Ten social work pioneers who laid the groundwork for improving lives in Singapore were honoured yesterday.

For their contributions in the last 30 years, they were presented with tokens of appreciation by Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin at the 10th annual Social Workers’ Day yesterday.

More than 500 social service practitioners attended the event at Gardens by the Bay.

Speaking at the event, Mr Tan said: “They have set the foundation for social work in Singapore. They have made a difference to the lives of the people they reach out to, and have been a source of guidance and inspiration for all the very young social workers today as well.”

Among the pioneers honoured was Professor Tan Ngoh Tiong, former dean of the School of Human Development and Social Services at SIM University, who decided to embark on a career in social work in 1975.

Prof Tan’s contributions include serving as vice-president of the International Federation of Social Workers, and twice serving as president of the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW).

He said: “If you want to do good for as many people as you can, for as long as you can, you need to be a trained professional with a purpose, values as well as knowledge, and that’s why I enrolled in social work.”

Another pioneer, National University of Singapore senior lecturer Rosaleen Ow, said: “Society is increasingly having sub-groups popping up, people we didn’t notice before. We can no longer put our heads in the sand and say that we don’t want to work with people who are different.

The theme for this year’s Social Workers’ Day is “honouring diversity”, SASW said in a statement.

Ms Agnes Chia, the president of SASW, which organises Social Workers’ Day, said social workers should recognise and avoid judging the wide variety of marginalised groups, such as disabled people, single parents, prisoners or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

She said: “It is important to provide the fraternity of social workers with a platform to come together and discuss the core principles of social work, so as to continually guide our practice.”

Social workers, of whom there were about 800 in Singapore in 2012, could also help change social structures and policies to ensure everyone has a share in the social and economic benefits of growth, the SASW statement said.

linyc@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 16, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Singaporeans could each, in future, be issued with an e-identity card (e-IC) that can be used for all online transactions, including those with government agencies and commercial firms such as banks.

The Government is mulling over advanced technologies, believing that an e-IC would better protect online identities, as threats of fraud and identity theft mount.

The Straits Times understands that the e-IC, which would sit in the cellphone SIM card, does not replace the physical identity card.

An e-IC would also allow people to ditch their multiple e-banking tokens with different banks, and remove the hassle of remembering different usernames and passwords.

It would be similar to the kind of e-IC that is in use in places such as Hong Kong, Estonia and Finland.

In tender documents seen by The Straits Times, the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) said: “Digital identification and authentication are growing in importance. Today, identity is a core enabler for a wide range of services.” The Mobile Digital ID, as the e-IC project is now called, would sit in the cellphone SIM card, according to details in the tender, which closes on March 31.

The Mobile Digital ID will be based on advanced encryption techniques, known as public key infrastructure (PKI), that are more secure than and could supersede the use of one-time passwords (OTPs), which are delivered via SMS or generated by a security token.

The IDA believes the idea has potential to work in Singapore, which has among the highest mobile penetration rates in the world, hovering at 150 per cent.

This means each individual has at least one cellphone.

The IDA is looking for contractors to design and build the system for a four-month trial with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Ministry of Health.

While no timeframe was given for the project, a trial will begin as early as next month to assess its ease of use and whether it meets needs.

Today, people need to remember their usernames and passwords to log into a website. For some transactions, they need to enter an OTP.

With the proposed system, authentication is done by entering and sending a personal identification number (PIN) tied to the Mobile Digital ID account via SMS.

With PKI, hackers will not be able to capture the PIN even if they intercept an SMS. Fraudulent transactions on fake websites will also not be possible as the encrypted PIN must match the user’s record in the central system.

If the owner loses his cellphone, he will have to report its loss as he would a lost identity card.

Scammers will only be able to use the e-IC on the cellphone if they know the owner’s PIN.

Mr Aloysius Cheang, Asia-Pacific managing director of global computing security association Cloud Security Alliance, said: “The investment will be huge for such a system, although it seems much easier for even the uninitiated and promotes e-commerce on the go.”

This article was first published on March 16, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Before the year began, Punggol resident Sue Bing Hao was concerned about whether he could find convenient childcare options for his four-year-old daughter.

