Reviewing Adequacy of Statutory Levers in Children and Young Persons Act

31 Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Education with regard to the set-up of the Uplifting Pupils in Life and Inspiring Families Taskforce to study ways and means to help children from disadvantaged homes to level up, whether the task force can consider reviewing the adequacy of the statutory levers provided in the Children and Young Persons Act and, if deemed appropriate, recommend steps to enhance the Act for the purpose of achieving the stated objective.

The Second Minister for Education (Ms Indranee Rajah) (for the Minister for Education): With respect to Question No 31 from Mr Murali Pillai, the thrust of that question is the Children and Young Persons Act. The Uplifting Pupils in Life and Inspiring Families Taskforce, or UPLIFT, has been set up to enhance support for disadvantaged students. UPLIFT’s focus is to identify the main factors and issues that prevent disadvantaged students from accessing or receiving the full benefit of our educational system and to devise practical solutions to overcome these obstacles.

The primary objective of the Children and Young Persons Act (CYPA) is the protection of children who have been seriously harmed, for example, victims of physical abuse, or who are at risk of serious harm. Its statutory levers are essentially designed for the Government to take action to protect the children from further harm.

There may be instances, of course, where children are prevented from doing well educationally due to harm inflicted by family members or other adults and, in those instances, the CYPA would be invoked. However, as the provisions of the CYPA are adequate for its purpose, reviewing it will not be UPLIFT’s focus.

However, the more commonly occurring situation is one where there is no physical harm or abuse of the children per se but where children from disadvantaged backgrounds nevertheless underperform. The reasons for their underperformance are complex and multifactorial, and often have their roots in the child’s home environment and family situation. In that respect, we have preliminarily identified the three areas of focus, which is: first, to improve and strengthen these students’ motivation and resilience; second, getting to the root of the underlying reasons of long-term absenteeism in our Primary and Secondary schools, as failure to attend school is a common factor among underperforming students; and third, strengthening engagement and outreach to parents of disadvantaged families.

Nevertheless, if there are other pertinent issues that need to be addressed in order to help these students, the hon Member and others are welcome to provide their feedback and input to the Taskforce for consideration.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam (Jurong): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I thank the Second Minister for the answer. It is still early days yet, but I think a lot of people are encouraged with this initiative especially since it is coming in the midst of the on-going debate about social inequality. I raised the issue about the young children as well as youth because I see a particular opportunity for us to uplift children in that group.

I am very happy to hear that the Taskforce will be looking at all age groups. In particular, I was just wondering if the Taskforce would also consider reviewing the existing support structures, especially in respect of the area of mentoring, because I think that is a growing area. There are a lot of things that we can study and look into. And I think that is one opportunity for us to be able to build the support network, social capital and use our youths as our assets, especially in building motivation and resilience for other young people in the community.

Ms Indranee Rajah: Yes, indeed. I thank the Member for her suggestion. What the Member has pointed out is correct. It is not just a question of adding on to academic programmes or assisting them with their academic work. It is also very much to do with character-building, values, providing a structured environment, and also helping them with resilience and self-motivation.

In that respect, community partners have a big role to play. So, the Taskforce is looking to see how we can have a many-helping-hands approach and how community, self-help groups, voluntary welfare groups can all participate in this.

Mr Murali Pillai (Bukit Batok): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank the hon Minister for her comprehensive answer to my Parliamentary Question (PQ). I have three supplementary questions. First, would the Minister accept that in UPLIFT's review, it is likely to find fairly intractable cases, given that over decades, generations of families have gone up the social ladder, leaving behind rather tough cases to handle? Secondly, if that observation is pertinent and correct, then would she not agree that we need to have a whole suite of options on the table to deal with the tough cases. Finally, in that context, while I accept that the way the CYPA is currently worded, it focuses on physical abuse, would it not be possible for Parliament to consider a widening of its ambit, recognising that in some situations, the reasons why children do not do well in school is multi-factorial, but in some instances, it may be due to intentional acts or neglect on the part of parents? And in those circumstances, there needs to be statutory levers to invite intervention by the state.

Ms Indranee Rajah: I thank the hon Member for his questions. The first was whether it is likely that we would find intractable cases. I would think the answer to that would have to be yes, because there are some parents who just, no matter how much we encourage or we try, they can be as the Member described – "intractable".

His second question was whether I would agree that we should have a suite of options. Certainly. And this is what we are looking at because it is one thing to have programmes; it is quite another thing to get some of these parents to bring their children to the programmes. What you want to do is to get buy-in from the parents on that.

He asked then whether or not it would be necessary to widen the ambit of the CYPA. I would put it this way: we will not rule out looking at whether we need any statutory levers but whether or not the CYPA is the correct piece of legislation in which to have them is a separate matter.

So, what we really need to do, for one, is to try to understand what are the reasons why some parents do not send their children for such programmes, or for whatever reasons neglect their education. And two, the general approach is as far as possible to use statutory levers as a last resort. Because when you have to do it by enforcement, then you are always dragging the parents to court or trying to force them to do something, which you can do but it is so much better if the parent could take onboard the fact that the child's education is important and wants to do it willingly and voluntarily. Because if you can get the mindset right and you can have a mindset shift, then the rest will follow naturally. So, the Member is correct. You do have to look at it holistically and we will study a wide range of options.