Lignum Article

Education in Cultural Heritge
- Through the use of events.
- E.g. in commemoration of Total Defence Day, Racial Harmony Day, National Day
- Purpose: to tell them the purpose of the celebration or the important values to be imparted.
- Letters by the MOE are read during assembly to notify the students on the purpose of celebrating the event.
- E.g. :
» Carry out rationing during school hours like during Total Defence Day. Total Defence day was introduced in 1984 to improve readiness in matters related to the defence and national security.
»Racial Harmony Day there may be a Fashion Parade showing costumes from different ethnic groups to showcase the different cultures in Singapore and to highlight the importance of racial harmony in a multi-cultural city like Singapore . This also acts as a reminder to the 1964 Race riots and to prevent such a riot from occurring again.
»Advertisements relating to how Singapore rose to become a strong nation as it is now are also broadcasted sometimes.
- Through the different activities in school.
- E.g.
»NJC organised the Bukit Timah Heritage Tour in order to bring greater awareness to students regarding the historical information and cultural heritage in certain Bukit Timah areas like The Old Ford Factory.
»Learning Journey Programmes in Secondary and Primary School whereby students would go on field trips to places with rich historical background. E.g. Fort Canning Park , Labrador Park , Little India , etc. Enables students to know more about Singapore ’s history as well as her culture. Professional tour guides would give an account regarding the place.
»Programmes adopted by various schools to train students to be like professional tour guides and give tours to exchange students on places which marks Singapore ’s heritage.
- Providing incentives for students to find out more about Singapore ’s history based on their own free time.
»Free access to National Museum and through this way the student has opportunities to find out more about her heritage, it also encourages further interest towards taking a student’s own initiative to become more aware about Singapore .
- Effectiveness of such programmes:
» Some programmes which are forced on students are not effective as they do it without having fun and will not remember the important cultural facts. In the case of Learning Journey’s students would grumble when asked to stay back late in school just for this programme. Hence, inculcating such programmes in curricular time would be a much better idea since the programme for students to go on such field trips are an eye opener to many.
à However, though some programmes are forced, they allow certain important information to be kept to students. Because if such programmes were not introduced some students may not take the initiative to find out more about Singapore .

Websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Race_Riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_Parade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Defence

Compiled by Kellie 07S04