The Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and the Media Literacy Council (MLC) have sealed an inaugural educational partnership to give students a deeper understanding of Internet and social and mainstream media-related issues.
This is the MLC's first official partnership with a post-secondary education institution since the council was formed in August last year.
The two organisations have worked together for Safer Internet Day 2013.
They are taking their collaboration a step further with the three-year partnership, which will see media literacy and discernment education becoming an integral component of ITE's student induction process.
A new three-hour module, designed to encourage media discernment and critical thinking among students, will be incorporated into ITE's New Intake Orientation Programme.
Beyond imparting general cyber-wellness know-how, ITE students across its three colleges will be given an in-depth look at media and cyberspace issues.
Students will be exposed to a breadth of topics such as media agenda setting, interacting on social media, dealing with trolls, responding to inappropriate online behaviour, as well as the principles and workings of Singapore's media classification system.
MLC's chairman, Professor Tan Cheng Han, said: "Social media communications and the traditional media landscape are evolving. As youths are among the most ardent social media users as well as media consumers, this partnership with ITE is therefore a timely one which we hope is the first of many to come.
“As the Internet and media are now an integral part of students' lives, education plays a critical role in inculcating the values and best practices we want youths to carry through to the future."
One hundred and sixty students from ITE College East's School of Electronics & Info-Comm Technology will be involved in a pilot of the new orientation module this month.
The programme will be fine-tuned with student feedback before being officially rolled out to all new ITE students from January 2014 onwards.
Besides introducing a new orientation module, ITE and MLC will also introduce a new co-curricular activity (CCA) called Media Smart Club across the three ITE colleges.
Starting from the second half of 2013, 30 students from each ITE college will be selected to be part of the new Media Smart Club.
Members will be trained to be student leaders and media literacy specialists.
In turn, they will spearhead projects to further raise awareness of media discernment and responsible online behaviour to the wider ITE student community.
Mr Bruce Poh, director and CEO at ITE, believes that the initiative is valuable and necessary for students in this digital age.
He said: "Being socially responsible and protecting themselves to create a safe environment is important as our students use media heavily and are active content generators on online platforms. With media ambassadors, it will be faster and easier to propagate civil online behaviour and cyber-wellness among students, using peer-to-peer influence."
Source: Channel News Asia