SINGAPORE: Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC has agreed to acquire Tour Ariane, an office tower in Paris, for approximately 465 million euros (US$539 million).
The 40-storey office tower, which is owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, is located in the heart of the La Defense business district in the French capital.
The building has a gross lettable area of 64,500 sq m and is within walking distance from two main transport hubs and multiple amenities, said GIC in a press release.
The interior of Tour Ariane, a 40-storey office tower in Paris. (Photo: Takuji)
“Its accessibility and connectivity will further benefit from the Grand Paris project, which will reduce connection times to major airports and train stations,” it said.
The Grand Paris project is one of Europe’s biggest infrastructure projects, involving 200km of track and 68 stations.
Tour Ariane also offered quality space at affordable rents, said GIC, adding that the tower presented “multiple value creation opportunities over the long term, which GIC expects to capture by investing to enhance the asset.”.
The asset will be managed by Baumont Real Estate Capital and the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
SINGAPORE: When chiropractor Dr Kevin Tomassini opened his own practice earlier this year, he did so in a co-working space – one that provided more than the usual access to a desk, Internet service and power sockets.
The space he chose, called Core Collective, was a co-working centre aimed at health and wellness professionals – and it came with professional healthcare equipment, back-end support, front desk staff and other amenities.
Core Collective caters to health professionals. (Photo: Core Collective)
“I had been looking to open my own practice over the past two years but the cost of entry is high. You have to buy the equipment, pay for the build-up, the rent, staff and the facilities. With Core Collective, I saved around S$50,000,” said Dr Tomassini.
Core Collective provide necessary professional equipment, back-end support, front desk staff and other amenities. (Photo: Core Collective)
Mox in Joo Chiat, is also angled toward a specific crowd, touting itself a “co-making space” for creatives.
Beyond providing a conducive space for work, it boasts 3D-printers, woodworking tools, sewing rooms and a fully-equipped photography studio.
It also has computers with premium design software, as well as several retail spaces for its artisan members.
For these operators, eking out a niche could be key to dealing with growing competition – a result of the rapid growth the flexible workspace market is seeing.
Mox is a “co-making space” for creatives. (Photo: Mox)
DEMAND CONTINUES TO BOOM
According to Colliers, the flexible workspace footprint has nearly tripled between the end of 2015 and mid this year, growing from almost 1 million sq ft to 2.7 million sq ft.
Supply is expected to rise by 30 to 35 per cent in 2018, and another 20 per cent next year, Colliers said.
More operators have also entered the market, with the number of players almost doubling to 36 since 2014, said Cushman & Wakefield. There are now about 120 workspace centres islandwide, up 82 per cent since 2014.
Growth is being driven mainly by corporates, rather than freelancers, industry insiders said.
Ms Michelle Yong, who helms Core Collective and another co-working space, Collision 8, said that while they used to see demand from companies with four to six employees, they are now seeing more interest from “teams of 30, 40, 50 people”.
Mox boasts 3D-printers, woodworking tools, sewing rooms and a fully-equipped photography studio. (Photo: Mox)
FLEXIBILITY A KEY BENEFIT
One such company is deals platform Fave, whose 50-strong firm moved into JustCo at Marina Square in June after its lease at a “traditional” office space ended.
“If you’re in a fast-growing company, there’s this contention between needing to factor in size for future growth, but not wanting to factor in too much, because then your overheads are high,” said Mr Ng Aik-Phong, the firm’s managing director.
A co-working space gives them that flexibility to grow on demand,
This is a boon, given the company’s plans to double its headcount to close to a hundred.
“We don’t need that extra 50 people immediately, so we’ll scale up. In other words, our cost scales up in tandem with our business and business needs,” he said.
Mr Ng added that renting a space within a co-working centre shaves off significant costs.
“You’re renting a smaller unit but tapping into a larger common area, so that’s already a win. Just on a purely rental basis, (you can save) 20 to 25 per cent, but if you include ancillaries then you’re easily looking at 30 to 40 per cent savings.”
As a bonus, the company has also struck up two business relationships with other companies within the co-working space.
Mr Ng mooted that as more companies join the co-working space, the ecosystem could be a new way of expanding one’s client base.
IS GROWTH SUSTAINABLE?
On the back of growing corporate demand, surging office rentals and a growing start-up scene, industry insiders say the future looks bright for the industry, although there could be some consolidation.
“We feel (the growth) is sustainable for a number of reasons. There is quite a lot of demand from the occupiers. The space itself that’s on offer at the moment, I don’t feel it is an in over-offered environment,” said Mr Duncan White, head of office services at Colliers International.
As demand for co-working spaces continues to grow, analysts said supply may also spill over into retail areas, as land is tight within the CBD. (Photo: Core Collective)
He added that supply is tight within the Central Business District (CBD), where the flexible workspace footprint has already more than doubled from 969,000 sq ft in 2015 to 2.3 million sq ft now.
However, the growth is not without its caveats.
Mr White said there could be further consolidation on the cards, as smaller operators who “don’t have a niche” get taken over by the bigger players.
Ms Yong, however, sees room for more coexistence.
“There is room for both big and small players. In the way the hotel industry evolved and you have 3-star, 4-star, 5-star, I think we could see similar evolution of the co-working scene,” said Ms Yong, who is also the director of Aurum Land, a boutique residential property developer.
FUTURE TRENDS: TAPPING INTO RETAIL, ‘FLEX-CORE’ ACTIVITY AND LAYERING
As demand for co-working spaces continues to grow, analysts said the locations of these shared offices could increasingly pop up in shopping malls.
For example, the 60,000-sq-ft JustCo centre, which was established in Marina Square earlier this year. The operator said it is the first co-working space to be an anchor tenant of a core district mall.
Shoppers walking along Orchard Road. (File photo: Calvin Oh)
Four operators have also made their first forays into Orchard Road, a traditionally retail-heavy area, this year.
This conversion could pick up pace as landlords fight a weakening retail landscape, said analysts.
More sectors are also expected to hop on the co-working bandwagon, beyond financial, tech and creative industries.
“We may see a broad base of industries moving towards flexible space,” said Mr White.
Collision’s co-working space. (Photo: Collision)
In particular, Colliers said, companies may increase their “flex and core” activity over the next year and a half.
This model involves companies keeping “a core piece of their headcount under a traditional lease”, while having a smaller fraction of staff in a flexible workspace under shorter leases.
As for offerings, Ms Yong said, the future of co-working could involve a combination of services.
“We want to start layering more and more services, such as expanding into medical services, beauty and aesthetics. People are toying with the idea of super-campus, with lots of different layers of co-working and adding a co-living aspect,” she said.
FROM FAD TO NORM
At the heart of co-working’s meteoric rise is an underlying shift in the way we work, experts said.
“It’s moved forward from being a fad to now being a norm. Especially here in Singapore we’re seeing a new breed of workforce come to light,” said Ms Richa Sharma, associate director at recruiting company Page Personnel.
The digital evolution has made individuals more mobile, which has created a mobile workforce, she said.
Core Collective caters to health professionals. (Photo: Core Collective)
Ms Sharma added that co-working’s popularity rides on society’s heightened consciousness of health and desire for work-life balance – something that co-working spaces appear to enable.