“There are a lot of young families here and I’ve heard of cases where parents had to travel up to 40 minutes to take their kids to childcare,” said the 30-year-old interior designer.

But the opening last month of a new jumbo childcare centre at Punggol Waterway Point that can accommodate 375 children made the question moot. His daughter now goes to NTUC’s My First Skool (MFS), a five-minute LRT ride from their home.

Most childcare centres set up in HDB void decks can usually admit only about 100 children but this one in the neighbourhood mall is bigger – and means a shorter waiting time for parents. Mr Sue waited six months to enrol his daughter at this childcare centre, while other parents in Punggol, a new estate with many young families, had to wait one to two years.

It was officially launched yesterday by NTUC secretary-general Chan Chun Sing, who first brought up the idea last year of opening bigger childcare centres to cater to growing demand.

MFS also said yesterday it would be expanding enrolment from the current 13,000 to 20,000 by 2020. It currently has 123 centres and plans to build more. This is in tandem with the Government’s plans to add 20,000 more childcare places between 2013 and 2017.

The new childcare centre, for children aged between two months and six years, is the anchor operator’s largest centre to date. Anchor operators receive government grants and priority in securing Housing Board sites for centres in exchange for keeping fees below $720 a month, among other things.

Three jumbo MFS childcare centres are slated to open in Edgefield Plains in Punggol, Jurong West and Sengkang by the third quarter of this year. They each can take in between 200 and 500 children.

NTUC First Campus chief executive officer Chan Tee Seng said that the number of staff will grow from the current 3,500 to around 5,000 by 2020. The staff-to-child ratio depends on the age group, and is 1:20 for six-year-olds and 1:8 for two-year-olds.

Mr Chan Chun Sing said he was heartened to see the concept bear fruit. “I’ve never understood why we used to constrain ourselves with the void-deck structure with small centres of 50 to 100 each… (This is) a tremendous opportunity for us to convert (retail) space for community use and have the children closely integrated into the community.”

yuensin@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 16, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

SINGAPORE – Dr (Rev) Robert Balhetchet, who is well-known as Singapore’s ‘Mr Moral Education’, died on Tuesday from pneumonia. He was 76 years old.

Dr Balhetchet’s contribution to the education system here began in 1979 when he was tasked by the then Minister for Education Goh Keng Swee, to craft a moral education programme for schools. However, Dr Balhetchet lamented years later in an interview that he failed to create a stronger moral fabric in Singapore.

He had told The New Paper in a 2002: “Sadly, nobody gives a damn about moral education. Yet, the society still bemoans about everything and doesn’t realise it’s due to a lack of moral principles.

“But there was nothing wrong with my programme. A new one can be devised and it will still fail.”

Dr Balhetchet had put the failure down to a stronger emphasis on academic subjects in the education system. He worked with the Ministry of Education up till the 1990s.

“Many grow up to become smart crooks instead, like those CEOs behind all these corporate swindles around the world,” said the former rector of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, where he served between 1979 and 2001.

But he also had good things to say about his experience.

He said in the interview: “My 22 years as a civil servant was a very precious experience. I got to know first-hand what it was like to work in a secular place. Suddenly I knew what the man in the street meant by retrenchment, performance appraisal, discipline. As a priest, it helped me understand the lay person’s family problems better.”

Also known as “Father Bob” to his parish, Dr Balhetchet was ordained as a priest in 1964. A brilliant student of St Joseph’s Institution, he passed his A levels at 14. He surprised many with his mastery of nine languages, including Spanish, French and Tamil.

A heavy smoker, he had to rely on an oxygen tank and respirator in his later years.

Mr Alex Yam,MP for Marsiling-YewTee GRC, recalled his first meeting with Dr Balhetchet when he was a primary school pupil at Maris Stella High School, where the priest conducted mass.

“His wonderful singing voice and famous drawl that would fill a hall with wit and wisdom was one of the reasons drawing me to the mystery of the faith,” said the MP in his Facebook post yesterday.

In its obituary note, the Catholic Church acknowledged the role Father Balhetchet played as the overall coordinator for Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to Singapore in 1986.

Archbishop William Goh will preside over his funeral this Saturday (March 19) at 9.30am at the Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace in Tanjong Katong, where his body is resting.

chenj@sph.com.sg