent of the Malay male divorcees also had ex-wives who did not hold down a regular job, compared to 7 per cent of those who were married.

Married women's increased participation in the work force may have many consequences. Some of the consequences that result form married women working are that there is less time spent at home, less time interacting with family, and changing goals for the future. These consequences may negatively effect the marital relationship and contribute to the increasing divorce rates because some people may be reluctant to adapt their traditional beliefs about the roles they think men and women should perform.

Role of women in developing countries (e.g. Philippines, Indonesia), mothers, daughters leave their familial homes in order to work as domestic help in richer countries (e.g. UAE, Singapore) and remit money back home. This has helped poor families survive.

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To what extent do you agree that the mass media today has contributed to the decline in family ties?

The mass media has contributed to the decline in family ties. The mass media has not contributed to the decline in family ties.
1. The mass media such as television has widened the generation gap between parents and children. Today, children’s role models are the pop idols and television stars of today; children dress like them, talk like them and some even espouse the same values as their media idols. This may come in conflict with parents’ views of what their children should wear and how they should talk. There are also clashes in terms of values which parents feel are important and children may feel are old-fashioned and not in tandem with the image they want to project and which they have seen on television. Thus conflict happens between parents and children, contributing to the decline in family ties.

2. Today our dependence of the mass media such as the television and the Internet, for entertainment, has led to families spending less time with each other. The mass media intrudes into family time such as families watching TV instead of talking to each other at dinner or children disappearing into their rooms to surf the net or chat virtually with their friends rather than in real time with their parents and siblings.

3. Today’s fast paced growth of technology and improvement in the mass media has led to a technological gap between parents and children. Some parents feel inadequate in coping with the Net and thus allow children too much freedom in using the Net. Children might misuse this freedom leading to conflicts and quarrels with parents, thus weakening family ties. On the other hand, some parents become too suspicious of children’s advanced knowledge in the new media and may prevent their children from using it, leading to further conflicts. 1. The media has helped in the preservation of family ties. For example, the advances in Internet technology such as web-cams and Internet telephones have helped loved ones abroad to stay in touch and communicate with family members, the frequency of which may not have possible without the cheap and quick access of web communication.

2. The media today has many educational programs which could be used as educational tools to provide parents with tips on how to bond with children or media such as the television is used to discuss values which are important and accepted by the family, thus the media could in fact enhance family ties.

3. It is up to parents to manage the changes that technology and the mass media brings. For example if parents are worried about media exposure on the child’s cultural values, parents could negate the influence of the media by controlling what the child sees on TV or learns from the Net.

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11 'The polarisation of the young and the old has never been so marked as it is today.' Is this reflective of the situation in your country?

Define 'polarisation' - show understanding of division into two opposites.
Merely discuss how polarisation is present in Singapore between the young and the old without explicitly showing how it has become more or less distinct today.
Discussion of the spheres in which polarisation is seen may be vague and limited.
Discussion of how the polarisation may have come about is limited.


Explicit discussion of how the degree of polarisation has become more or less distinct today.
Some discussion of possible convergence between the young and the old.
Clear discussion of what had led to the increasing or decreasing markedness of polarisation.
A range of examples.

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3. How far do you agree that family planning should be a responsibility of the state rather than the individual?

Number attempted: 17
No. passed: 7 (41.2%)
No. failed: 10 (58.8%)
Mark range: 15 – 28

Strengths
• Most scripts showed some knowledge of family planning policies, primarily those implemented in China and Singapore.
• The better scripts were able to discuss, to some extent, the tussle between individual preference and societal good.

Weaknesses

1. Question interpretation
a. Failure to recognise command words
• Command words tell you what you are supposed to do with the question, how you should begin your essay, what tone you should adopt etc…
• “How far do you agree” suggests that the question is not to be completely agreed or disagreed with. Hence, essays which failed to consider both the roles of the state and the individual would fail to show balance, and hence, be penalised.
• “… should be … rather than …” demands the need to look at the tussle between the state and the individual, to acknowledge the dilemma inherent the issue.
b. Failure to formulating arguments based on the key words
• You should be able to identify the key words of the question that bring out the controversy of the issue. These would be “state” and “individual”, not so much “family planning” because the latter is the topic itself.
What is wrong with the following approaches to the question?
- How family planning can be carried out by the government.
- How family planning is done by countries such as China and Singapore.
- The advantages and disadvantages of family planning.

