Clementi Town Secondary School students to represent S'pore in Panasonic's Kid Witness News competition

Clementi Town Secondary School students to represent S'pore in Panasonic's Kid Witness News competition

SINGAPORE - Clementi Town Secondary School has won the Top News Production Award in the local leg of Panasonic's Kid Witness News (KWN) competition with its submission, Social ME-dia.

The annual competition has been running internationally in primary and secondary schools for 26 years, and 11 in Singapore.

This year's finalists, shortlisted out of 52 entries, dealt with a variety of issues under two topics, Environment and Communications.

Themes explored included how social media and personal electronic devices affect behaviour and personal relationships, parental abuse and environmental issues such as haze and water pollution.

The winning entry impressed judges with its sobering review of the benefits and ills of social media. It also bagged The Clipper Award for Best Editing.

Social ME-dia will go on to represent Singapore in the global round of the competition, to be held in 2015.

Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Manpower Mr Hawazi Daipi, who presented the award to the winning team at a ceremony last Friday, said: "Education is important, but we must remember that education takes place both inside and outside the classroom.

"A platform like KWN provides the opportunity for students to harness their creativity, develop communication skills and learn to work as a team to present an idea to a wider audience."

Awards were also presented for Best Editing, Best Sound Effects, Best Presenter, Best Education Content, Best in the Primary category and Most Promising Young Journalist in the Primary category.

The judges at this year's competition were Ms Lai Lei Khim, director of the Media Development Authority's Outreach Division, Ms Suzanne Jung, former editor and anchor at Channel NewsAsia, Mr Mark Lee, actor and director of Galaxy Entertainment, Mr Nicholas Chee, executive creative director of The Flying Kick Asia, Ms Christina Mok, a senior lecturer in Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Mr Victor Yuk, chief executive of Wizlearn Technologies.

huizhen@sph.com.sg

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