Students talk about sex, babies

At Woodlands Secondary and Serangoon Secondary schools, Eka Training Group — one of the six vendors approved earlier — founded by a team of psychologists, taught lower secondary girls in April about the changes their bodies go through during puberty, according to information on the schools’ websites. The group held the same talk in Boon Lay Secondary a month earlier.

While it could not be contacted yesterday, the vendor was previously reported in

According to Focus on the Family Singapore, it has confirmed arrangements with seven schools to teach their “No Apologies” programme.

Over four hours, trainers will talk about the relationship between love and sex, the consequences associated with pre-marital sex and the benefits of abstinence until marriage. Fei Yue Community Services has not signed up with any school yet, but is in negotiations with three.

Their programme looks at relationship-building between boys and girls.

MOE said schools can access an internal system to view and select appointed external providers, as well as inform MOE of their engagement of the provider.The Straits Times to have a ‘pro-life’ stance on abortion and deems education about contraception as essential. More schools look set to hire these external vendors.

Students get to talking about sex and babies

ALICIA WONG

alicia@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE

These are among the topics for which eight schools have selected external vendors to teach as part of a sexuality education programme.

A seventh vendor has also been approved by the Ministry of Education. aLife, a voluntary welfare organisation, has been offering sexuality education programmes for some years. It has already been hired by one school. At Zhenghua Secondary, lower secondary students will be taught about “human development” this September, by aLife chairman Peter Chew, an experienced gynaecologist.

Focusing on puberty, body image and sexual identity, aLife’s one-hour course aims to increase students’ awareness of the physical changes in their bodies, according to the programme outline on the school’s website. Meanwhile, Secondary Four and Five girls will be taught about “sexual health and behaviour” in a one-hour session next month. They will learn about physical changes in their bodies and the medical facts about masturbation, abortion and contraception. The male students had their talk earlier this month.

Dr Chew told MediaCorp the organisation has conducted talks at five schools this year. The talks are held by doctors and abide by MOE’s guidelines, he said. “The programme aims to let them understand their sexuality ... we deal with (topics) from a medical perspective,” he said, adding that students are taught “appropriate knowledge” according to their age. So far, feedback from students and teachers has been “very positive and encouraging”, he said. Vendors now have to be approved annually by the MOE, after the ministry suspended external programmes last year in the wake of complaints about the Association of Women for Action and Research’s Comprehensive Sexuality Education programme.

Schools were given the green light earlier this year to appoint vendors from MOE’s new approved list, and — Some students will be learning about the medical facts surrounding contraception and abortion. Others will learn about what their bodies go through during puberty.The Straits Times reported yesterday that eight have done so.

Schools select vendors for sexuality education

This is called TRAPPiNGS

By throwing just 1 lOt at a Time

nObOdy is afraId and

BUY QUEUE wOn't PANiC

[similar to BoIlIng  frOg  In warm to hOt water]

BUYER whO is  thrOwn the 1 lOT

alsO  cannOt  run away

and have tO cOntInue  stayIng  back  In  the QUEUE . . . .

I call it Wishful Thinking Trading.

Just a joke, don't take it seriously.

Haha...this type you call them "chiak pah boh sai punk"

Not announced yet... should be early - mid August... 

SPUR to give way to more ‘targeted’ measures

SINGAPORE

The skills training scheme that was rolled out as a buffer against the economic downturn is making way for more “targeted measures” in line with the economic restructuring and productivity drive ahead, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong said.

Details of some of these measures were announced yesterday as the Government’s $2.5-billion, five-year Continuing Education and Training (CET) plans now begin to take shape.

A “major priority” will be to make professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) a key focal group of the CET strategy.

Mr Gan said: “Historically, our CET investment has focused on rank-and-file workers. Today, PMETs make up slightly more than half of the workforce, and the proportion is increasing. They’re often the key drivers of value creation in enterprises, but they’re also at risk of having their skills becoming obsolete.”

And so there will be more CET offerings for PMETs once

SPUR ends, with 300 courses now available for them under the existing programme.

The new funding rates and absentee payroll support for employers will be scaled down, though, from Dec 1.

PMETs will have 50 per cent of their course fees funded and capped at $15 an hour, down from 90 per cent and a maximum of $30 an hour for Spur-approved courses.

Courses for rank-and-file workers will be subsidised up to 80 per cent, from 90 per cent now.

The absentee payroll component will be capped at $4.50 an hour, down from a maximum of $10 an hour.

“The revised funding rates continue to provide generous subsidies so that both employers and workers can tap on training to upskill and upgrade for the future,” Mr Gan said. The Minister, who was at a precision engineering Workforce Skills Qualification diploma graduation ceremony at Singapore Polytechnic, added that CET efforts will focus on such “outcome-based certifiable training programmes”, which means universities and polytechnics here will play a key role.

For now, the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) is introducing the new Productivity Initiatives in Services and Manufacturing to help companies in both manufacturing and services.

Mr Gan said the aim of these classes and seminars is to help 1,000 managers and supervisors pick up useful tools and know-how to drive productivity efforts within their companies.

Some of these can be customised to suit different industries, such as aerospace, generic manufacturing, retail and electronics. This programme for PMETs will cost $3 million over two years.

As for rank-and-file workers, especially the more vulnerable low-wage and low-skilled workers, efforts to upgrade their skills will continue, assured Mr Gan.

There will be no change to course funding under the $190-million Workfare Training Support Scheme, which was launched four weeks ago. About 400,000 workers are expected to be eligible for the scheme.

In comparison, about 251,000 workers had completed or were undergoing SPUR training between December 2008 and last month.          

So far, 64,000 job seekers have found jobs under SPUR.

Mr Gan summed up the “significant impact” of the programme with these numbers: Seven in 10 individuals who found jobs after Spur courses felt that the training had been useful. Six in 10 companies said their workers’ productivity had improved after they attended the training.

“Spur has served its purpose,” he said.— It’s official. After reviewing the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR), the Government has decided to stick to the phase-out of the two-year programme by November.