WHAT IS MOOT PARLIAMENT PROGRAMME?
The Moot Parliament Programme is a year-long programme organised by the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with expert-mentor volunteers, trainers, evaluators and law students from NUS and SMU. The programme aims to educate upper secondary Gifted Education/Integrated Programme pupils on the Singaporean model of democratic government, and Parliament as a legislative institution. It also aims to enhance their interest in Parliamentary debates and legislation through building their knowledge of the democratic Parliamentary process in action.
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The project aims to instil a sense of ownership and ‘rootedness’ to Singapore amongst highly able teenagers through experiential learning, which takes the form of researching social and community issues, drafting legislation, and role-playing active leadership in moot Parliament – all with the guidance of expert and student mentors. Recent events that have been undertaken (October 2016-May2017):
Events to come (July-August 2017):
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WHO DO WE WORK WITH?
We work closely with the aforementioned upper secondary students. In the structured mentor-mentee meetings, our volunteers will have the chance to interact with both the students and an expert-mentor volunteer in a small-group setting. They will also correspond with the students and the expert-mentor outside the structured meetings. Throughout the course of the programme, they will also likely be able to interact with fellow NUS/SMU student-mentors.
WHAT TO EXPECT?
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“I have learnt to be more empathetic towards the underprivileged individuals in our community. Through our research and interaction with them – their problems are no longer case studies on a textbook but rather, real life difficulties that many face on a daily basis. This has taught me to understand how privileged I am, and also to constantly question how I am able to offer help and support to the underprivileged in my community.” – Laura, Secondary 3 MPP 2015/16 Participant from Raffles Girls’ School At the end of our last debate training, the nature of our conversation with the girls took a different turn at the end. The girls confided in us informally about the stress and pains they were going through in their lives. I personally felt that some of what they were going through was “not right”, but this was not something I could change for them, and all I could do was listen to them as a friend and encourage them to press on.In our interactions with these girls, I saw how there are many things in the world that are “not right”, and how most of these things cannot be made “right” instantly or at the same time. What I did see, however, was how the little we did, both as mentors and students, were a start. And for most things that are “not right” in this world, a start is what we sorely need. The girls eventually won best speaker and champion debate team.”– Daniel Foo (Y3), mentor and head of MPP 2016/2017 TIME PERIOD AND COMMITMENT Student mentors must commit to a time period from October to August. Key events within this time period include the MPP Symposium, structured mentor-mentee meetings, and the eventual Parliamentary debates themselves, outside of which student mentors can meet and mentor their teams at their own discretion. |
