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  Today Online 2 Aug 06
Apathetic? Not kids these days
More youth join social groups, though they spend less time on each activity
Loh Chee Kong cheekong@newstoday.com.sg

Not content with being a section leader in her school choir and a founding member of its piano ensemble, Grace Chew, now aged 19, was also actively involved in an external group promoting the arts to youth and an online youth portal when she was in junior college.

But when the A-level examinations neared, Grace--who is currently awaiting entry into National University of Singapore's medicine faculty--quit the piano ensemble and relinquished her position as secretary for Arts for Us All (AFUA) to concentrate on her studies. Still a member of AFUA, the former Raffles Junior College student juggles her commitment to the group with her work for Ignite.org, an online youth portal that she joined two years ago.

Said Grace: "Within the school setting, what you can do and the people you can reach are quite limited. It's definitely more challenging and rewarding to reach out to the public. I no longer need to attend AFUA's regular meetings but I help out with the projects. As for Ignite.org, we do work on our own and there are no regular meetings."

Like Grace, more youth are committing their time to social groups both within and outside the school setting, according to the National Youth Council's (NYC) latest survey that was conducted between June and August last year.

But the findings also hinted at the changing form of such youth involvement, typified by Grace's example.

Findings from the second National Youth Survey--which was first carried out four years ago --showed that the proportion of those between 15 and 29 years old who are members of at least one social organisation has increased from 44 per cent to 54 per cent from 2002 to 2005, with those holding leadership positions rising 8 percentage points to 22 per cent. Both surveys included the youth's compulsory participation in their schools' CCAs.

However, youth are spending less time on each activity.

Active youth membership, defined by the NYC as participation in at least a monthly activity, in most of these groups have dropped by as much as about four percentage points.

The survey involved face-to-face interviews with 1,504 youth and sessions with focus groups consisting of young people, their parents and teachers.

Sharing the survey's key findings yesterday, Parliamentary Secretary for National Development and NYC's deputy chairman Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman said that the youth's increase in community participation was a "heartening" trend, after the Government acted on a key finding from the previous survey--that "youth not only wanted to be heard but also to be taken seriously".

Programmes like the National Youth Forum, for example, give the 669,500- odd youth here a platform to have more say in policy-making. In schemes like the Young Changemakers, they are also given funds to implement youth programmes.

The survey showed that the youth are "responding to being part of social groups", but the work really starts now, said Dr Maliki.

On the drop in active membership, he said: "We can look at the activities and programmes of each organisation or interest group to see how best we can get their membership actively involved."

Youth like Grace also see joining a wide range of activities as good exposure. She said: "But it's good to hold a key appointment in such organisations. There's a big difference between participating in a Flag Day and actually organising one."

Results of the latest survey--including findings on youth attitudes and behaviour as well as on family and social support for the young--will be published in a book, which will be launched by Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivan Balakrishnan on Aug 23 at a seminar discussing the survey findings.
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