Speech by: Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister-In-Charge of Muslim Affairs
MCYS SPEECH NO: 14/2005
DATE OF ISSUE: 11/03/2005
1 Sir, I would like to thank Mr Othman Haron Eusofe, Madam Halimah Yacob and Mr Zainudin Nordin for their concern for the Malay/Muslim community's progress. MUIS has been working closely with community partners on a 3-year plan to enhance religious development and contribute to building a Community of Excellence. Its programmes are on track. Our institutions must continue take in new ideas, seek out better methods and build capabilities that benefit the organization, the community, and Singapore as a whole. Hence, MUIS has identified several areas where it can help to build the community's capabilities. Allow me to highlight a few.
Development of Asatizah
2 The first area is how MUIS can support the development of our religious teachers or asatizah who play a key role in providing religious teaching and advice. This is a point highlighted by Madam Halimah.
3 To support the development of our asatizah, MUIS expended some $55,000 last year in organizing seminars for them and sponsoring some of them for training. MUIS has also enhanced its links with the asatizah. For example, MUIS has facilitated monthly dialogue sessions with our asatizah on wide-ranging issues, including the challenges facing our community. Such sessions promote the sharing of developments and perspectives and help our asatizah remain well-attuned to the world around us. Asatizah who are more attuned can give more timely and relevant advice to their students and the general public on contemporary issues and challenges. Ustaz Mohd Khair, who is the Executive Imam at Al Falah mosque, is a good example. He has a keen awareness of the community's issues. His active involvement in the community, for instance, in counselling youth and families facing difficulties, has also helped him to better serve as a prayer leader or religious teacher.
4 MUIS will therefore introduce more initiatives to enhance the role of asatizah and build their capabilities. First, MUIS will conduct study visits to relevant government agencies, research institutions and other public and private sector organisations to help our asatizah stay abreast of the latest developments in our society, whether these concern socio-economic trends, science and technology or other areas. Secondly, MUIS will assist newly-graduated asatizah by conducting orientation and induction programmes as well as skills training. Finally, MUIS will work with various Muslim community organizations to formulate a recognition scheme to recognize the abilities of our asatizahs, enhance their standing, and assist members of the public to obtain the services of suitably-qualified asatizah. The scheme will help the community better understand the strengths of our asatizah when engaging them and will support asatizah in upgrading themselves through MUIS? training programmes. MUIS will be forming a Recognition Board comprising religious leaders and key community partners later this year, to consider asatizah for inclusion in the recognition scheme.
MUIS Academy
5 Apart from asatizah, there are many other stakeholders who contribute to the community, including mosque leaders and imams, amils collecting zakat, volunteers and haj operators. We want to better equip all of them to serve the community well. MUIS will therefore streamline and consolidate all its training programmes for its stakeholders under the new MUIS Academy, to be launched at the end of this year. This will maximize our resources and open up more opportunities for MUIS to partner local organizations, as well as those from the region, the Middle East and beyond, including Australia, Europe and the USA.
6 The MUIS Academy will be a repository of the collective experience and knowledge that our community has gained in managing religious issues. This will enable knowledge to be systematically built up and shared. Increasing numbers of overseas visitors come to MUIS to find out how it operates in various areas of religious administration. Through the academy, MUIS intends to share Singapore's model of religious administration and services with interested Muslim communities abroad. The MUIS Academy can also collaborate with local and international partners on policy studies on religious issues. I am confident that the community will benefit from this widened engagement.
Needy Malay/Muslim Families
7 Let me now touch on the point made by Mr Othman Haron Eusofe and I agree that as we move forward we cannot forget the needs of the less privileged. We must continue to help them pull themselves up and out of the poverty trap. Last year I announced plans to empower families receiving zakat. Breadwinners of these families would get skills training, pick up life-skills and get help with job-matching. Their children would receive support in their education and be helped with part-time religious classes at our mosques.
8 Since the launch of the Empowerment Partnership Scheme and the Education and Training Support Scheme last year, MUIS has worked with various mosques, voluntary welfare organizations and job matching agencies to help 500 families through a comprehensive assistance package.
9 Some of these families have shown admirable determination to lift themselves up. Mr Rahmat Abdur Rahman for example managed to secure a job within 3 months of completing a Forklift Driver's Course and is working towards settling his arrears. His children have made progress in their education. His family shows that the spirit of self-reliance can be re-ignited and that families can bounce back with focused help.
10 Moving forward, we will adopt a more holistic approach to helping needy families. For a start, we will set up a consolidated database of needy Muslim families to ensure better coordination among Malay/Muslim organizations which provide assistance. This will ensure that help is targeted and maximize the community's resources. Mendaki will work with MUIS and other Malay/Muslim organizations to set up this database.
Student Resource Development Secretariat
11 Mdm Halimah asked for an update on the Student Resource Development Secretariat. Since its establishment, the Secretariat has provided support to our overseas students, particularly those in the Middle East. It has established links with student bodies in the Al-Azhar University of Egypt and several others in other parts of the Middle East. The Secretariat organized the Singapore Seminar in Cairo last October and will organise a second seminar for students studying in the region this year. The Secretariat will make another visit to Middle East shortly, to reach out to more students. It will also conduct community and industrial attachments for students on vacation.
12 I am confident that our students will find the SRDS a useful resource and partner, as it introduces more programmes to meet their needs.
Marriage and Families
13 Sir, Mr Zainudin Nordin would like to know whether we are seeing an upward trend of minor marriages in the Malay/Muslim community and what resources are being allocated to assist these young couples to cope and manage their marriage.