She cited studies that linked such spaces to lower levels of stress and anxiety, along with higher productivity.
“Co-working is trying to reinvent how you see a workspace. It’s evolved over the period, to now being much more of a necessity, and it will continue to evolve.”
SINGAPORE: Right after the Education Ministry’s (MOE) announcement last month that it would be reducing the number of examinations for students in primary and secondary schools, tuition agency Gavin’s Tuition quickly surveyed some of its students’ parents to find out what they thought of the move.
Over 130 parents responded: While they appreciated the ministry’s move to reduce stress on students, an overwhelming majority (90 per cent) said they were concerned this would make it harder for them to assess how their child was doing in school.
The reduction of mid-year examinations would not provide them with “a true gauge” of the child’s academic performance in the earlier part of the school year, and they feared that it would lead to a “nasty surprise” at the year-end examinations, said the tuition centre’s director Gavin Ng.
He added that parents whom he has spoken to were also largely in favour of keeping the centre’s in-house mid-year and end-of-year examinations, which are set by its tutors, even though the schools are removing such examinations for certain levels.
And he has plans to meet the demand: Next year, the tuition centre is officially making available its in-house exams to students who are not enrolled with the centre. Anyone will be able sign up to take the exams for a fee.
He is also piloting a series of classes, known as “stress-free learning programmes” which focus “less on drilling” and more on experiential lessons, such as learning about robotics and coding.
Gavin’s Tuition is not the only one which has been quick to react to the recent changes. Other tuition agencies and tutors interviewed said that in the light of reduction in examinations in schools, they planned to introduce new programmes or tweak their existing ones.
Ignite Tuition Centre, for example, is looking to introducing more enrichment classes to supplement its current tuition classes for its primary to secondary school students.
Students attending a mathematics class at a primary school. (File photo: TODAY)
Its operations manager Joy Ng said the centre will expand its enrichment programme to include courses on Chinese creative writing and science enrichment, for example, from next year.
Ignite, which has about 350 students, is also planning to roll out more “individual-learning assessments”, in the form of ungraded, bi-monthly tests held during lesson time.
Such assessments focus on a student’s non-academic skills, such as public speaking and presentation skills, Ms Ng said.
As part of changes to the education system, announced about two weeks ago by Education Minister Ong Ye Kung, mid-year examinations for students in Primary 3, Primary 5, Secondary 1 and Sececondary 3 will be removed in phases from next year.
Primary 2 students will no longer have to sit for the year-end examinations from 2019. Currently, they do not have to take the mid-year examinations, while Primary 1 students do not have mid-year or year-end examinations.
After the announcement, Mr Ong acknowledged concerns that schools or tuition centres will undo the change by introducing other forms of assessments that are similar in nature but “are not called examinations”.
Speaking earlier this month on the sidelines of the Singapore International Technical and Vocational Education and Training Conference, Mr Ong noted that some tuition centres had expressed intentions to “simulate examination-like conditions for students to make up for the lost examinations”.
“I strongly urge them not to do so,” he said, adding:
Doing so would just be preying on the apprehension and anxieties of parents and students.
In their defence, however, some tuition agencies say they are simply meeting a demand.
Asked if he felt that the centre’s plans were at odds with what the MOE was hoping to achieve, Gavin’s Tuition’s Mr Ng said that he was responding to “the demands out there”.
Stressing that his centre complies with the MOE’s requirements in terms of “curriculum and syllabus”, Mr Ng said that the feedback he had received from parents and students was that they had always appreciated the assessments.
File photo of Ong Ye Kung. (Photo: Justin Ong)
Assessments aside, some tuition agencies said they have long embraced different teaching approaches in response to changes in the education landscape over the years.
KRTC Kent Ridge Education, which has 20 branches across the island, tweaked its teaching approaches more than a decade ago, moving away from grade-centric tuition.
Its principal Max Wong said that for younger students, for instance, assignments are not given grades. Instead, tutors would turn an assignment into a mini-competition for students during class, with rewards such as snacks given at the end of the assignment to encourage good work. He said:
In our marketing (and advertisements), we have never put in Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) or O-level achievements … we have never talked about posting the students’ results.
Like the other tuition agencies interviewed, KRTC has its own set of monthly assessments — known as “reviews” — but no marks or grades are given, Mr Wong added.
Learning Chapters Education Hub, meanwhile, already has “mindfulness elements” incorporated into class time.
Managing director Benson Lim said that at the start of lessons, students will have a five-minute breathing exercise to improve their “focus and concentration, not just in academics, but in all the things that they do”, and ultimately to improve their grades.
Learning Chapters is looking to incorporate more applied learning into its lesson materials, he added. It is already planning to introduce workshops which use coding to teach mathematics.
While some tuition agencies are looking to make the best out of MOE’s move, others, especially private tutors, have voiced concerns about its possible impact.
A private tutor, who would only gave his name as Kenneth, said he was worried his existing pool of students might shrink, which might affect his income.
Mr Kenneth, who has 12 students from primary and secondary schools, said that through interactions with his students’ parents, some had casually remarked that “there might not be a need for so much tuition” once the exam cuts come into effect.
“(The parents) may not want to have tuition for the first half of the year, and might only start in Term 3,” he added.
Ms Eleen Lim, a private tutor who coaches primary school students, added that with the new announcement, “a lot of pressure will fall back on the tuition teacher”.
A school teacher conducting a class (Photo: Justin Ong)
Given that schools are cutting back on examinations, Ms Lim — who has been giving one-to-one tuition for the past 18 years — felt that the “responsibility” will be on the tuition teacher to provide parents with constant progress updates to parents.
“I foresee a lot more stressed-out tutors,” Ms Lim said, laughing.
Nevertheless, private tutor Darryl Gay, who teaches mathematics and science, felt that the time freed up following the removal of mid-year examinations would allow him to explore the two subjects more deeply with his students.
He envisages having more time to make use of videos and real-life examples to better explain mathematical and scientific concepts to his students.
WHAT PARENTS SAY
The move to reduce examinations is unlikely to cause many parents rushing to pull their children out of tuition centres, if the interviews with some of them are any indication.
Those interviewed mostly felt that the cutback would do little to curb academic stress, but would instead delay it till the year-end examinations.
Others said the lack of a middle “checkpoint” — as one parent put it — means they would not be able to track their children’s academic progress properly. And this is one reason why the parents said they would still rely on tuition classes.
Homemaker Sharon Tan, 46, said:
Whether or not you do away with a mid-year examination, there will be an examination at the end of the year. There will also be national examinations to sit for.
Ms Tan, whose two daughters in primary school have tuition, said that by “placing emphasis on the end-of-year examinations … it will be worse for the child”.
“It will not promote healthy learning behaviours … (like) being consistent with your work,” she added.
Mr Ian Lum, a 44-year-old digital marketing specialist who has two sons in tuition classes, agreed: “If the school does not track how my children are doing, the only other way to know is through tuition classes.”
Homemaker Choon Hui Leng, 39, added that tuition classes give her “an assurance” that her 11-year-old son is able to cope with the rigours of school.
“My son’s tutors will update me on his progress regularly, and if there are areas he needs to improve on, at least we can (rely on) the tutors to guide (him),” Ms Choon added.
