TWO QUESTIONS for young Singaporeans: What is your ideal future, for yourself and for Singapore? And how can you help to make it a reality?
For 120 other Singaporean youths who have taken part in the National Youth Council’s (NYC) policymaking Youth Panels since late 2023, this ideal future includes the Government consulting young Singaporeans on digital policies, as well as career mentorship from overseas Singaporeans. It also involves financial resilience and improved recycling to make our sustainability efforts a reality.
“These are important topics,” said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong as he heard from, and spoke with over 1,000 young people at the NYC’s Youth Policy Forum this past Saturday (24 Aug). “[These youths] have drilled down into key questions, and they importantly come up with recommendations which the Government will consider very seriously.”
“There will be a way for young people like yourselves to contribute”
Each of these youth-led policy recommendations goes through a thorough development process.
Presenting these policies at this past Saturday’s Forum was not the first step. The Youth Panel participants have worked since November 2023 to discover and define the problem they wanted to tackle.
Early in 2024, they also met regularly with public sector bodies like the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) to fine-tune these policies for greater public good.
They also met with private sector stakeholders like financial educators Moneysense for the #LifeHacks panel workshops and research agency Verian for the #GreenHacks panel workshop. The PAP Government is making sure that through this exercise, young people can rely on domain experts to help improve their policy-writing. This will benefit other young Singaporeans in the years ahead.
Source: MDDI/ Facebook
“They have done a lot of work — there are students, there are people who are working, they are even people in NS [National Service], but they have taken time off to work on these issues,” said PM Wong about the Youth Panel participants making a positive difference for Singapore. “This round is a start. We will think about future rounds.”
Look forward, then, to more avenues for young Singaporeans to have a say in the nation’s future, a vision PM Wong has long championed in his Forward Singapore exercise, where we all work together for a brighter, shared future.
“There will be a way for young people like yourselves to contribute, not just for your own goals, not just for your own aspirations, but to larger public life,” said PM Wong to the young people gathered at the Youth Policy Forum. “To shaping the society that we want to have in Singapore.”