2. Paragraphing and paragraph development
a. Absence of topic sentences
• This is a serious problem because without topic sentences, your paragraphs lose relevance to the question. Even if the material or example presented is valid, the essay, on the whole, would not be answering the question.
• Topic sentences serve the purpose of addressing the key and command words in the question, and give you the chance to show the reader that you are not out of point. Do not wait till the end of the paragraph to state an argument.
• As a rule of thumb, if the reader were to read only the topic sentences of your essay, he should get an effective summary of it.
b. Lack of distinct paragraphing
• Many scripts had arguments that “run”, that is, the same argument is presented over a few paragraphs. Note that the danger here is not just the lack of paragraph coherence, but the tendency to describe more than argue.

3. Introduction and conclusion – the first and last impressions
a. Introduction
• Before you pen the introduction, ask yourself:
- What is the controversy behind the question?
- Why was the question asked the way it was?
- What is its relevance in this time and age?
- Are there absolute words? Or words that need defining?
These questions should help you paint a background to the topic without losing focus of the question. Never plunge into writing with a vague picture of the issue. Anything that starts hasty and hazy probably won’t find its way out of the fog.
• Write about 80 to 100 words.

Why is the following an effective introduction?

Family planning is an integral stage in a couple’s life where they make the decision of whether to give birth and carry out the responsibility of reproduction. While it is an individual choice, it also concerns the future and survival of a state or country. This decision by individuals determines the population and workforce that drive the state’s economy. As such, for the long-term survival and prosperity of a nation, the state has an indirect responsibility to ensure that family planning by individuals does not jeopardize this progress and survival. In our modern age, this responsibility of the state has become more evident as the consequences of poor family planning in many countries show that individuals have failed to exercise proper family planning by themselves. (125 words)
Lai Guohao, 34/04

b. Conclusion
• Avoid a one-liner.
• Avoid introducing a new argument.
• Avoid a stand that contradicts the one stated in the introduction.

4. Content knowledge
A rule of thumb is if your essay planning does not produce more than 3 ideas, drop that question. If you know nothing about family planning except China’s one-child policy and Singapore’s efforts to up the fertility rate, you should not be doing this question because everybody else knows these too.

A suggested approach

Introduction
• Introduce the idea that family planning has found its way into more countries’ political agenda today than before.
• State how over- or under-population will prevent a country from achieving optimum growth and utilising its resources in the best possible way. Seen from this perspective, the government has the right to control the country’s numbers to maximise its potential.
• Acknowledge the dilemma in the question by looking at how modernisation has given humans more rights in many aspects of their lives, and surely an issue as personal as setting up a family should be left to the individuals.
• State your stand.

Body
• From a utilitarian and practical point of view, family planning should fall under the purview of the government as it would know the country’s carrying capacity, and hence, plan and utilise its human resources in the best possible way.
• Only the state has the capacity to implement family planning policies and campaigns that have the scope to impact the nation’s fertility rates, and that in itself is a good reason for the state to shoulder the responsibility. These will also help people make informed choices about family planning.
• Family planning also enables better provision of facilities and incentives, as well as better distribution of resources. Family planning can also be tied more coherently to more overarching government aims and concerns.
• On the other hand, individuals have their rights and, unless there is state legislation, the final say with regard to birth issues.
• There is also the need to consider how an individual’s perception can be influenced by other factors such as religion or culture, and sensitive issues like abortion, adoption, usage of contraceptives, surrogate motherhood and others will surface. In more rural societies where children are wealth and status symbols, family planning will sound illogical and ludicrous. The question to ask then is how do these factors measure up, vis-à-vis the State.

Family planning can be more efficiently carried out if it is the responsibility of the state. When family planning is done by the state, schemes and other government policies can accompany it to ensure its smooth implementation. If family planning is done by the individual, there will be less help to aid that person in carrying out the plan. Singapore is now actively encouraging families to have more children. To achieve this, the government has tagged many money grants and cash bonuses for families having three or more children. They include tax relief and cheaper education for the child. All these encourage families to follow the plan. In the urban cities of China, the government has made abortion compulsory for women conceiving a second child. One-child families also receive tax rebates. If family planning was to be done by the individual, there would be less government aid and more difficulties in carrying out the plan. Thus, family planning should be a responsibility of the state and not the individual.
Shawn Ting Yi Kuang, 22/04

Conclusion
• An easy way to conclude would be to sum up key arguments and restate your stand.
• You can also come to a generalized conclusion about family planning on a global level, that it is a difficult concept to drive across to people, simply because of the cultural, religious, technological and economic factors that complicate the situation. The less developed parts of the world have difficulties reducing fertility rates while the more developed ones have difficulties upping them.
• To produce a more substantial conclusion, you can provide some insight by looking towards the future, and question the relevance of the issue then. Will it become more/less serious? What likely changes in people’s attitudes and perceptions will there be? Which political/social/economic/technological changes in the future will impact the way this controversy unfolds and how is this done?
SOME USEFUL CASE STUDIES/EXAMPLES

• It is not humanly possible to learn and remember all these, but do look through and try to keep some of these in mind. You never know when such knowledge will come in handy.

