Safeguards to Ensure Core Aspects of Singapore's Culture are not Lost in Current Pandemic and Youths Continue to Develop their Cultural Identity

Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth how can safeguards be put in place to ensure that core aspects of Singapore’s culture are not lost in the current COVID-19 pandemic so that the youth continue to enjoy an environment to develop their cultural identity.

Our arts and culture give us our unique identity, instil pride in our people, and foster a stronger, more cohesive society. Over the past two years, MCCY, National Arts Council (NAC) and National Heritage Board (NHB) have rolled out measures to support livelihoods, build capabilities and position our arts and culture sector for a strong recovery. These initiatives have safeguarded our arts and culture and allowed Singaporeans from all walks of life, including youths, to continue participating in arts and culture activities during the pandemic.

The $75 million Arts and Culture Resilience Package (ACRP) safeguarded jobs and talent in the sector. The ACRP and broad-based support schemes supported over 900 arts and culture organisations, through operating grants to defray costs and overheads, grants for capability development and organisation transformation. In addition, the ACRP supported over 1,500 digitalisation projects, which provided digital access to arts and culture offerings during the pandemic. Our arts and culture practitioners and organisations have made use of the ACRP to resume activities safely, while transforming themselves to meet future challenges.

Students continued to have access to arts and culture education during the pandemic, through school programmes and external offerings.

NAC supported Arts Education Programme (AEP) providers, comprising local arts groups and freelancers, to digitalise arts education programmes. NAC also supported AEP providers’ pivot to hybrid or virtual modes of teaching by raising capabilities in e-pedagogy, such as through the development of an E-Learning Primer and an Inspiring Digital Learning webinar, with the National Institute of Education.

The Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Arts Presentation resumed in 2021 following the virtual arts festival SYFgoesOnline! introduced in 2020. These efforts complemented the regular Art and Music curricula and arts Co-Curricular Activities in school which continued to be carried out through a mixture of in-person, virtual and hybrid modes.

In addition, even though in-person Museum-Based Learning (MBL) sessions were suspended during the circuit breaker period, NHB worked with MOE to co-develop online resources to facilitate both teacher-directed and self-directed learning. Physical MBL sessions to the National Museum of Singapore and the Asian Civilisations Museum progressively resumed from October 2020. In 2021, NHB also piloted virtual MBL sessions to enable more students to participate.

Our arts and culture sector has also engaged the youths actively during the pandemic, through digital and hybrid formats or smaller scale events. These include programmes, such as NHB’s Children’s Season, National Gallery Singapore’s Children’s Biennale, Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre’s youth festival RE:MIX, and the Esplanade’s Feed Your Imagination series, which have all resumed in hybrid format. Since 2021, NAC, MCCY and the National Youth Council have also jointly organised ArtsXplore, an incubation programme that enables the youths to engage in arts exploration, experimentation and creation together.

Youths have a stake in the future of Singapore’s arts and culture. As we chart our future directions and draw up plans for Our SG Art and Heritage Plans 2.0, NAC and NHB have embarked on conversations with our arts and heritage community, as well as youths, on the arts and heritage landscape in Singapore. We will encourage our youths to share their views and ideas with NAC and NHB during the public call later this year.