A child doing homework. (File photo: TODAY)
But there are a few parents who are mulling over reducing tuition for their children.
Said 38-year-old sales manager Sheeren Hoo: “If the schools are already reducing the number of assessments, I don’t really see the need to put my daughter in tuition … (at least) until the second term.”
Despite the MOE’s continuing efforts to reduce students’ stress and place less emphasis on grades, the tuition industry — estimated to be worth more than S$1 billion annually — is here to stay, experts say.
There are currently about 600 tuition centres registered with the MOE. “This figure has remained stable over the past three years since 2016,” said an MOE spokesperson. Under the Education Act, centres offering tuition with 10 or more students must be registered with the MOE.
When Mr Ong announced the raft of measures to address academic stress, he told the media that the Government had no intention to ban tuition.
Pointing out that “it is not a criminal activity”, Mr Ong said parents send their children for tuition “out of care and concern”. He added that while there are “do-gooders in the community who conduct free or low-cost tuition to help weaker students cope with their studies”, there are also negative tuition stories.
The Education Minister noted that for some students, school was not stressful but tuition was:
They are very tired on weeknights after school, or on weekends, because their day is packed with many tuition classes.
“Worst, they find that learning is not fun as a result and lessons have taken over their days and weekends,” Mr Ong said.
He touched on the tuition issue again a week later, at the Singapore International Technical and Vocational Education and Training Conference.
Apart from a reduction in exams, a student’s position in class and at their cohort’s level will also no longer be reflected in their report books, MOE had announced.
Some education experts to agreed that the ministry’s latest measures are a step in the right direction, but felt that it would be difficult to do away with tuition completely since it is deeply entrenched in the Singaporean psyche.
Tuition is, after all, the by-product of another perennial national obsession — academic excellence.
Youths walking after a class has finished. (Photo: TODAY)
Pointing out that “historically, a lot of focus has been on academic (performance)”, Dr Timothy Chan, director of SIM Global Education’s academic division, said:
As long as the national goal posts are still there (in the form of national examinations) … as long as grades are a key factor, tuition will still be around.
Agreeing, Ms Denise Phua, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education, said: “Society — students, parents, educators and employers — had been conditioned for decades to rely on academic scores as the main success indicator in the education dashboard.”
Associate Professor Jason Tan from the National Institute of Education (NIE) added: “The presence of major examinations that act as gatekeepers to further stages of education serves to fuel parental anxiety about their children’s competitiveness relative to their peers in terms of access to preferred schools and courses.”
Assoc Prof Tan pointed out that the additional pathways in post-secondary schooling which the MOE had introduced in recent years had not led to a drop in tuition demand either.
“(This is) probably because the question for many parents is not ‘whether my child can proceed to post-secondary education’ but rather ‘which post-secondary place in which post-secondary institution’,” he said.
In a highly competitive culture, “each new change in assessment modes or admission criteria triggers parental anxiety about new hurdles to be overcome as part of a competitive race”, he reiterated.
“For example, the Direct School Admission exercise was meant to signal the importance of non-academic experiences but some private tutoring agencies have responded by broadening their services to include coaching for both parents and students on how best to prepare for admission,” he added.
Yale-NUS College graduation ceremony. (Photo: Yale-NUS)
More than just a policy change, the move to alleviate Singaporeans’ fixation with tuition is something that requires all parties to work together and do their part.
Ms Phua cited the need to educate all stakeholders: “Many do not understand that exams are only one form of assessment and being exam-smart alone does not equate learning, and certainly may not cultivate the habit of self-driven lifelong learning.”
Dr Chan said that while “all key players (in the education sector) have a role to play”, the challenge is to change parents’ mindsets — and this is something that requires “constant engagement”, he added.
Ms Phua, a Member of Parliament for Jalan Besar GRC, also reiterated her call to deal with the “elephants in the room” — high-stakes examinations, such as the PSLE.
“Doing well for high-stakes exams and the preference for top popular schools are still habits lurking in the back of most minds. We should seriously confront these elephants in the room, and start piloting a few schools where PSLE does not feature,” she said.
Mr Ong had laid out his ministry’s position on PSLE, when he spoke in Parliament in July in response to a motion on the future of education that was moved by the Nominated Members of Parliament.
Last month, he reiterated that the PSLE will remain, and described it as a “good feature” in the education system which allows students to take stock of what they have learnt during the six years of primary education. It is also a key mechanism for posting to secondary schools, he said.
Students received their PSLE results. (Photo: Channel 8 News)
Nevertheless, Ms Phua also called on the MOE to have deeper engagement with the tuition industry, to work with its stakeholders and analyse what they are doing, to “come up with even better solutions”.
To wean students from tuition, Dr Chan said parents will need to see that tuition does not add value to mainstream education. When parents feel that whatever that has been covered in school is not enough, they may send their children for tuition, he noted.
All said and done, Assoc Prof Tan contends that the tuition fixation will be around for a long while because “it is a personal choice that has proven resistant to official attempts to ban it, for instance, in South Korea”.
“International research evidence indicates that once private tutoring has become ingrained in the culture, it cannot easily be scaled back,” he added.
SINGAPORE: A 21-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly importing more than S$520,000 worth of counterfeit bags, wallets and watches, which he intended to sell, the police and Singapore Customs said in a joint release on Monday (Oct 15).
About two weeks ago on Oct 4 and Oct 5, Singapore Customs inspected two consignments at a warehouse at Woodlands Industrial Park and found bags they suspected to be fake.
They detained the items after the brand owners confirmed the bags were counterfeit.
Boxes of counterfeit products seized by the authorities. (Photo: Singapore Police Force)
About a week later, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and Singapore Customs raided a logistics company at Woodlands Industrial Park, and seized more than 800 pieces of counterfeit bags.
The suspect was subsequently arrested in a follow-up operation along Compassvale Street, and more than 4,000 pieces of fake bags, wallets and watches were seized from his home.
Counterfeit watches seized by the authorities. (Photo: Singapore Police Force)
Preliminary investigations showed that the man had sold fake bags on various online platforms, the new release said.
Those found guilty of importing, possessing or distributing goods with falsely applied trademarks for the purpose of trade may be jailed up to five years, fined a maximum of S$100,000 or both.
Investigations are ongoing.
Counterfeit bags seized by the authorities. (Photo: Singapore Customs)
SINGAPORE: It all started 16 years ago when Madam Sally Lim, 43, moved back into her newly renovated home in Choa Chu Kang.
A week later, red itchy rashes started popping up on her arms and neck. Her condition got worse over the months with the skin on her body and face flaking. A smelly fluid also oozed from her armpit and neck which were scratched raw because of the itch.
Private doctors she consulted diagnosed her with eczema, apparently triggered by the fresh coat of paint in her newly renovated flat. She received steroid injections for her condition.
“They worked wonderfully. My skin was even better than normal. But it only lasted a short while,” she told Channel NewsAsia.
Over the years, Madam Lim tried many other treatments in the hopes of managing her eczema better. However, she still suffers from outbreaks about three times a year which can last for months each time, and she has to take oral steroids to keep them in check.
