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SINGAPORE : A pilot scheme to identify student leaders as potential future leaders was launched in Marine Parade on Saturday.
The initiative was the brainchild of Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and his team of MPs in Marine Parade GRC and MacPherson.
The Marine Parade Leadership Foundation Programme will kick off the scheme with a year-long programme for post-secondary youth aged 17 to 25 to pick up leadership skills.
This could be done locally or through trips to ASEAN countries.
It plans to give out grants and awards to promising individuals, as well as organise a youth seminar during vacation time.
But while this may be a programme for the Marine Parade district, Mr Goh said the wider aim was to develop more leaders for the country.
Mr Goh said: "Try and identify student leaders and get them to think beyond themselves and beyond their school. And then we hope to nurture them, to enhance their skills and interest them later on when they leave to also do something beyond themselves for the community. It is, in fact, about leadership in general for the whole country."
To underscore the seriousness of the project, the MPs for the area, including SM Goh, raised S$3 million for the project, which they hope to grow into a S$5 million Endowment Fund.
In the dialogue session that followed, some very practical issues came up, for instance the different holiday period between polytechnics and secondary schools, the issue of whether students would have enough time to fit in their leadership activities, and also the more sensitive issue of whether less academically gifted students would be discriminated against in this quest for leaders.
For one former Secondary 5 student, that was an emotional issue during dialogue time.
The student said: "For me, I only became outspoken when I came to poly because I am among my peers and my peers don't look down on me..."
To this, Mr Goh responded: "No, we don't look down...don't worry. As I mentioned just now, this programme is aimed at leadership qualities - academic results are second priority."
The programme kicks off this month. - CNA/ms
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