By AMELIA TENG

A CLASSROOM which gives stu-dents more freedom to expressthemselves and make decisions ismore likely to produce betterlearners, Senior Minister of Statefor Education and Law IndraneeRajah said yesterday.

A recent study conducted bythe National Institute of Educa-tion (NIE) with eight secondaryschools found such an environ-ment can motivate students andhelp them do better, she said.

Ms Indranee was speaking yes-terday to 500 teachers and re-searchers at the opening ceremo-ny of the Self-Eras conference,which was held at Nanyang Girls’

High School.The conference is the first part-

nership between the National In-stitute of Education, the Educa-tional Research Association of Sin-gapore and the Self-concept En-hancement and Learning Facilita-tion (Self) research network.

“Learning is a personal, socialand cognitive process, and inschools what the students learnhas a profound impact on theirpersonal and social develop-ment,” said Ms Indranee.

She added that recent studieshave shed light on how students'emotions are intertwined withtheir motivation and cognition.

Those who believe they canachieve more and who also seethemselves positively tend to be

“more deeply engaged in theirlearning” and have “greater per-sistence”, she said.

Motivation, determination,and other psychological factorsthat affect learning are some ofthe topics being discussed at thethree-day conference, which endstomorrow.

More than 110 representativesfrom 26 countries like Finland,New Zealand and Japan will sharetheir research findings.

A total of 237 papers will bepresented. These include researchprojects undertaken by teachersfrom 80 primary and secondaryschools here, some of which arejoint efforts with researchersfrom the NIE.

ateng@sph.com.sg

By PRISCILLA GOYand JANICE TAI

AN OPERATOR of pre-schoolshas fended off competition frommore than 20 rivals to secure thefirst two heartland sites for pri-vate childcare centres under therevised tender scheme.

Little Footprints Schoolhousetrumped 29 other bidders for thesite at Block 168D Punggol Fieldwhile its offer for a plot at Block22A Teban Gardens Road in Ju-rong left 22 others in the shade.

In the past, a tender simplywent to the highest bidder, a pro-cess that sparked bidding warswhich often drove up rents andschool fees.

The system was revised inJune as part of a governmentdrive to make quality pre-schooleducation more affordable and ac-cessible.

The bid price now compriseshalf the total score of 100 points.The rest focuses on quality crite-ria, including affordable fees andan operator’s track record.

Tender results released yester-

day showed that Little Footprintsscored 91.49 points for the Pung-gol site and 94.65 for the TebanGardens plot.

Its “quality score” of 42.2points was highest among thebids for the Punggol site and sec-ond-highest – it scored 44.65points – among those for the Te-ban Gardens one.

The firm beat morewell-known operators such asCarpe Diem, which runs a chainof 26 childcare centres.

Little Footprints said its curric-ulum is distinctive because it ex-poses the children to the Chineselanguage as early as 18 months ofage through songs and role play-ing.

Every few months, teacherstake children to places such as su-permarkets or Chinatown to pickup real-life skills.

It intends to charge $688 amonth at the two new centres –below the median fee of $748 amonth levied for a full-day child-care programme by private opera-tors in HDB premises.

Little Footprints tendered amonthly rent of $19,800 for the

Punggol site – below the tenderaverage of about $20,100 and lessthan that of 11 other bidders.

Although the revised tenderscheme aims to keep childcarefees affordable by giving opera-tors less incentive to put insky-high bids, Little Footprintsbid $24,000 for the Teban Gar-dens site, almost $10,000 morethan the tender average of$14,817.

The chain said it lodged a high-er bid as it is keen to move intoan area lacking childcare outlets.

It has 400 children in its fourcentres, in Yishun and Wood-lands. It has been operating for10 years and is part of the Nur-ture Education Group, which haseight other centres.

Little Footprints founder andchief executive Julie Koh said yes-terday: “We are delighted to havewon the tenders. This (revisedtender system) has given us theopportunity to further our com-mitment to bring our affordablepremium programmes to themasses.”

goyshiyi@sph.com.sgjantai@sph.com.sg

By BRYNA SINGH

FANCY chicken rice with skinlessmeat and low-sugar coffee?

This healthy meal and otherscan be found in what is being tout-ed as Singapore’s first “100 percent healthy food court”, whichwas launched yesterday atKopitiam Investment’s KentRidge Wing outlet at the National

University Hospital (NUH).The bid to promote healthy

eating is a joint initiative betweenKopitiam Investment and theNUH Department of Dietetics,and is supported by the HealthPromotion Board.

The board currently has a listof 16 healthier hawker centres,coffee shops and food courts, butnot all the stalls in these places

use healthy ingredients.All the items in the eight

cooked food stalls at Kent Ridge,however, claim to use healthier in-gredients and cooking methods.

Low-cholesterol vegetable oilis used in place of pork lard andchicken is grilled rather than deepfried at the Western stall.

The drinks and desserts availa-ble have reduced amounts of sug-ar and coconut milk.

The outlet’s tenants initially re-sisted the management’s idea.

Kopitiam corporate communi-cations manager Goh Wee Lingsaid: “We want food that is

healthy, yet also retains its authen-tic taste. They were concerned ifthe food would sell, since it in-volved a 100 per cent switch fromwhat they were previously offer-ing. They needed to be convinced

it was still profitable.”Rental rebates were offered to

tenants and they were also linkedwith suppliers who providedhealthier raw ingredients at acheaper rate.

The food court remained inoperation during the six-monthtransition process, which saw thetenants submit recipes to a teamfrom NUH’s Department ofDietetics who helped to analyseand modify their ideas.

NUH’s chief dietitian, Ms LimSu Lin, said the team alsoconducted workshops to educatethe tenants about healthier cook-ing.

The meals were tested andKopitiam asked tenants for feed-back from customers.

“Customers perceived thathealthy food was bland,” said MsGoh. “But we have since correct-ed the perception.”

Kopitiam and NUH will makeregular checks to ensure ingredi-ents in the kitchens adhere to thehealthier cooking methods beingpromoted. If the project is success-ful, Kopitiam will increase thenumber of healthy outlets and in-troduce them in commercial ven-ues such as shopping malls.

brynasim@sph.com.sg

Everything on the menu is preparedusing healthier ingredients, methods

Students ‘learn better by speaking up’

Police officers inspecting the sceneafter a car shot over the railings onFort Canning Road yesterday –apparently after its driver fell asleep.The female motorist, in her 20s,

suffered head injuries but declined tobe taken to the hospital. The policewere alerted to the incident at about2.30pm.ST PHOTO: RAJ NADARAJAN

Tenants at the Kent Ridge Wing outlet at NUH underwent workshops by NUH’sDietetics Department to learn about healthier cooking. PHOTO: KOPITIAM

Kindergarten pupils at Little Footprints Schoolhouse learning about science with a National Geographic publication foryoung children. PHOTO: LITTLE FOOTPRINTS SCHOOLHOUSE

GOING OFF THE RAILINGS

A healthy ‘first’for this food court

Little Footprints makes bigimpression, wins 2 HDB tenders

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