INCREASED AWARENESS, CHANGES IN LIFESTYLE BEHIND RISE IN DEMAND
Madam Lim, a patient at the National Skin Centre (NSC), is one of many in Singapore suffering from skin conditions. Whether it is for eczema, acne or pigmentation disorders, the demand for dermatology services is rising. In 2016, NSC had 304,000 outpatient clinic attendances, up from 263,000 in 2008.
In order to meet the rising demand, a new building – scheduled to open in 2022 – will be added at the NSC in Novena which will boost capacity by 50 per cent, NSC said during the building’s groundbreaking ceremony in April this year.
Dr Lynn Chiam, a dermatologist at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, attributed the increase in demand to a combination of factors. This includes a greater awareness of skin problems and treatments available. In addition, the use of many different skin products at the same time can create problems.
Traveling overseas frequently exposes an individual to different climates and conditions which can also trigger skin problems, Dr Chiam said.
Senior Consultant at NSC Associate Professor Chua Sze Hon echoed similar views. He said the greater awareness of skin diseases has led to more people consulting dermatologists.
“Patients now seek more effective management to relieve the burden of skin diseases in their lives rather than to suffer in silence,” he said.
Assoc Prof Chua said that the impact on sufferers can be “very significant”.
“For example, severe eczema and psoriasis often result in reduced self-esteem, sleep disturbance, loss of concentration at school or work, social withdrawal, depression, increased leave from school or work,” he said, adding that caregivers may be faced with fatigue looking after the needs of sufferers as well.
Dr Chiam said that research has shown that skin diseases can impact a person’s quality of life more significantly than other medical conditions, as it is visible to other people.
Madam Lim admits it has not been easy dealing with her eczema. She has been approached by strangers asking about her skin condition and whether it is contagious. She has also received unkind comments from family members, which she said “hurt the most”.
“They would ask me ‘Why are you so dirty? You must have been eating anyhow’ and commented that my face is disgusting because of the red and black patches I had,” Madam Lim said.
ECZEMA MOST COMMON SKIN CONDITION IN SINGAPORE
For the past three years, eczema has been the most common skin disease treated at the NSC.
There were 18,405 new cases last year. The next most common condition – benign skin tumours – saw 6,846 new cases, according to figures from the centre.
In fact, the incidence of eczema in Singapore is one of the highest in the world, said Dr Chiam.
Eczema is the most common skin condition in Singapore. (Photo: National Skin Centre)
This could be attributed to Singapore’s hot and humid weather, leading to excessive perspiration which can affect the skin’s barrier function, she said. Over-washing with soaps can also be detrimental to the skin barrier, she said, adding that with an impaired skin barrier, eczema can result. House dust mites that thrive in hot humid weather are also common triggers of eczema, she added.
MISCONCEPTIONS EXIST DESPITE AWARENESS
While there is increasing awareness of skin diseases, Assoc Prof Chua stressed the importance of continuous public education as there are still misconceptions.
He recalled the case of a 14-year-old boy whose parents were convinced that his rashes were due to a food allergy after they “researched” on the Internet.
They imposed food restrictions on him, but it did not help his skin condition. As his condition worsened, the teenager became socially withdrawn.
He was diagnosed with eczema when he was eventually brought to NSC for a consultation. His condition improved with treatment.
Madam Lim agreed that public education is important. She herself has borne the brunt of such misconception.
“Many people had the misconception that the condition is contagious, can be easily managed and can be cured permanently,” she said.
Some also think that seafood is the main cause of her condition which is also not true, Madam Lim said. In fact, food is not a common trigger for eczema, Dr Chiam said. She added that the most common allergen in Singapore is dust mites. The condition is also not contagious.
Madam Lim said she manages her condition with the understanding and support of her husband.
“Getting support from loved ones is very important,” she said.
SINGAPORE: How prepared are our youth for the future? My biggest epiphany about this subject came about from dangling S$50 bills before students.
I have run dozens of future-readiness workshops with thousands of local university students where would start by announcing that we were going to carry out a simple experiment.
I would take out a S$50 note, hold it up and tell the students that whoever wanted it could come up and take it, no hidden catches or tricks.
Typically what would happen was … nothing except for baffled glances between the students and nervous laughter.
After a few minutes, someone would stand up and make their way to the front of the room and ask for the note. This someone would invariably be male, and a foreign student from China, India or the West.
I remember only a couple of female students getting up, but sadly they sat back down again when they saw another male contender stand up. Hardly any Singaporeans came forward.
Afterwards we would ask the students:
What prevented you from stepping up?
ROBOTS
I’ll tell you their answers in a bit. But let’s reflect on how ready our Singapore youths truly are, to face a future of rapid change, unpredictable opportunities and hyper-competition.
On the surface, things look good. Every other week I read news about Singapore topping this or that employability or education index. Just this week, the World Bank released their Human Capital Index which Singapore topped.
File photo of people crossing the road in Singapore. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
However, if you look closer, some of these rankings are informed by basic mortality measures. Are we measuring our ability to thrive, or merely to survive?
It shouldn’t be a surprise that we are great at gaming the rankings – the Singapore education system is the best training ground for producing highly efficient linear thinkers who have no problems operating in a rules-based structured environment.
Just like robots.
Spot the massive problem here? It’s planned obsolescence for our youth if we are still measuring success by outdated metrics. Because in a world of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, we can’t compete on those terms anymore. We need to equip ourselves with different skills, mindsets and tools.
THRIVING IN A VUCA WORLD
In the real world, we all know what gets measured gets attention, a concept that management expert Peter Drucker made famous.
So how do you measure future-readiness of our youth and their ability to thrive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world?
In order to build a complete view, you have to look at a few perspectives.
Firstly, consider employers and what they are looking for when they hire future talent. The vast majority of employers are shifting their focus to identifying talent with strong soft skills, and this view is given further support by research linking social emotional intelligence to success in the workplace.
In addition, you also have to consider the needs of our youth and what competencies they need to face the future with confidence.
We are seeing unprecedented levels of anxiety, loneliness and depression from students, and it doesn’t matter how much training they are offered if deep down they believe that it’s hopeless.
Also consider perspectives from domain experts such as futurists, psychologists and leadership experts who have insight into human potential and what abilities will become increasingly important in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
A FUTURE READINESS INDEX
There have been many efforts at assessing future-readiness of human talent based on economic measures, living standards, productivity and other external measures. However, in my view, the biggest challenges we face are internal ones – skills, mindsets and beliefs.
If I were to build a new genre of future readiness Index, it would focus on essential “deep human” superskills, all of which are well-researched, and can be taught, observed and measured objectively.
Interestingly, many of the corporates and educational institutions I work with tell me that these superskills are becoming increasingly rare at precisely the time where they are rising in importance.
A future readiness Index for our youth could comprise:
1. Focus and insight. Our school-aged youth are the first generation to have crucial brain stage development in an environment of mass distraction and technology addiction. The ability to control their attention, focus on what matters, and form insightful connections to separate the signal from the noise will be crucial to their success in life.
2. Self-awareness. In an increasingly ambiguous world, self-awareness is a sensing ability that enables us to navigate uncertainties and understand when to change course, when to fight for convictions, and also having the humility to consider that your idea may be wrong.