14 According to statistics from the Registry of Muslim Marriages, in 2003, 13% of brides and 4% of grooms were under the age of 21. The corresponding figures from the civil registry were 3% for brides and 1% for grooms. While there is no clear upward trend in the percentage of minor Muslim brides and grooms over the last few years, the fact that the percentage is four times that in the civil registry is indeed a cause for concern.
15 Studies show that marriages of persons who marry under the age of 21 are less stable when compared to those who marry when they are older and more mature. Many of these couples are not prepared for marriage - they may not have the financial means to support a family; or they rush into marriage as a result of a pre-marital pregnancy. These circumstances add strain to the young marriages and make them vulnerable to divorce.
16 MCYS together with VWO partners, in particular the Association of Muslim Professionals and the Young Muslim Women?s Association's Jurong Family Service Centre, have implemented programmes to help such couples understand the challenges of marrying young and prepare them for married life. In September last year, the Family Development Network also embarked on Program Mahlighai, whereby mature and experienced couples mentor the young couples. In 2004, about $340,000 was spent on programmes to address the issues of minor marriages.
17 While these programmes are important, in the long run, more upstream approaches are needed to reduce the number of our youths getting married at such a young age. For one, we need greater community awareness and ownership of these issues, and a greater commitment to deal with them at the level of the family.
18 Anecdotally, we see that our youths are behaving quite differently from youths in the past. They are growing up in a world that is different from what their parents are accustomed to. We cannot pretend that our youth can be isolated from what is happening among or around them. Islam will continue to be central as the spiritual and moral ballast for the community. This is why MUIS is working with mosques and education providers to revamp religious education programmes for children from pre-school to tertiary levels. This will help give our young people a good grounding in religious values as well as strengthen their integration into society.
19 Religious education is a useful and necessary step but not necessarily sufficient. But our community must also put emphasis on developing new capabilities that address emerging social challenges. Parents, for example, need to recognise that our children nowadays are much more exposed to external factors that influence their values and attitudes towards various issues, including sexual behaviour. Parenting styles have to adapt and respond to what our children are going through. Being in touch with teen and pre-teen issues, and being approachable, will make it easier for our children to turn to us for help and advice, not just as parents but as uncles and aunts. Paying attention to our youths during their pre-teen years is important as our children are indeed growing up faster.
20 In parallel, community efforts to educate our teens, pre-teens and couples on family life will need to be strengthened. We need to reach out to our young in school, as well as those who are thinking of getting married and those who are already married.
21 The Registry of Muslim Marriages, or ROMM, and its VWO partners have undertaken the Healthy Marriage Programme since 2002. Last year, over 4,500 parents and youths participated in this programme which promotes positive values and attitudes about marriage, family, and sexuality.
22 Another key programme is the Marriage Preparation Course. In 2004, more than 3,200 people attended marriage preparation programmes at mosques and community clubs. While participants' feedback has been encouraging, ROMM will continue to enhance the content and delivery of the course.
23 For couples facing marital difficulties, the Syariah Court worked with community partners last year to launch a marriage counselling programme outside the Court. Since its inception, the Marriage Counselling Programme has been extended to 5 family service centres. Currently, half of the 157 couples referred to the programme are still undergoing counselling or have decided to reconcile. The Syariah Court has also piloted two programmes to help divorcing couples to reconsider their divorces, and help divorced couples to revoke their divorce.
24 Going forward, we will further widen the community's involvement in supporting families to cope with the strains of everyday life. Mendaki has worked with several partners to set up Keluarga 'AKRAB' or Family Excellence Circles. This is a support system where parents form up and meet regularly to learn and share their experiences together. Mendaki has set up 7 such networks involving more than 100 parents so far. Team leaders in these networks mentor other families in an informal setting. Mendaki will help set up more networks and use them to promote the idea of ''learning families'' in the community, and empower parents to contribute to their families' development.
25 I understand from Syariah Court that the number of Muslim divorces registered last year has dropped, compared to 2003. While it is still too early to say if this is a reversing trend, it would appear that our community's efforts are in the right direction. We hope that this trend will be sustained and the hard work of the various community partners will continue to bear fruit. The Department of Statistics will release official figures of divorce for 2004 later this year.
Conclusion
26 Our community has demonstrated its will to overcome challenges and make progress. Our community organisations have worked hard to help our older workers retrain, supported our young people in developing their potential, and helped families remain strong.
27 As we strive to build a Community of Excellence, we know that we can never isolate ourselves from the changes in the global arena. Indeed, it would be self-defeating to do so. Malay/Muslims here have equipped themselves well to contribute towards a globalised economy in multi-racial, multi-religious Singapore. MUIS's efforts to help shape the community's religious life in this context are useful and bearing fruit. Individuals like Miss Jameelah Sheik Mohamed, now a researcher at the Genome Institute, show that in Singapore, nothing can stop one from contributing at the forefront of an advanced economy, while remaining rooted to Islamic values.
28 As the global environment evolves, some developments may require us to rethink our approaches. Others could even challenge our values as a community. How then should we position our community to succeed in a complex and uncertain environment? We cannot turn back the clock or bury our head in the sand. Instead, we have to be forward looking and stay attuned to the changing world. We must be aware of our choices, seizing the opportunities that benefit us, while wisely tackling issues which test our community's resilience. While we remain rooted to our values, we must be plugged into the modern world and work together to give of our best as responsible citizens. I am confident that as we put our hearts and minds together, we will continue to progress and move closer to our vision of a Community of Excellence.
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