Africa (PATH): Tapping into the positive potential of the life-shaping role of culture in Africa.
Africa (World Bank): Incorporating local knowledge, customs and values into projects, primarily in Africa.
Africa and Asia (UNICEF): Communication, advocacy, and mobilization packages that focus on practices harmful to girls in Southern Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa.
Bangladesh: Multi-angle approach to improving the quality of family planning services through planning, supervision, training, and referral services.
China: The introduction of interpersonal communication and counseling skills into a family planning training program.
Uganda (Busoga Diocese): Expanding family planning programs to include HIV/STI services.
Uganda (Sabiny Elders, REACH, NGOs): Working to convince communities to end female genital mutilation, with a focus on positive cultural values.
Uganda (The Straight Talk Foundation): Addressing adolescents' sexual and reproductive health concerns through innovative publications and programs.

Case study 1: Bangladesh

With a population almost half that of the United States in an area less than 2 percent the size, Bangladesh relies heavily on family planning services to enable men and women to limit family size. Yet use of clinical contraceptives has been declining, in part because the quality of services is often inadequate. As part of a Bangladeshi government initiative to address these problems, EngenderHealth (formerly AVSC International) implemented a project from July 1995 to March 1997 in five thanas, or counties, in the Sylhet and Jhenaidah districts. Its goal was to improve the quality of family planning services and the variety of contraceptive methods available by strengthening four components of the family planning system: planning at the local (thana) level, supervision, training, and referral services.

Through COPE (Client-Oriented, Provider-Efficient services) exercises, staff identified several factors hindering service quality:
• Routine examinations were not being performed due to lack of laboratory facilities.
• Sterilization services were offered in few locations and at limited times, owing to staff vacancies and insufficient numbers of staff trained in the procedures.
• Norplant implant services were not available at all in the thanas.
• Clients had limited access to information about clinic services, schedules, and service charges.
• There was no regularly scheduled pre- and post-natal counseling, no counseling arranged for male clients, and often no separate room available for counseling.
• Provider supervision and training were insufficient, as was providers' knowledge about sexually transmitted infections and infection prevention procedures.
• Linkages between services also were lacking.

To solve these problems, local staff developed and implemented action plans, which were reviewed monthly. Training courses were attended by 183 service providers. Refresher courses were given on all contraceptive methods, counseling, and infection prevention, with comprehensive training given in sterilization, Norplant implants, and injectable contraception. Through facilitative supervision workshops, the supervisors learned new approaches to supporting providers in improving quality.

Providers who participated in the COPE exercises and trainings indicated overwhelmingly that they were becoming more aware of and responsive to clients' needs and rights. They also paid greater attention to counseling, client screening, and infection prevention procedures, reporting that the clinics had become cleaner than before. And client referrals and coordination between sites increased substantially. In addition, supervisors found that after participating in the workshops, they were better able to identify staff training needs, and their supervisory style became less directive and more helpful. They also gained a better understanding of what was expected of them, and since supervision became easier to perform, they provided it more systematically.

During the project period, there were no dramatic changes in the mix of contraceptive methods used. However, more clients started using clinical contraceptive services than before. Just as important, client exit interviews indicated high levels of satisfaction with the services received during the project period. Almost all clients said that the problem that had brought them to the clinic had been resolved, and all said they felt comfortable discussing the problem with the provider. The clients also believed that they had been treated well by the provider, and said they would recommend the services to friends and relatives. Of those clients who had also received services within the past year, many noted such improvements in the clinics as the addition of partitions for client privacy, a much-needed fan, greater cleanliness, and better lighting. Because of the project's success, the interagency evaluation team has recommended extending it for another three years. Ultimately, it is expected that these improvements in quality will result in more individuals and couples requesting clinical contraceptive services.

Case Study 2: China

Studies on communication efforts have shown that mass media and educational tools such as brochures and posters are useful for transmitting information to large numbers of people, but that their influence on behavior change can be limited. Interpersonal communications and counseling (IPC/C) provide the needed catalyst and personalized attention to needs and concerns that make a major contribution to behavior change.