A body of current research suggests that self-awareness is linked to more effective leaders and bottom-line profits in companies. Perhaps most crucially, self-aware people are curious and self-motivated life-long learners.
3. Empathy. Empathy is the ability to shift perspectives, and understand others on a deeply human level. Coupled with self-awareness and the ability to assert appropriate boundaries, empathy is a superskill that allows you to connect and engage others effectively.
4. Complex communication. In a world of constant strategy shifts and restructuring, not to mention the added challenge of working virtually with cross-cultural teams, it is essential to have sophisticated communication skills such as giving effective feedback and conflict resolution.
(Photo: Unsplash/rawpixel)
5. Entrepreneurial thinking. The ability to spot opportunities, promote your ideas, evaluate risk and reward, and act fast is crucial in an ever more competitive world.
6. Adaptability and resilience. This is a fundamental hygiene factor. It doesn’t matter if you have all the previous five abilities if you give up easily, are paralysed by failure or do not possess the psychological flexibility to adapt and keep going through turbulence.
An index like this can actually be a useful and practical tool for individuals and institutions.
For example, when students enter university, they can complete a future-ready diagnostic assessment that gives them a simple graphical overview of their strengths and developmental areas, and recommend activities and experiences tailored for them.
Employers can complete this diagnostic tool to give each student post-internship feedback on their future-ready capabilities, as can academic advisors and peers.
Students can see their strengths objectively, learn where their blind spots are and track their progress over the university journey.
This way, the index generates a personal development roadmap rather than just a set of arbitrary scores that no one has a sense of ownership over.
CORE BELIEFS AND VALUES
An index sheds light on the breadth of the problem but we also need to consider the issue of depth.
Over the past few years my explorations in future-readiness have been a continuous journey of humility. The more I learn the less I realise I know. As the saying goes, real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
Students sitting around campus. (File photo)
For instance, in teaching future-ready abilities, I have realised skills are only the tip of the iceberg.
What is far harder is shifting mindsets and working on core beliefs. For example, learning empathy is more than the skill of merely voicing out empathic phrases. True mastery of empathy includes developing a mindset of compassion, supported by a core belief in a common humanity.
How to instill empathy in youth involves a whole eco-system modelling all these levels – behaviours, mindsets and core beliefs.
Remember the S$50 experiment – what stopped the Singaporean students from getting up?
Most said they missed out on the instruction, or that they feared taking a risk or didn’t want to look greedy in front of others.
What haunted me was the memory of the female who stood up and sat back down again when she saw male students rising. The student in the front row who said that S$50 wasn’t enough and he may have done it if it was S$100. And the ones nodding off in the back row, sleep-deprived from their jam-packed content-heavy curriculum.
It is tempting at this point to think that this is a “millennial” problem, but if we were to truly embody the empathy we want to develop in our youth, we would see our part in creating the reality that exists today.
What holds our youth back isn’t just a question of skills, it is a question of mindsets. And how we fix it goes beyond organising workshops or devising new training programmes.
It requires a complicated, big, profound conversation that also involves contemplation of culture, power, gender, privilege and all the other elephants in the room that shape how our youth view the world and engage with it.
Youths walking after a class has finished. (Photo: TODAY)
If we really want to prepare our youth, a future-ready index is a helpful start as a means of aligning our goals and collecting data.
But the real work is that we ourselves, parents, government and authority figures, must understand our role as stewards. We must be the change we want to see, do the right but sometimes difficult thing, and be prepared to challenge our own calcified, fixed mindsets, even if it means admitting our mistakes.
If we are stewards, we must travel alongside our youth, instead of pretending that we can send them up the garden path equipped with a toolbox of skills that we ourselves don’t apply.
The root of the word “index” means to point, but what is more important than a pointing finger is a helping hand.
Crystal Lim-Lange is CEO of Forest Wolf, a future-readiness consultancy, and strategic advisor to Minerva Project.
SINGAPORE: The first light of dawn had just begun to streak across the inky skies when the intercom blared to life, punctuating the silence in the car.
A garbled voice growled from the device and everyone sat up in their seat. For the journalists in the vehicle, it was the first indication of the developing operation that was about to get underway.
In the early hours of Wednesday (Oct 10), we were on a raid with the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) that was part of an islandwide, four-day blitz to crack down on suspected drug offenders.
But unlike previous raids we had followed, this embed was different: For the first time, we were shadowing members of the CNB’s elite strike team, the Special Task Force (STF) unit.
Having observed some of their gruelling training weeks earlier, Channel NewsAsia was on our way to witness the culmination of their preparation for the impending covert operation.
This is how the morning played out.
5.30am: We assemble at the CNB’s request, and get the lowdown on the operation. We learn that we will be joining the STF unit for a raid in the western part of Singapore later that morning. Officers explain that there is no telling how long the operation will go on for, revealing they have worked cases that have lasted more than 17 hours. They add that they will be covert while on the ground and “in stealth mode” until it is time to act.
6.25am: We bundle up into a car and set off to the location, listening to random snatches of conversation over the intercom on the way. Watching the rest of the city wake up around us, I think about how the suspects have no inkling as to how their lives are about to change.
6.45am: We find ourselves in the vicinity of the Teck Whye estate and as we cruise around the neighbourhood, I look around in an attempt to spot STF personnel on the ground, but they stay true to their word of being in stealth mode. Chatter on the squawk box continues to pipe in and out every few minutes with updates from the STF team.
6.55am: To avoid drawing attention to ourselves and looking out of place, our vehicle of journalists and officers heads over to a carpark on the next street to wait for the call to action. The intercom begins to buzz more frequently as we wait around in anticipation.
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
7.17am: We receive the green light to rendezvous with the other officers and we arrive at the carpark at the same time as other STF personnel. Dressed in plainclothes, they each lug large, nondescript bags of paraphernalia. No one exchanges a word as we make for the lift landing and take the elevator up.
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
7.24am: We file out of the elevator a few levels above and head to the stairwell that services a particular section of units. Speaking in low voices, STF personnel swiftly don their gear as we watch. In a matter of minutes, none of them are recognisable in their balaclavas and matching vests. The squad wields a battering ram, a shield and what appears to be an industrial-strength grinder.
7.26am: Seconds after the STF members grabbed their gear, I almost miss an officer’s slight head nod to the rest of the team before they begin sprinting down two flights of stairs in trice. Caught off guard by the officers’ sudden charge, the rest of us stumble on the steps trying to take two steps at a time to keep up.
With another flight of stairs to go, my ears suddenly prick at two distinct sounds occurring almost simultaneously. I hear the sound of a gate or a door being thrown open, and then a loud smack on the pavement below.
I instinctively flinch at the sounds, wondering what has just happened. I continue down the remaining steps and reach the landing just in time to catch the last of the string of officers charging into the flat.
Next door, a neighbour peers cautiously from behind her gate at the commotion and whole lot of us outside.
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
7:29am: We watch as a male suspect is arrested inside the unit and placed in handcuffs. As CNB officers lead him down to the void deck, we discover the source of the loud sound we had heard: A package of some kind of substance strewn all over a grass patch directly beneath the suspect’s unit.
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
We learn that prior to his arrest, the suspect had attempted to discard a package of what officers said was heroin out of his unit’s window.
