Good year for the Malay/Muslim community but challenges remain: Yaacob

SINGAPORE - The Malay/Muslim community has had a good year, with new mosques on the way and strides being made in both mainstream and Islamic education, said Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim on Tuesday.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

Here is his Facebook video speech in full:

2014 has been an exciting year for our Malay/Muslim community.

There were many milestones worth celebrating.

We came together as a community and set agendas to fulfil our social, religious and educational needs - and we didn't do too badly.

Our older mosques were rejuvenated while new ones are been built - creating more prayer places for everyone.

Islamic education is now more accessible, especially for our young.

Our students, including our Madrasah students, have done better at the PSLE.

More of our local and overseas university graduates have obtained first class honours - breaking new records!

So for example at the Anugerah Mendaki, we had 39 first-class honours graduates - the highest number so far.

I'm also heartened that minor Malay-Muslim marriages and divorces have been low.

Despite challenges, Hajj and Korban obligations were fulfilled, thanks to the strong co-operation within MUIS, our mosques, our partners and the community. So, alhamdulillah.

However, some challenges still loom large. For example, the threat of terrorism. We are committed as a nation to reject and fight these global threat.

We also need to empower those among us who are in need and improve our health, to be stronger as a community.

Moving forward, 2015 will be even more eventful and exciting year!

We will continue to honour our pioneers and look forward to making our mark as a community through the initiative of SG50 KITA - especially to help our young and vision the Singapore they want, 50 years from now.

We will strengthen the family units and back rock our community as well as they academic foundation of our students and Islamic education for all to shape a progressive religious lives.

We will also help our Malay-Muslims organisations develop their capabilities further.

So I thank you for your strong support in the past year and I look forward to your continued co-operation, so that together we can improve the quality of life for our community and for all Singaporeans.