Today we had our Chinese Current Affairs. It is about littering in Singapore and whether we should use stricter law to stop it or use moral education to educate Singaporean against littering. They are two sides in this debate and some of my classmates are asked to have a debate with each other depending on which side you are on.

Here are some of my friends views on this problems:

LAW Point of view

I feel that law is the only way to go as it is only by enforcing law will the citizen be able to stop littering. Since Singaporean a more materialistic, they tend to treasure they valuable more, especially their money. Singaporeans are unwilling to part with their money. Therefore, by enforcing law, people will think twice before they litter as they are afraid to get caught and will need to pay fines that range from about a few hundred dollar to a thousand dollar for repeat offenders. They will not think about affecting their moral when they are about to litter. Therefore, using moral education is not helping Singaporeans to stop littering. Furthermore, this can also be confirmed by factual knowledge that with law imposed, there are fewer cases of people caught littering. Some other suggestions to prevent Singaporean from littering are to increase the fine further. Like instead of a few hundreds dollars for first time offenders it should be a few thousand dollars for first time offenders. This will tell the citizen that the government and NEA( National Environment Agency) are treating littering seriously and they will do whatever it takes to stop it from happening again.

MORAL Point of view

I feel that moral is the only way to go as results have shown that more than half of the people caught littering are youths. Therefore, it is only through educating the youth can we really stop littering. Moral education is important as it teaches everyone to be a better person and do things that are morally correct. Littering is regarded as incorrect. Through moral education, more people will know that littering is incorrect and they can also spread it out to their families and friends so that more will get the message that littering is wrong and they can spread it to even more people. This is the advantage of moral education. By using law to enforce littering is impossible. Everyday, there is bound to be lots of people littering and all the officers will not be able to catch everyone of them and fine them, thus everybody will not think twice about littering as the percentage of getting caught is very small. Furthermore, the reason why Singapore got it reputation of being a green city is because of the hard work of the road sweeper Without their hard work, sweeping up all the rubbish and litters on the ground, Singapore will become a rubbish dump in no time. Moral education teacher us to spare a thought for other and it will be the benefit of the road sweeper if Singaporeans can spare a thought for them and not litter taking into account of the road sweepers being in the hot sun all day just to clean up the mess we made.

MY Point of view

Personally, after this debate/discussion, I feel that both cannot exist without each other. Both law and moral and education have to work hand in hand to make Singaporeans stop littering. Without law, littering will definitely increase even with the help of moral education. Moral education can only go as far as to educate people but can not completely prevent them from doing so. With moral education, littering will also increase as less people will know that littering is incorrect and there are not many officers to go around catching everybody who litters. However, with both imposed upon Singaporeans, the law will prevent Singaporeans from littering as it inflict pain on the citizen if they lose their hard-earned money just because of this small act of littering. On the other hand, moral education can act as CCTVs and monitor everybody and prevent them from littering. If the person want to litter, there will be a string tugging in him and that will cause him to think whether or not to litter.

Thus, I conclude that Law and Moral education must both be imposed together. Everybody has a part to play in keeping Singapore a CLEAN and GREEN city.

What are your views on this issue? Is there any other solution other than the two I mentioned above? Please feel free to comment.