A different kind of homework for singapore students: get a date

It was like a college mixer, a schoolroom full of young men and women quest a formula for love affair.

They had assembled for the first class of "Love Relations for Life: A journeying of love affair, Love and sex."

There was giggling and raillery among the pupil, but that was all part of the course of study as their instructor, Suki Tong, led them into the basics of geological dating, falling in love and staying together.

The course of study, in its sec year at two polytechnic institute institutes, is the latest of many, largely futile, campaigns by capital of Singapore's authorities to get its citizens to mate and multiply. Its popularity last year has led to talk of its enlargement through the higher education scheme.

"We want to tell pupil, 'Don't wait until you have built up your calling,' " said Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, the curate of state for community development, youth and athletics, at a news conference in March. "Sometimes, it is too late, particularly for girls."

The course of study are an extension of authorities matchmaking programme that try to computer address the twin challenges embodied in a falling birthrate: too few people are having babies, and too few of those who are belong to what capital of Singapore considers the genetically desirable educated elite.

Over the past 25 years, the coupling rituals organized by the authorities — tea dances, wine tastings, cooking social class, cruises, screenings of romantic movies — have been among the state's least successful social technology programs.

Last year capital of Singapore's birthrate rate fell to a record low of 1.24 kid per woman of childbirth age, one of the lowest in the world. It was the 28th year in a row capital of Singapore had stayed below the rate of 2.5 kid needed to maintain the population.

But even a replacement-level rate would not be sufficiency for today's contriver. The authorities recently announced that it was aiming to increase the population by 40 percent over the next half-century, to 6.5 million from the current 4.5 million.

"Teaching our youth in school how to fall in love" is a good solution, wrote Andy Ho, a senior writer at The Straits Times, a government-friendly newspaper that does its best to help out in Singapore's many campaigns.

In 1991, for example, when the government began offering cash bonuses to couples with more than two children, the newspaper printed tips for having sex in the back seat of a car, including directions to some of the "darkest, most secluded and most romantic spots" for parking.

It suggested covering the windows with newspapers for privacy.

Singapore is known for its campaigns of self-improvement, including efforts to get residents to be polite, to smile, to be tidy, to speak proper English and to not chew gum.

In 1984, the country's master planner, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, declared that too few of the country's most eligible women, those with college degrees, were marrying and having children. He set up the Social Development Unit to address the problem, and since then the government has been the country's principal matchmaker.

In addition to its tea dances and moonlight cruises, the agency also acts as a lonely hearts adviser, with an online counselor named Dr. Love and a menu of boy-meets-girl suggestions on its Web site, www.lovebyte.org.sg.

"Guys, girls notice everything!" the Web site offers in one of its dating tips. "Comb your hair differently and they notice. Change your watch and they notice! Skipped your morning shower and sprayed on deodorant to cover the smell — they notice! What does this mean? Well, bathe regularly, change something about yourself, be observant, and compliment the lady."

Lee himself acknowledged how silly some of this may seem.

"Never mind the hullabaloo in the press, all the foreign correspondents writing that a crackpot government is trying to interfere in people's lives," he said when he inaugurated the Social Development Unit. "If we continue to reproduce ourselves in this lopsided way, we will be unable to maintain our present standards."

In other words, said Annie Chan, director of a matchmaking agency, "Our government wants smart ladies to meet smart guys to get smart children."

But in Singapore it is impossible to get very far from thoughts of money and the workplace. These guys may have other things on their minds besides romance and babies.

"Some people say if you're a smart guy you should marry a smart woman who can help you with your finances and career," said Chan, whose agency is called Club2040 and who has worked under contract for the Social Development Unit.