Minister of Education Chan Chun Seng posted a Facebook post yesterday(July 30), highlighting feedback he received from parents about home-based learning. While some parents are worried of their child and wishes to have 100% full home-based learning, there is also a group of them who are against it due to arrangements and environment.

Here is what he posted on Facebook:

I have received feedback from some parents who are keen on transiting to Full Home-based Learning (Full HBL) and others who are against this. Such mixed views are understandable.

Singapore is unlikely to see zero community cases in the short term, and vaccination for younger children is currently unavailable. At the same time, we recognise the impact that Full HBL has on all of us:

Full HBL on a prolonged basis comes at a significant cost to our students’ learning, and socio-emotional and mental well-being. In addition, not all of them have conducive home environments for HBL.

There are many parents who have to scramble to make alternative care arrangements, which may not necessarily be better for their children.

Teachers are juggling the additional demands of preparing and conducting online lessons while taking care of their families. We all know that disruption to normalcy can cause fear, stress and despair, which has serious and real consequences in the long term. What then would be the sustainable solution going forward?

As a parent myself, I would like to reassure fellow parents that our schools remain safe places for learning. We have implemented Stringent Safe Management Measures (SMMs) to minimise transmission risks. Surveillance measures are in place to detect potential COVID-19 positive cases as soon as possible, and we are using ringfencing measures such as Ministry of Education, Singapore’s Leave of Absence (LOA) to keep potential cases out of schools.

Over the last 3 months, 129 students and 17 school staff have tested positive for COVID-19. This represents 0.03% of our total student population, from Primary to Pre-University levels. We would like to thank parents for working closely with our schools, to manage the risks of #COVID19, and enable continued learning. With our collective efforts, the average attendance rate of our schools has consistently remained comparable to pre-COVID.

Based on currrent science and what we understand about the virus, MOE will continue to adopt a targeted approach to deal with COVID-19 cases in our schools. This means that when we have a school case, we will isolate those who are close contacts of the positive case through LOA or a Quarantine Order. In exceptional cases where the situation is unclear, we may put the entire school on HBL to break any possible transmission as well as give Ministry of Health, Singapore time to test and investigate thoroughly before re-opening the school.

We will continue to monitor the situation closely and review if any adjustment is needed in line with national guidelines, especially as we transit towards managing COVID-19 as an endemic disease.

A 33-year-old woman shared how she has been married to her husband for 3 years but is unhappy.

She reasoned that it was because her s*xual life is dull and she feels lonely.

She says that they have s*x on average, once every two months.

She feels that her husband has zero interest in her and she had requested to split up.

Here is the story:

“I’m a 33 yo lady married to my husband for 3 years and dated for 10 years.

To him, we are having mostly happy, friendly, and supportive relationship.

To me, I am not happy with the dull s*xual life, in average once in 2 months. While the relationship seems fine but I feel extremely lonely, rejected, angry, and helpless, especially I have no explanation for why this is going on.

I have talked to him about this multiple times, telling him my feeling and wanting to understand his too. He always just simply brush off with lame excuses e.g. he forgot.

After several attempts of discussions, I have resigned myself to the fact that he has zero interest in me. So, I requested to split up a few times, he always reject. I don’t understand why is he so mean for dragging me down like that. Why can’t we just move on. I am stuck I don’t enjoy my marriage life.

If I am to take the chance, I have to try to accept that I will always be unfulfilled, feeling rejected by his lack of affection.”

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