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