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
7.35am: The substance – which appear to resemble small cubes of belacan (shrimp paste)– is painstakingly picked out of the grass by officers, who later bag their findings. Later, the suspect is brought back up to his flat for a thorough search of his premises.
A CNB officer looking out the suspect’s kitchen window. (Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
Several days after the islandwide operations end, it is revealed in a news release that almost 1.3kg of heroin was retrieved from the grass patch.
From within the 63-year-old Singaporean suspect’s unit, a further 876g of heroin, 29g of ‘Ice’ and cash amounting to more than S$87,000 were also recovered.
(Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
In total, the estimated worth of everything seized from the suspected drug trafficker’s flat stood at S$154,000.
As we leave the scene, I consider how all that planning and coordination – which must have stretched over days and perhaps weeks – had culminated in 10-second blitz of action as the officers moved lightning fast to get their man and secure the scene.
SINGAPORE: Schools invite parents for parent-teacher meetings (PTM) a few times each year. These meetings serve as regular forums for both sides to discuss pertinent concerns.
For most parents, schooling is a high-stakes endeavour, where many are concerned about their children’s post-secondary and career options.
It is hardly surprising then that some parents are anxious about whether their child can cope with homework and keep up with lessons. They are also eager to hear teachers say more about their child’s academic development.
There is the danger that PTMs may turn into antagonistic encounters, in which parents can become overly defensive of their children’s behaviours and what they deem as aspersions on their parenting practices. Teachers may then feel frustrated with what they see as parents’ failure to respect them as competent educational professionals.
But there is a case for optimism. The face-to-face communication may allow teachers to deepen the trust and support of parents, and give both sides opportunities to develop a more holistic approach to students’ well-being.
Through sharing a child’s classroom behaviour and learning progress with parents, teachers hope to help parents understand and take stock of their child’s development.
The conversation between teachers and parents are foundational in strengthening the school’s partnership with parents and needs to continue throughout the year beyond these formal meetings – an aim that has been increasingly emphasised in Ministry of Education initiatives over the past two decades.
Since the formation of the national advisory council known as COMPASS (Community and Parents in Support of Schools) in 1998, the Ministry of Education has strengthened school-home-community partnerships and encouraged parents to support various school initiatives.
Every mainstream school now has a parent support group that facilitates parental participation in school events and contributes ideas to shape the school’s programmes.
File picture of secondary school students in Singapore. (Photo: TODAY)
SCHOOLING IS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY
Schooling is a very social activity. It is much more than test scores.
At school, the child co-exists within a large community. As a student, he or she has many chances to develop his or her potential beyond academics, in terms of character development and socialisation skills.
Teachers have to manage the learning needs of many students and this means ensuring that students do not develop in isolation but in tandem with being a part of a larger, cohesive and inclusive social group.
Being at school among peers and teachers is an important precursor to the working world that students will have to face as adults.
Parents may notice that their children are maturing in their social and emotional development as they participate in classroom and co-curricular activities that develop collaborative or leadership skills – and they can play a role in shaping this growth.
In order to contribute towards a model of holistic education, a key question PTMs might want to try to address is: “How can the home and school complement each other’s efforts to improve the child’s education journey?”
Instead of focusing on a child’s weaknesses, these parent-teacher meetings should identify and affirm a child’s strengths, which in turn may help parents support their child in developing social and emotional resilience outside the school, and navigate their environment more confidently.
For instance, teachers could point out their observations of a child’s behaviour in the classroom when he or she is given opportunities to demonstrate leadership and collaborative skills – such as when he or she leads classmates through group discussions.
Teacher and children at a pre-school in Singapore. (File photo: TODAY)
Parents can use information gathered during PTMs to gauge the need for additional private tutoring and enrichment activities for their children.
The task of navigating a constantly evolving education landscpe might seem daunting to parents but let’s keep in mind, this is a two-way street.
Teachers can also use PTMs to offer sound advice to parents who at times may feel bewildered at the fact that their children are experiencing education pathways and curricula that are vastly different from those that they themselves encountered.
PARTNERING FOR THE CHILD
Contrary to what many might think, the natural relationship between teachers and parents is far from adversarial. Meetings between teaching professionals and parents can be effective in helping every child reach his or her fullest potential.
PTMs, beyond being an opportunity for teachers to engage with parents about the child’s growth and behaviour in school, also present platforms for teachers to support the child’s growth and behaviour through gaining a better understanding of their wider social context outside of school, and their behaviour across these different contexts.
Viewed with the right spirit, PTMs can be an effective tool for parents and teachers in helping both sides figure out how best to support a child’s development.
PTMs work best when both parents and teachers embrace the mindset that both parties care for the child and want to work together to help him or her learn better.
Jason Tan is an associate professor at the National Institute for Education.
SINGAPORE: For Ms Jasmine Chee, getting her monthly supply of contact lenses used to be a straightforward affair. She would pop into an optical shop, provide the optometrist with details about her myopia, pay for the lenses and pop out.
That was her routine over the last 10 years or so since she started wearing contact lenses, until she found out she had corneal neovascularization – an eye condition that could result in blindness.
The condition is caused by a lack of oxygen to the cornea, which can come from wearing ill-fitting contact lenses. Ms Chee believes this could have been avoided had her optometrists done their due diligence before selling her the lenses.
“When you buy contact lenses in Singapore, they will ask what’s your degree and then you just buy from them off the shelf. They don’t ask you to try it on to see whether the contact lenses are suitable for you,” she said.
She claimed that the only time she had her eyes examined by her optometrists was when she first tried wearing contact lenses.
EYE EXAM, FITTING NOT COMMONLY PRACTISED
While the Optometrists and Opticians Board’s (OOB) code of professional conduct requires licensed optometrists to assess a patient’s suitability for contact lenses, Channel NewsAsia has found that some practitioners do not strictly adhere to this.
When this reporter visited four optical stores to buy contact lenses, only one insisted on conducting an eye examination first before selling.
The other three did not perform any eye checks. After telling the shops’ staff my lens’ power, I bought five months’ supply of disposable coloured contact lenses, which cost more than S$130.
Contact lenses bought without any eye health checks or interview about eye care history at some optical shops in Singapore. (Photo: Fann Sim)
I then took the lenses to Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Optometry Centre. This is where optometrists would check on a patient’s vision, eye pressure, as well as the front and back of the eyes to determine whether they are suitable for contact lenses.
In this session, which typically takes an hour to 90 minutes, optometrists will also assess whether the lenses were fit for the wearer.
In my case, the contact lenses bought from the shops were of the right power but the wrong shape and size. They did not fit properly and were thus uncomfortable to be worn.
In fact, one of the lenses moved around so much due to a poor fit that it caused blurriness.
One person I spoke to had a worse experience with ill-fitting contact lenses.
Ms Kellynn Tan, 20, started experiencing discomfort in her eyes after wearing a new pair of coloured contact lenses bought from an optical shop at a shopping mall.
The optometrist checked her eyesight but did not assess if the lenses fit.
“At first when I wore the lenses, they were a bit big for my eyes so they kept moving around,” Ms Tan said.
At first she experienced discomfort; within two months it had become so painful that she could not see.