One of the strategies the Chinese government has chosen to improve the quality of its family planning program is to strengthen services in the rural areas, where 70 percent of the population—about 870 million people—live (PRB 1998 World Population Data Sheet). In the early 1990s, the government decided to upgrade the skills and knowledge of family planning workers at the township and village level through its five-year Counseling Training Project. The Counseling Training Project was launched in 20 of China's 30 provinces and served as a pilot project for a larger program. This project addressed key aspects of quality of care in China's national family planning program—in particular the quality of information and counseling given to clients, and interpersonal relations between service providers and clients.

As a first step, national project staff learned about local realities by conducting knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) surveys with villagers and family planning workers at the grassroots level. The information from this study was used to develop training programs and materials, and was used as baseline data for project evaluation. A "pyramid" training program was designed in which a small group of core trainers from the provincial and prefecture training stations received training, who then trained a larger group of master trainers from their province. The master trainers then trained an even larger number of staff at the county and township levels, who in turn trained village-level workers. Ultimately, 80,000 rural family planning providers were trained.

Trainers acquired skills in IPC/C, adult learning principles, participatory training methods (such as group discussion and skill practice), and development of training materials based on the needs of the audience. Later, trainers learned IPC/C-training skills specifically tailored to rural Chinese situations and counseling skills related to help clients select appropriate family planning methods and prevent STI/ HIV.

Post-workshop evaluations showed that family planning workers understood the concept of informed choice and that counseling is important in a family planning program to achieve client satisfaction and effective use of methods. Family planning workers also liked the participatory learning techniques used in the trainings and reported that they learned far more than they had previously through the usual lectures. Feedback also showed that family planning managers and local government officials who had been trained in IPC/C were more likely to support the local workers in their efforts to improve the quality of services for clients.

Case Study 3: Zambia

The Government of the Republic of Zambia adopted a National Population Policy in 1989 as part of its fourth National Development Plan. This policy recognized the effects of rapid population growth on Zambia's socioeconomic development and the need to incorporate population concerns into the national development and planning process.

The main objective is to ensure that all couples and individuals can exercise the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and have the information, education, and means to do so. Other specific objectives include slowing the nation's high population growth rate, enhancing the health and welfare of all, and preventing premature death and illness, especially among high-risk groups of mothers and children.

To help the national and district levels in the planning and implementation of the family planning component of their reproductive health programs, a policy framework was developed. The first section of the document describes the framework for family planning supported by the Ministry of Health. The second section, "Strategies for Providing Family Planning within Reproductive Health" addresses the challenges of providing family planning within the context of the broader context of reproductive health as defined at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. It looks at the status of various aspects of reproductive health in Zambia, especially family planning and proposes specific strategies for improving access to and quality of family planning care. For example, the importance of addressing the reproductive health needs of couples throughout their reproductive lives is emphasized. The third section, "Family Planning Methods," contains a technical description of all family planning methods available in Zambia and includes guidelines for service provision based on the revised WHO medical eligibility criteria.
Some specific recommendations include:
• ensuring that providers are trained in all available modern methods;
• making barrier methods, particularly condoms and spermicides, available through a range of channels;
• making combined oral contraceptives available through community-based providers who will use checklists based on the eligibility criteria; and
• making family planning methods available to women seeking postabortion care.

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Apr 17, 2010
The Great (unreachable?) S'pore Dream
Does the Singapore Dream, long encapsulated in the five Cs, still resonate with young people today? If so, have rising home and car prices dampened their aspirations? In the first of a two-part feature, we revisit the Singapore Dream.
By Jeremy Au Yong, Political Correspondent



IF YOU are compiling a handbook on how to succeed in Singapore, you might be tempted to just cut and paste Mr Scott Huang's story into it.

He studied hard in school, received a prestigious scholarship, attended an American Ivy League university, earned a master's in electrical engineering, and went on to a mid-level job in a large maritime company.

What is supposed to happen next - so goes the Singapore Dream - is that he gets married, owns a car, moves into a condominium, joins a golf club, and settles into a comfortable middle-class life happily ever after.

Yet, as the 30-year-old will testify readily, this age-old formula isn't working like he thought it would.

He intends to marry his fiancee, who works in the media industry, by the end of the year, but that's just about where the wheels start to come off the wagon.

Spiralling prices mean the choice piece of private property he hankers for hangs in the balance. Driving a car of his own has been relegated far down the priority list.

