Singapore Tamil Youth Conference 2018 Toolkit Toolkit 2018 Final | Page 16

Education beyond Formal Boundaries of Classroom
Significance of Using and Learning About Tamil Beyond Formal Schooling
Youth engagement with the language
• Numerous efforts have been aimed
specifically at getting youth to stay
connected with the language even after
it
becomes
a
non-examinable
component in their schooling years
•
“Language is alive, profound, and has
to be used throughout life, otherwise
you will lose it. Thus, language
learning must be an integral part of
SkillsFuture. Beyond schools, there
must be adult learning programmes
for languages, especially the key ones
that represent Singapore. I hope
language centres can be as ubiquitous
as tuition centres.” - Education
Minister Mr. Ong Ye Kung at the
9th Global Educational Leadership
Conference 2018
Tamil Studies with Early Education
course offered by Ngee Ann Polytechnic
under Skillsfuture scheme (Course Detail
| MySkillsFuture.sg, 2018)
•
Encouraging individuals to integrate
their passion for teaching with their
love for Tamil and inculcating the
need to educate our young
generation in our mother tongue.
Fear for the status of Tamil as an
official language in Singapore
Most Tamil enthusiasts fear that the spill
over effects from continuous youth
disengagement into the future generations
indicates a gloomy future for Tamil in
Singapore, eroding the official status that
Tamil has in Singapore.
• E.g. The Tamil Language Festival by
TLC and TLLPC is one key platform
that constantly tries to engage youth
and sustain their love for the language
through youth-related programmes
Sustainability of the language beyond
the generation of the Youth
A significant decline in youth engagement
with the language after their formal
schooling is seen to generate negative spill
over effects for the future generations to
come. This can be ascertained from
attendance rates at Tamil Language events
such as the annual Tamil Language festival
•
Although there has been an increase in the
number of TLF events organized by
Youth themselves, we are unable to
ascertain if there is a similar increase in
youth attendance at these events.
• When these youths become young
parents, their existing lack of connectivity
with the language translates into their
children not being interested in the
language, generating a continuous cycle of
disengagement with the language that
could potentially lead to an erosion of the
language in Singapore
• According to the general household
survey conducted in 2015, the use of
English as the primary language for
communicating at home had increased
significantly for Indians between 24 and
35 years old, from 34.3% to 42.4%
• More broadly, language preservation is
very deeply tied with preserving the place
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