“One of my eyes became quite red and my eyelids were swollen. I couldn’t take it anymore so I went to get an eye check and found that I had corneal abrasions and an eye infection,” Ms Tan said.
She went to another optometrist who conducted a series of tests on her eyes and found bumps forming on the inside of her eyelids.
Ms Tan was diagnosed with contact-lens induced papillary conjunctivitis, a condition caused mainly by poor lens fit.
TAKING IRRESPONSIBLE SELLERS TO TASK
Currently, 1,159 optometrists and 21 contact lens practitioners registered in Singapore are qualified to handle the sale of contact lenses, according to the Ministry of Health.
The ministry added that contact lenses, both powered and non-powered, have to be prescribed and dispensed by registered optometrists or contact lens practitioners.
Over the last three years, 12 people have been prosecuted for carrying out a practice of optometry when he is not duly qualified. Among them, half were for selling contact lenses on online platforms while the rest were for sales carried out at optical shops by unduly qualified persons, the ministry said.
The offenders were issued with court fines ranging from S$1,500 to S$4,000.
Dr Martin Kwan, a senior lecturer in optometry at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, believes that the Health Ministry and the OOB should come down heavily on contact lens sellers who abdicate their responsibilities.
“When customers come in and get glasses or contact lenses, they may not receive the full check,” he said. “That is inadequate because you may not know if you have any hidden eye diseases that can eventually cause problems.”
In Ms Chee and Ms Tan’s case, their conditions could have been detected if their eyes had been examined when they bought their contact lenses, and this could have prevented complications, Dr Kwan said.
“Optometrists are well positioned in the primary (care) setting which are your heartland stores and malls to diagnose hidden eye diseases from people who visit them,” he said.
Dr Kwan, who used to be a practising optometrist, observed that there is a lack of consumer awareness on eye care and what to expect when purchasing contact lenses.
“When the consumer asks for an eye check, the optometrist will do it. But the flip side is if the consumer doesn’t ask, will the consumer still receive such care? … There are optometrists who perform these checks but it doesn’t happen everywhere,” said Dr Kwan.
For consumers who have bought ill-fitting lenses, optometrist Jed Koh suggests that they “go back to the store and request for a change”. Out of goodwill, some stores might allow an exchange, he said.
However, to avoid such uncertainty, it is best to have lens fitting done in the first place, Mr Koh said. While this is not necessary when rebuying the same lenses, he advised wearers to get lens fitting done once a year.
Salzgitter, GERMANY: On little Mia’s last day at her care centre, her playmates gathered around singing farewell songs, as she handed out bags of sweets. One by one, they hugged her. “Come here you little pumpkin,” said one with a toothless grin. “You’re a cutie, we’re going to miss you,” said another.
What’s unusual about this scene is that Mia’s best friends aren’t all toddlers like her – they include white-haired old grannies and filmy-eyed granddads.
At this care facility, there is little that separates the generations, despite the decades between them.
Little Mia saying goodbye to her good friends, decades older than her, at the daycare. (Photos and video: Goh Chiew Tong and Lam Shushan)
During play sessions together, the seniors seem to shed their years as they watch the young ones run around. Kiddy giggles fill the room during games and storytelling sessions led by the old folks.
Folks like Siglinde Marckart, 80, who lives alone and grieves the recent loss of her brother. But you wouldn’t think it from her warm smile and laughter, as she teaches a group of squealing children a game of hand-tag that she learnt from her own mother.
“I feel younger, my head is clearer. It’s like I’m part of life again,” said Mrs Marckart, who has early-stage dementia.
It may not seem like it, but a small revolution is taking place here on the second floor of the Mutterzentrum or Mother Centre, a multigenerational facility in Salzgitter city.
It’s an experiment that, if 74-year-old co-founder Hildegard Schooss has her way, could lead a sea-change in how daycare of the elderly and the young is modelled across an ageing Germany – and show the way for Singapore and the rest of the world, as well.
During their daily sessions together, the children have the seniors up on their feet dancing with brightly-coloured scarves.
HEALING THE GENERATION GAP
It would not be the first time that this light-filled, airy building in the small district of Salzgitter-bad – population 20,000, about the same as that of Kovan or Tanglin in Singapore – has been the epicentre of nation-wide change.
In the mid-2000s, the centre came to national attention for its then-groundbreaking concept of serving as a “public living room” where mothers, children and the elderly could drop in to socialise over a café meal, volunteer their help to each together, and get professional day care services all in one place.
This inspired Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen to launch some 500 multigenerational centres across the country, supported with federal funding, in answer to Germany’s ageing population crisis.
The glass-fronted modern incarnation of the Mother Centre in Salzgitter, which was the first to inspire a movement across Germany.
But for all its success, this model wasn’t enough for Mrs Schooss.
Since 1990, her centre had been running separate structured daycare for children and seniors, albeit under one roof. At the start of 2018, she wanted to see if there was a way to merge them, so the two groups would have more than just ad hoc interactions.
“Whenever I observed our staff with the children or the elderly, I noticed that many things could be done together,” she said. The more she thought about it, the more “unnatural” it seemed to keep the two age groups apart.
Hildegard Schooss (right) wants to lead the way in merging the care of the elderly and children.
In Salzgitter-bad – where nearly one in four persons is over the age of 65 – many seniors live alone. And children who mostly grow up in nuclear households rarely get to interact with old folks.
“Society is suffering from a gap between the generations,” said Mrs Schooss. “And it is depending on reconnecting generations in order to get well again.”
A similar predicament is faced in Singapore, where 1 in 4 persons is expected to be 65 or older by 2030, and experts have warned of an epidemic of elderly loneliness.
Already, the concept of care facilities that bridge young and old is taking nascent shape: In 2017, the Government announced plans to co-locate eldercare and childcare facilities in 10 new housing developments.
But, the example of Salzgitter’s multigenerational centre – and in particular, Mrs Schooss’ latest joint-care concept – show just what tremendous potential could be mined from such projects here.
They could have a significant impact not only on the well-being of seniors, but also on children’s development and intergenerational bonds – and, in the long run, even provide sustainable answers to the shortage of care manpower as family sizes shrink.
EACH OTHER’S SURROGATE FAMILY
But when Mrs Schooss first raised the idea of combining daycare services for children and the elderly, her staff were skeptical.
“They said it was not possible – ‘our old people wouldn’t want this’ or ‘the children are not allowed to do this’. And that made me furious,” said Mrs Schooss.
Staff wouldn’t let the children spend time alone with the seniors because by law, children in a daycare center are not allowed to be left unsupervised without a qualified caretaker. “It’s unbelievable the number of safety regulations.”
Then, there were some parents who did not like the idea of “having old people touch their children”. Even the seniors themselves said the kids were “too naughty” and “too loud”.
But over time, these complaints dwindled.
Initially, both the children’s parents and the seniors had their reservations.
Both the seniors and the children still have their separate programmes: Physical and memory training for the seniors, and the usual kindergarten curriculum for the children.
But the rest of the day’s schedule is filled with as many combined activities as possible.
Take the music and dance sessions. The children prance around the room while the seniors, infected by their energy, join in. Even limited as they might be to slow bobbing movements, this serves as physical therapy.
Seniors get triggered by the children. We notice that they smile a lot more when the children are around.