He has now drafted a B-dream just in case the A-dream turns out to be beyond his reach.

'I now have what I call a minimum goal and an ideal goal,' he says. 'The minimum goal is an HDB flat; the ideal goal is a condominium apartment and a car.'

Achieving his ideal goal - which includes an overseas education for his future children - is beginning to sound like an impossible dream.

'It will require major changes in lifestyle. I cannot go out so much and cannot have holidays every year. But I'm trying to stay hopeful,' he says.

Mr Huang's tale of the struggle to achieve the Singapore Dream is one familiar to many young Singaporeans of his cohort: in their mid-20s to mid-30s, tertiary-educated, about to settle down or newly married, on the cusp of life.

An increasingly competitive environment and news of rising car and home prices have led to a feeling that the good life they aspire to is slowly slipping out of reach.

But is that really the case?

After all, the country has encountered such bumps several times in its history and every time, young Singaporeans seem to have emerged with their dreams more or less intact.

In 1996, an impassioned debate took place in Parliament over concerns that the Singapore Dream was dying. Eventually, a basket of measures was uncovered to keep the dream alive, including building executive condominiums to provide affordable condo-style living.

The question now is whether another round of initiatives may be forthcoming to keep the young from losing hope. Or is the current situation just a fleeting feeling of helplessness, a phase, a product of economic cycles?

More pertinently, do the young Singaporeans of today dream the same dream as their parents and grandparents?

Or have they scaled the hierarchy of needs and gone beyond such dreams? Or, given a matured economy with slower growth, should Mr Huang and company scale down their expectations instead?

What is the dream?

ONE early articulation of the Singapore Dream in a 1981 Sunday Times article defined it as: 'A salary of a few thousand dollars a month; enough extra cash to decorate the home with the latest equipment and branded fabrics and furniture; holidays abroad; two children and a promise for the future.'

Sometime in the 1990s, this definition was refined to specify the five Cs - a car, condominium, credit cards, cash, and a country club membership.

Are these dreams still relevant, considering that the country has undergone a complete transformation in the past three decades?

Insight posed this question to a dozen young Singaporeans like Mr Huang, and the answer has largely been, 'Yes'.

Although many responded initially with answers like 'happiness' or 'a good life', the achievement of these goals is predicated on the acquisition of material goods.

Only two stress that the happiness they seek has nothing to do with money.

Mr Colin Lim, who works in the finance industry, feels that it is completely natural for people who have grown up watching their parents get rich to want the same things.

Says the 29-year-old: 'I think any society that is going through a period of economic development would end up dreaming the same things and aspiring to the same material things.'

Indeed, no matter how you attempt to classify it, the Singapore Dream is invariably shoved into a money-lined pigeon hole.

National University of Singapore sociologist Tan Ern Ser is someone who knows a thing or two about the Singapore Dream, having set out to study it in the early 1980s when he did his master's thesis.

He concludes that the Singapore Dream is in many ways similar to its American equivalent in the sense that both have to do with social mobility.

'Essentially, it involves crossing a symbolic public-private divide,' he says, referring to things like housing and transport.

He adds that the Singapore version has not changed much over the years because the Singapore project has not changed either.

'Apart from the project of building a nation populated by people with a strong sense of national identity, the Singapore project aims to create a middle-class society. These two components are best seen as works-in-progress, and likely to remain so for a long time to come,' he says.

Political observer Eugene Tan, a law lecturer at the Singapore Management University, links it to the Government's emphasis on the economy.

'The five Cs are still very much regarded as the benchmark of success, and government policy entrenches the mindset that expanding economic opportunity is critical to the nation, the family and the individual's well-being.'

He adds: 'Societal conditioning and political socialisation mean that the Dream has a powerful effect on Singaporeans' value systems, attitudes, aspirations, and ambitions.'

Many also point to the sort of role models society and the media tend to present here.

Singaporeans invited to schools to give talks tend to be financially successful people in the mainstream, not a stay-at-home mum or an avant-garde artist living in a Little India walk-up.

Of course, it cannot be generalised that young Singaporeans care only about things related to money. Probe further and many list more intangible things, like raising good children or having a good work-life balance, as close seconds on the dream hierarchy.

Says Ms Jamie Lim, 27, who works as a consultant in an accounting firm: 'Raising good children is definitely part of the big picture, but of course, when people think of children, they also have to think of money.'

Then there are some who dance to a different drum beat. Like Miss Li Hanyi, 28, an art director in an advertising agency, who says simply that the thought of being tied to a house, kids and money is 'everything I don't want in life'.

