Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has described the problems faced by the Malay community in Singapore as national problems.
He said problems like their educational performance, as well as
presence of dysfunctional families are not peculiar to the Malay
community.
He adds that they also exist in the Chinese and Indian communities.
Mr Goh was speaking to Singapore media at the end of his visit to Oman and Bahrain yesterday.
"We got to attend to the problem in two ways. One on the
national basis, the national policies must be right and also resources
must be given to solve the national problems. Two, it's at the
community level, that is outreach, that is implementation. How do you
reach out for example to dysfunctional families."
Mr Goh said he believed using Muslim leaders will be more effective
that using a Christian leader to reach out to the Muslim family.
Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed, who's the Senior Minister of State for
Foreign Affairs, and also is part of Mr Goh's delegation, said
Malay-Muslim leaders are working on the problem.
"Nothing like having the Malay-Muslim leaders themselves being
engaged in this and Dr Yaacob, and the Muslim leaders in fact with all
the Malay-Muslim organisations are on hand.
"They are working through the community leadership forum to
work out programmes. We are approaching them squarely, honest about it
and we want to tackle as much as we can. We've made much progress, but
we're now wondering if we've come to a plateau stage, and if so,
whether it needs a different approach towards tackling these problems
and these programmes."
--938Live