GP Notes on Youths

Overview on Youths

Being a youth is a rite of passage that everyone undergoes to become an adult.  For some, being young is something to be embraced as it gives them more opportunities and freedom to pursue aspirations and dreams. However, the life of youth today is also marked with different challenges, such as greater responsibilities, stress from studies and peers etc. In this issue, we will investigate the problems that youth ages between 15-25 faces in our contemporary society.

TOP 10 ISSUES FACING OUR YOUTH TODAY

The following video slideshow from Prezi by Joewel Andal describes the top 10 issues that youths faced today.

Read GP Articles and Videos on Youths

Rise of underemployment of youth graduates in Singapore

With the opening of SUTD (Singapore University of Technology) in 2012 and several private education institutes, youths today have more opportunities to undergo tertiary education, which will give them higher chance of gaining employment and finding higher paying jobs. However, as more youths undergoes tertiary education today, the job market for fresh graduates is becoming increasingly saturated and competitive. The problem is further exacerbated by the influx of foreign fresh graduates that are taking up the jobs for a lower wage. As a result, more youths graduating from local universities found themselves underemployed, meaning that they are highly skilled but works in low paying or low skilled jobs. The unemployment rate of fresh graduates also increases, although it is still relatively low (2.8%) compared to other Asian counterparts such as South Korea, China, Taiwan.

Related Article: ‘As graduate numbers grow, a hard truth: Not all degrees are equal‘ from Channel News Asia

Related Article: ‘Massive expansion of universities in Asia raises tough questions on social mobility‘ from The Conversation

Young and Jobless

The video ‘Young and Jobless‘ by BBC News looks at the problems that youths face in the search of employment in different parts of the world.

Food for thought:

1. How do you increase your competitive edge, chances of finding a job that matches your skill set?
2. What are some measures that the government, education institutes undertake to address this problem?

Gaming addiction in youths

Singapore has one of the world’s highest ownership of mobile devices and Singaporeans spend one of the highest amount of time spent on online activities. Besides, the reward systems in virtual gaming provides youths with a sense of achievement and opportunity for them to bond and connect with their friends. Thus, more young teens today are prefer spending more time in video gaming to spending quality time with their family or outdoor activities. This has negatively affected health of youths and relationships with their family members. Hence, gaming addiction in youth is a serious problems that needs to be addressed.

Related Article: ‘Help at hand for gaming addicts in Singapore‘ from Channel News Asia

Escaping video game addiction

In this video from TEDxBoulder, Cam Adair, a former gaming addict in his younger days, examine the reasons behind gaming addiction and ways to helping youths overcome gaming addiction.

Food for thought:

1. What are the reasons for rise in gaming addictions among youth?
2. What are the negative impacts that gaming addictions would have in the lives of youth?
3. What are some ways to combat gaming addiction in youths?

Highly stressful and competitive education system

Singapore has been regarded as “the home one of the world’s best education system” according to an OECD-led study from May 2015. However, behind the success of the education system, there are numerous problems that youths faced when they are brought up in a highly stressful and competitive education system. Parents bringing their children for numerous enrichment classes to give their children a head start in school curriculum; and children getting burnt out from their assignment and living up to their parent’s expectations. This has led to numerous concerns raised by educators. In view of these problems, schools have introduced non-academic activities (overseas adventure camp) to enhance character development in youths.

Related Article: ‘Going beyond grades: Evolving the Singapore education system‘ from The Straits Times

Food for thought:

1. What are some of the problems that youths will face in a highly stressful and competitive education system?
2. What are some measures that educators can implement to make education more holistic for youths?

GP Tutor Discussion on Youths

In this modern era, the life of youths is considered a blessing as they are bestowed with a blissful where they are not deprived of material comfort or opportunities for development. However, when one examines further, the life of the youths can be quite daunting and challenging, making them feel deplorable and despaired.

With the proliferation and omnipresence of social media and the advancement of technological advancement in this globalized world, the youths are facing a more complex and volatile world. The uncertainty and complication of this knowledge-based, fast-faced and modern way of life has created many challenging issues that youths may find it difficult to handle, creating a bleak future.

As a result of these challenges, we see a rising number of stress-related problems as youths succumb to the allures and temptation of vices and develop undesirable behaviours to adapt to a world that they can consider uncomfortable and complicated to them. From the data from the study of OECD, we observe how youths of developed and developing nations are facing higher rate of unemployment, the alarming rising number of suicide cases and many forms of drug and vice addiction and criminal activities.

There is a need for the society and the nations to understand these problems the youths are facing and the study of the causes of their problems is critical to enable us to derive solutions to help our young people who are the bedrock of our future.

Our GP Tuition Programme on Youths

For this GP issue on youths, we will make discussion on how we can use the knowledge we have learnt to apply to the questions of the GP comprehension and GP essays to be discussed in our GP tuition. Students are advised to go through the reading materials and videos we have listed in this page before attending class. Our GP tutor will also make discussion about the questions we have listed for you to ponder after you have watched and read the materials.

GP Essays for Class Practice and Discussion

We will discuss on how the following questions will be answered through essay outlines, focusing on the understanding of the requirements of the essays. It is imperative to learn the effective way on how to develop essay outlines so to broaden students’ abilities to adapt the wide range of topics and their specific requirements.

List of GP essays for Class Discussion and Practice

1. To what extent does the education system in your country prepare the youth for the challenges in the future?
2. ‘Young people today have never had it so good.’ Is this true of youths in your country?

GP Comprehension Discussion and Practice

A comprehension practice on Youth will be introduced during our GP tuition. The GP comprehension passage focuses on the roles of youth and how they are different from the past.

GP Notes for Class Discussion

GP notes on the topic on Youths will cover on the challenges and problems Youths are facing in our modern society. Statistics about the behaviours of Youths and their social problems will be listed too.