“They want that contact,” said Laura Kutschert, 27, one of the programme’s researchers.
As for the youngsters, said Mrs Schooss, “they have enormous respect for the seniors. Many of them don’t have grandparents… and with their parents’ working hours, they barely even have time with their own family.”
In short, the old folks and the children become a kind of surrogate family to each other.
“We are trying to reinvent here what was totally normal decades ago,” said staff member Nicole Hummers. “Where three or four generations lived together under one roof, where grandma plays with her great-grandchild.”
The children benefit as much from the company of the seniors, as vice versa.
FEELS LIKE HOME
Unlike the clinical feel of a typical care center, the house – which opens five days a week, from 7am to 7pm – is cosily furnished with many breakout areas reminiscent of an Ikea showroom.
Natural light floods the hallways, and the smell of cookies and cakes from the kitchen lingers.
Windows in every door contribute to the open feel of the second floor, so the seniors and kids can always see what the other is up to.
The phrase they like to use to describe this pilot programme is “kindred by choice”. And its “family” of clients currently comprises 25 children and 16 seniors.
Supporting them are 16 centre staff, researchers and volunteers, who include kindergarten teachers and caregivers. Responsible also for cooking and cleaning, the team runs the place like a household and are called “mothers”.
It’s part of the daily routine for the seniors and children to help the “mothers” prepare lunch. Each senior is paired up with a child to perform simple tasks like peeling and chopping, and helping to set the tables.
During meals, the old folks fuss over the children, often helping to cut their food into smaller pieces, or teaching them to use their fork and knife the right way.
“You can see that they really care about the children,” said volunteer Ursula Scholz. “It’s like they have found a new lease of life. You can’t get this in a regular nursing home.”
And the children benefit from the guidance too. “We have to promote learning across the generations,” said Mrs Schooss.
I am convinced that children can’t just be taught in a formal environment – they have to learn through people.
Then there is the boy who always hangs around the elderly folks because he doesn’t fit in easily with the other children.
“He needs a special atmosphere, and he gets the warmth he needs from the elderly people more than from the other kids,” said Mrs Schooss.
The services are accessible to most, as kindergarten fees are subsidised while the seniors can tap their state-mandated Long Term Care Insurance to help pay for the daycare fees – it costs them between 40 and 70 euros a day, depending on their assessed level of care in their insurance plan. The project is also financially supported by the state of Lower Saxony and a foundation.
STUDYING THE OUTCOMES
While such achievements and benefits may seem anecdotal for now, the centre has hired a team of researchers to study the outcomes of the pilot programme over time.
“Our main aim is to study how seniors and kids are can be taken care of together – does it work and if so, how?” said Ms Kutschert.
For instance, research out there has shown that an active mind keeps certain age-related diseases and symptoms like dementia at bay.
“A lot of doctors have referred their patients with dementia to us. And we have noticed that those patients who use our services are benefiting from it,” said Mrs Schooss.
Mrs Marckart, for one, was greatly affected when her brother died. She had moved to Salzgitter only two years ago and had no other family around her.
“When I am home alone, all I think about is the past and I get sad. Here (at the centre), I can switch off and look forward to something,” she said, noting that her thoughts felt clearer and more alive.
Siglinde Marckart, 80, lives alone and has early stage dementia, but finds joy in coming to the daycare.
The study will take three years to complete, and with the research findings, the centre plans to come up with a proper curriculum and method of training staff to care for both children and the elderly. Currently, there are no professional courses on intergenerational care.
In Germany as in elsewhere like Singapore, where professional care services face a shortage of manpower, it could be an advantage to have staff who can look after both young and old at joint-care centres.
SPARKING A MOVEMENT
For Mrs Schooss, pulling off that paradigm shift in thinking about care would be another milestone on a long road.
It all started when she moved to Salzgitter with her three children in the 1980s because of her husband’s job. “I felt completely alone. I had to do something or I would get sick,” she said.
So she rented a small shop and started baking cakes. Anyone who came through the door was offered a slice and a cup of coffee. “I wanted a place like my parents’ home where the doors are always open and there’s someone I can talk to.”
Soon, it became a support group for mothers and kids in the neighbourhood and they called themselves the “mother center”.
The original Mother Centre – in a coffee shop. (Photo: Hildegard Schooss)
But then, to Mrs Schooss’ surprise, seniors started showing up too – some to ask for help with chores, others for the company.
Quite organically, the different generations bonded over gardening, sewing and meals. The centre began offering daycare services by trained caregivers, and was reconceptualised as a multigenerational house.
In the mid-2000s, Germany’s changing demographics put worries about an ageing population in the national policy spotlight. And the Salzgitter centre caught the eye of Family Minister von der Leyen.
The result was the Mehrgenerationenhaus programme, a roll-out of hundreds of meeting places across the country where the young and old could volunteer their services to each other: Seniors offering to mind children or read to them, youths helping to do grocery shopping for the elderly or teach them computer skills.
WATCH: The magic of interaction between young and old (10:07)
Dr Eckart von Hirschhausen, an author and patron of a multigeneration house in Berlin’s Zehlendorf district, described them as “the model for the future: learning from one another, feeling needed, sharing joy”.
‘MY GRANDPA DIETER’
At the heart of every multigenerational house is supposed to be the food – the drawing point that helps bring many of the 600 ad hoc visitors in to the Salzgitter centre each day. Serving affordable fare from lasagna to cheesecakes, and with a barista, its cafeteria encourages people who range from seniors to refugee mothers to linger, mix and chat.
The two-storey, 2,500 sqm facility also offers a daycare room for mums who want to drop off their kids for a few hours; a games room hangout for teenagers; an outdoor kids’ playground; a laundromat; and seating spaces for seniors.
And it doesn’t take a structured programme like the pilot joint-care project to spark friendships across the generations here.
Mr Dieter Huber, 72,a volunteer at the centre for 14 years, is known – especially by staff member Ms Hummers’ four children – as the doting “Grandpa Dieter”.
When mum says no to ice cream, he sneaks one under the table. And sometimes he offers to take the kids out at the weekends so Ms Hummers, a single mum, has time for herself. “It’s difficult for her. Her day is full of the kids’ appointments to dentists, doctors, all these obligations,” said Mr Huber.
“Dieter has become like family to us,” said Mrs Hummers’ second child Michelle, 17. “Our grandparents live in Cologne and we’re not close to them.”
It’s little wonder that the centre has been used as a case study for elder care researchers around the world. Mrs Schooss has been regularly featured on national television and in the international press, and gives talks in countries as far away as South Korea.
“I think we have done good work to spread this concept to the outside world,” said Mrs Schooss.
In Germany, the multigenerational house’s example will be timely since, by 2030, seniors will make up a third of the population – placing more pressure on its already-stressed long term care systems. “There will be a need for more arrangements like this centre, and it will be a step forward for society,” said Mrs Schooss.
Ms Hummers agrees. “My colleagues and I hope that we’ll get to spend our old age in a place like this – it would be beautiful,” she said.
CNA Insider’s trip to Germany, to study its approach to long-term care for the elderly, was supported by the Lien Foundation. Read Part 1, in which we visited the dementia-friendly community of Arnsberg.
