Relevance of Singapore's Shared Values

Asst Prof Tan Kheng Boon Eugene asked the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth if he can provide an update on the status, standing and relevance of our Shared Values since its adoption in 1991.

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Mr Speaker, Sir, the concept of a set of Shared Values, which Singaporeans of all races and faiths can subscribe to and live by, was first mooted in 1988 and it was subsequently passed in Parliament in January 1991. The aim was to anchor an evolving Singapore identity on common threads in our varied cultural heritage, as well as the attitudes and values which have helped us to survive and succeed as a nation. And I am sure we all know what the Shared Values are but I will just reiterate them. The Shared Values are nation before community and society above self, family as the basic unit of society, community support and respect for the individual, consensus not conflict and racial and religious harmony.

These Shared Values have served as an important point of reference for the Ministry of Education (MOE)'s Civics and Moral Education Curriculum since 1992 and the school curriculum today continues to be anchored on six core values – Respect, Resilience, Responsibility, Integrity, Care and Harmony which are based on the original Shared Values. They provide a framework for students to discuss issues and they continue to underpin MOE's Character and Citizenship Education curriculum.

Each of the Shared Values is also championed by organisations in the public, people and private sectors. For example, the value of having the family as a basic unit of society is upheld not just by the Ministry of Social and Family Development but also by many civic groups in Singapore like the Centre for Fathering and the Family Life Society. Likewise, racial and religious harmony is strengthened through the work of the People's Association and its grassroots leaders as well as by the network of Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circles (IRCCs) and societies like OnePeople.sg.

As society evolves, our attitudes, values and aspirations will change over time. This is why we are now having a national conversation to ask ourselves what matters to us as individuals and as a society, and what we aspire to as a nation and through this "Our Singapore Conversation" and the dialogues we have been having so far, we can see that Singaporeans care deeply about their families and about values such as graciousness, kindness and harmony. These are broadly consistent with our Shared Values.

So, I would encourage all Singaporeans to participate actively in the many dialogue sessions that are being held in the coming weeks and months, and to continue sharing their views and perspectives, so that, as a society, we can forge a shared understanding of the common values that should underpin our nation's future.

Sir, I thank the Acting Minister for his response. Given that it has been 21 years since the Shared Values were first formulated, I would like to know in light of the National Conversation, whether there are plans to review the Shared Values, taking into account the changing nature of our society. I think it is likely that the existing Shared Values would be endorsed, but I would like to know whether we could take on board other values which have become more important, and whether for the existing ones, there could be tweaks to their formulation.

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As I have mentioned in my reply earlier, this is why we are having this process of a National Conversation. It is also why when we started this process of a National Conversation, we did not immediately go into policy issues and say, let us deal with policies A, B, C. But we deliberately designed the conversation so that it was more open ended, so that Singaporeans and participants in the dialogue can share with us what are aspirations and values that are important to them. I believe through this process and through the conversations that we will be having over the coming weeks and months, we will be able to come up with a set of a better understanding of what are the common values that are important to Singaporeans now. They may be similar to what we had before, there may be some changes, but the process is important. Through this National Conversation process, we hope that we would be able to give an update in that sense, to the Shared Values that were done earlier.

I thank the Member for the suggestion. I think it is something we can take on board and to see how we can perhaps set the context in a better way so that people understand, so as to remind participants that these are the things that we already start with, that is, we are starting in a particular context with this, as the present reality. So, that is something we can take on board but the way we are conducting the conversation is precisely to let Singaporeans give their views on what we should reaffirm – things that we are doing now today; it could be our values, it could be the items in the pledge which resonate very strongly with many Singaporeans, reaffirm the things that are going well and we continue doing to recalibrate things that need to be adjusted and to refresh, to do things that are new.

So, we are going through this process, inviting Singaporeans to participate and to share their views. In the process, as I have said, we would have a better understanding of values that are important to Singaporeans and then going back to the earlier question. It may indeed be an update or it may be different from the Shared Values that we had in the past. We will then highlight that these are changes that have happened and we will make it clear that through the process of the conversations that we have had, these are the findings that we have obtained for the various dialogues sessions. The Member's suggestion of reiterating some of the important qualities that have enabled us to succeed as a nation, I think it is something that we will take onboard and see how we can conduct our future dialogue sessions even better.

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