She dreams of a more open society: 'I want the vibrancy of New York but with all the things I like about Singapore.'

Mr Eugene Tan thinks that such dreams will creep slowly into the Singaporean's consciousness but that it will be some time before materialism is usurped: 'The Dream has evolved but the innate vulnerability of our society continues to persist and that heightens the drive towards continuous striving as a hedge against being irrelevant. Being poor carries a heavy social stigma.'

IT MAY not be the most unbiased view, but nearly every young Singaporean interviewed is convinced he is facing a harder struggle and a steeper climb than the preceding generation.

Teacher Ross Nasir, 24, is certainly feeling the strain. She is hopeful that she will one day match the executive maisonette her businessman father bought when he was in his 40s, but it just seems very bleak to her right now. 'Everything seems to be getting inaccessible. It's like striking Toto,' she sighed.

This exaggerated sense of hopelessness is common, even if not completely valid as each generation has to slog to achieve its dreams.

It is true to say, however, that earlier generations generally enjoyed greater social mobility than later ones.

Professor Tan Ern Ser calls the late 1970s and early 1980s the 'golden age of the Singapore Dream'. Since then, he says, the playing field has become more crowded, with more higher-educated middle-class families all jostling to get ahead in the 'mobility game'.

Mr Eugene Tan puts it this way: 'A degree earned a generation or two ago was a passport to a good life but a degree today is no guarantee.'

Indeed, the sort of asset appreciation the older 'lucky generation' enjoyed is mind-boggling to the young professionals of today.

In 1965, half the labour force earned less than $150 per month. By 1985, this had shot up to between $600 and $1,500, an increase by up to 10 times.

An average young professional starting a job today with a $2,000 salary would not dare dream that it will turn into $20,000, no matter how long he works.

The same goes for property. Those who bought HDB flats in the 1960s and 1970s for $10,000 or less would have been able to cash out today at up to $500,000.

Much of this perceived luck can be attributed to the rapid growth Singapore went through in that period. With a mature economy comes slower, productivity-related growth.

For today's young, that simply means good wage increases and asset appreciation cannot be taken for granted.

Says Prof Tan: 'The journey is perceived as becoming somewhat more hazardous, competitive, insecure, and uncertain, brought about by globalisation and economic competition and fluctuations.

'Moreover, even as Singaporeans seek to enhance their assets, those in the sandwiched generation may find themselves having to handle various big-ticket items, such as parents' health-care costs and children's education costs, notwithstanding government subsidies for these items.'

But older Singaporeans point out that this hopelessness is just another phase of life. Everyone, baby boomers included, started out fretting that they would never be able to reach their dreams.

Parents of twenty-somethings speak of how their early days were spent in modest rented flats, slowly saving up to bigger and better things.

And even if the comparisons with baby boomers are cast aside, it may not be all bad news.

Yes, car and home prices may be high now, but this is not the first time they have hit these heights. Just like the economy, the affordability of the Singapore Dream follows the fluctuations of the market.

As Prof Ivan Png, professor of information systems and economics at NUS, puts it: 'Affordability is cyclical. So, yes, one strategy would be to wait until affordability improves. The challenge is to predict the cycle.'

Also, if the experience of the elders are anything to go by, there is always hope.

Keeping the dream alive

IF THE Government's action in 1996 is any guide, it is clearly concerned about keeping the Singapore Dream alive for the young. This is why it is monitoring the public housing market very closely and making sure that prices remain affordable.

Explaining why this is very much an important political issue for the Government, Mr Eugene Tan says: 'Having substantial buy-in of the Singapore Dream is fundamental to the Government's legitimacy, popularity and power. Being able to mould the Dream gives the Government considerable leverage and influence over the lives of the average Singaporean.

'If the Dream loses its standing, then the way of life promoted by the Government will lose its efficacy and effectiveness.'

Dr Gillian Koh of the Institute of Policy Studies, in turn, notes that part of the Government's commitment to help innovation and entrepreneurship flourish is driven by the recognition that those are the only vehicles that can provide the exponential wage increases Singaporeans want.

She says the Government's approach to the dream problem is to make sure that it provides a certain minimum, such as good, affordable housing and health care for the masses.

'It has to draw a line in providing some of the basics as its social compact, a line established at where a relatively large portion of the population can benefit, that is fair, and will not bankrupt the system,' she says.

