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An Indigenous Model: YAH Community College
Mr Samuel Ng, Chief Executive Officer
Marine Parade Family Service Centre
Ms Joey Cheang, Graduate Student
Department of Social Work, National University of Singapore
An ageing population brings both challenges and opportunities. In 2005, Marine Parade FSC started her first community project dedicated to promote lifelong learning among senior citizens. Young-at-Heart! (YAH!) Community College developed as a result of our inspiration that life beyond 50 is a period of vibrancy and self actualization. YAH! College aims to use education as a means to empower seniors to achieve successful ageing and to produce a pool of senior change agents that helps to mould the current and future ageing population into a dignified, active and happy group of senior citizens.
YAH! College has provided utmost support to a NUS postgraduate research on later life learning in 2009. A quasi-experimental approach was employed in the research with 70 older adults - 35 participants each in the intervention group and comparison group respectively at two data collection points. One-to-one matching was performed for the comparison group participants who were matched according to the demographic variables of the intervention group in age, gender composition, education level and socio economic status i.e. financial status which have found to be the most consistent predictors of participation in later life learning. Intervention group has shown enhanced self-efficacy and heightened happiness levels when compared to the comparison group over the course of three and a half months. The findings from this research would have implication for policymakers and national agencies that promote active ageing in Singapore.