Ultimately, she stresses, everyone's destiny lies in his or her own hands: 'Even if the public makes the Government promise more, I am sure most people do eventually want to go well beyond that and set higher targets for themselves - to do things where their passions lie and let that pay for itself - today the bus, tomorrow a Ferrari?'

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Apr 11, 2010
Of boardroom lions and humble hounds
Self-confident leaders can be risky; leaders with great humility are the quiet achievers

By David Brooks

Some leaders are boardroom lions. They are superconfident, forceful and charismatic. They call for relentless transformational change.

The New York Times' Sunday Business section last week had an interview with Mr Andrew Cosslett, chief executive of InterContinental Hotels Group, who seems to fit this general model.

'I've always been very positive and confident,' he told interviewer Adam Bryant. 'I can talk about changing things for the better, even if I don't know what it is we're going to change.

'I'll just say we're going over there somewhere. And I don't quite know what that looks like, but it's going to be fantastic.'

Mr Cosslett went on to talk about the skills that have helped him succeed: 'I'm very sensitive to how people are thinking and feeling at any given moment. That's really helpful in business, because you pick things up very fast.'

He added: 'I've always had a slightly maverick side that actually stood me in great stead.'

We can all point to successful leaders who display this kind of self-confidence. It's the sort of self-assurance that nearly every politician tries to present.

Yet much research suggests that extremely self-confident leaders can also be risky. Mr Cosslett's record is good, but charismatic CEOs often produce volatile company performances. These leaders swing for the home run and sometimes end up striking out. They make more daring acquisitions, shift into new fields and abruptly change strategies.

Jim Collins, author of Good To Great And How The Mighty Fall, celebrates a different sort of leader. He's found that many of the reliably successful leaders combine 'extreme personal humility with intense professional will'.

Alongside the boardroom lion model of leadership, you can imagine a humble-hound model. The humble-hound leader thinks less about her mental strengths than about her weaknesses. She knows her performance slips when she has to handle more than one problem at a time, so she turns off her phone and e-mail while making decisions.

She knows she has a bias for caution, so she writes a memo advocating the more daring option before writing another advocating the most safe. She knows she is bad at prediction, so she follows Peter Drucker's old advice: After each decision, she writes a memo about what she expects to happen. Nine months later, she'll read it to discover how far off she was.

In short, she spends a lot of time on metacognition - thinking about her thinking - and then building external scaffolding devices to compensate for her weaknesses.

She believes we progress only through a series of regulated errors.

Every move is a partial failure, to be corrected by the next one. Even walking involves shifting your weight off-balance and then compensating with the next step.

She knows the world is too complex and irregular to be known, so life is about navigating uncertainty. She understands she is too quick to grasp at pseudo-objective models and confident projections that give the illusion of control. She has to remember George Eliot's image - that life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own. It is complex beyond reckoning.

She spends more time seeing than analysing. Analytic skills differ modestly from person to person, but perceptual skills vary enormously.

Anybody can analyse, but the valuable people can pick out the impermanent but crucial elements of a moment or effectively grasp a context. This sort of perception takes modesty; strong personalities distort the information field around them. This sort of understanding also takes patience. As the Japanese say, don't just study a topic. Get used to it. Live in it for a while.

Because of her limitations, she tries to construct thinking teams.

In one study, groups and indivi-duals were given a complicated card game called the Wason selection task. Seventy-five per cent of the groups solved it, but only 14 per cent of individuals did.

She tries not to fall for the seductions that Collins says mark failing organisations: the belief that one magic move will change everything; the faith in perpetual restructuring; the tendency to replace questions with statements at meetings.

In the journal In Character, Washington Post theatre critic Peter J. Marks has an essay on the ethos of the stagehands who work behind the scenes. Being out when the applause is ringing doesn't feel important to them. The important things are the communal work, the contribution to the whole production and the esprit de corps. The humble hound is a stagehand who happens to give more public presentations than most.

If this leadership style were more widely admired, the country could have spared itself a ton of grief.

New York Times

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Apr 11, 2010
US not plugged into cellphone revolution
By Anand Giridharadas

What if, globally speaking, the iPad is not the next big thing? What if the next big thing is small, cheap and not American?

Americans went gaga the previous weekend with the iPad's release. But even as hundreds of thousands in the US unwrap their iPads, another future entirely may be unfolding elsewhere on the cellphone.

Forgotten in the American tumult is a global flowering of innovation in the simple cellphone. From Brazil to India to South Korea and even Afghanistan, people are seeking work via text message, borrowing and lending money and receiving salaries on cellphones, and employing their phones variously as torches, televisions and radios.

And many do all this for peanuts.

In India, Reliance Communications sells handsets for less than US$25 (S$35), with one-cent-a-minute phone calls across India and one-cent text messages and no monthly charge - while earning fat profits. Compare that with iPad buyers in the US, who pay US$499 for the basic version, who might also have a US$1,000-plus computer and a US$100-plus smartphone, and who could pay US$100 or more each month to connect these many devices to the ether.

Not for the first time, the United States and much of the world are moving in different ways. American innovators, building for an ever-expanding bandwidth network, are heading towards fancier, costlier, more network-hungry and status-giving devices; meanwhile, their counterparts in developing nations are innovating to find ever more uses for cheap, basic cellphones.

The US does not share the romance of the phone that prevails elsewhere - even in wealthy Europe. Since returning last year from India, I have been struck by how often calls drop here and surprised that text-messaging, so vital to Indians, has yet to entrench itself in the US, where so much messaging travels on the Internet.

A recent report by the World Economic Forum and Insead, the French business school, concluded that the US ranks below 71 other nations in its level of cellphone penetration, even though it leads in other areas of connectivity. Some Americans are not connected at all.

But millions of others are beyond the phone, so to speak: They own one, they use it but they own other devices, too, and the phone is not the be-all and end-all.

But from Kenya to Colombia to South Africa, cellphones are becoming the truly universal technology. These countries are the kind of places that have built cellphone towers precisely to leapfrog past the expense of building wired networks that have linked Americans for a century.

The number of mobile subscriptions in the world is expected to pass five billion this year, according to the International

Telecommunication Union, a trade group. That would mean more human beings today have access to a cellphone than the United Nations says have access to a clean toilet.

Because it reaches so many people, because it is always with you, because it is cheap and shareable and easily repaired, the cellphone has opened a new frontier in global innovation.

Two organisations - Babajob, in Bangalore and India, and Souktel, in the Palestinian territories in Israel - offer job-hunting services via text message. Souktel allows users without Internet access or fancy phones to register by sending a series of text messages with information about themselves. A user who texts in 'match me' will receive a listing of suitable jobs, including phone numbers to dial.

In Africa, the cellphone is giving birth to a new paradigm in money. Plastic cards have become the reigning instruments of payment in the West but projects like PesaPal and M-Pesa in Kenya are working to make the cellphone the hub of personal finance. M-Pesa lets you convert cash into cellphone money at your local grocer and this money can instantly be wired to anyone with a phone.

These efforts arise from a shortage of bank accounts in Africa. But they create the possibility of peer-to-peer finance in the developing world that could be useful even in wealthy countries - for example, allowing small businesses in rural areas to collect money without credit-card systems.

The cellphone has also moved to the centre of community life in many places. In Africa, urban churches record sermons with cellphones, then transmit them to villages to be replayed. In Iran and Moldova, those organising popular uprisings against authoritarian governments turned to the cellphone. In India, the cellphone is now used to allow citizen election monitoring and to equip voters, via text message, with information on candidates' incomes and criminal backgrounds.

Recognising the role of cellphones in developing nations, the White House made a point last year of releasing President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world, in Cairo, in 13 languages via text message. It has made no similarly publicised gesture in the US, even though not everyone has Internet access. (The administration proposes to remedy that by widening broadband access.)

All of which suggests the presence of an innovation gap between the world's richest societies and the poorest - not in device design so much as in usage. And there is a question about whether the US, which gained so much from the Internet revolution, would similarly profit from the entry of billions more people from the developing world into a massive worldwide middle class - consumers now but not yet rich, with a simple cellphone and a less-is-more sensibility.

Certainly, innovative new devices may find important roles in the US - for example, as platforms for distributing news and books and entertainment, which have struggled to adapt to the digital age. That alone could make their invention revolutionary.

But is desire replacing need as the mother of American invention? Will domestic demand for even sleeker, faster, fancier devices over the long run make it harder for Americans to innovate for the vast, less opulent world outside, still dominated by frugal wants? Perhaps.

British entrepreneur Ken Banks, who works in Africa and developed FrontlineSMS, a text-messaging service for aid groups, put it this way: 'There's often a tendency in the West to approach things the wrong way round, so we end up with solutions looking for a problem, or we build things just because we can.'

Well, yes. Then again, the cellphone itself began that way. A quarter-century ago, when Michael Douglas famously carried one in Wall Street, it was an exorbitant gadget for high rollers.

Now it's more common than a toilet.

International Herald Tribune

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