Outreach Activities

The Budget Challenge is open to all junior colleges students and students in Year 5 and 6 of their integrated programmes. Each school can send a team of four students. There should be at least three speakers in a team and the other team members will assist with resource and strategy.  

11 schools from junior colleges (JC), centralised institutes (CI) and schools offering Integrated Programmes (IP) will take part in the Budget Challenge 2011.

Each participating team will represent a Ministry and propose policy initiatives to be debated in a Parliamentary setting during the Preliminary and Final rounds. Prior to the Prelims and Finals, each team will submit a two-page proposal of their policy initiative for a self-selected topic (Prelims) and assigned topic (Finals).  This write-up will form the basis for other teams to field questions during the debate for that round. During the debate:

1. Each team will be given eight minutes to present its case.
   (The first to speak will be the leader, followed by the team members. The leader represents the Minister proposing the “bill” while his/her team members represent supporting MPs (i.e. Minister of State, members of the Government). The other teams would represent MPs and should note down the questions they intend to ask the team during the presentation.)
2. After each team has presented, the team will take one question from a pre-selected team which will be announced on the day of competition, followed by questions from the other teams.
3. Each question is limited to 30 seconds and each team should receive three to four questions.
4. Any team member from each team can address the questions posed. After which, the leader is required to provide closing remarks on their initiative. Each team will be allocated four minutes to address the questions and provide closing remarks.
5. The next team will continue with their presentation in the same order after the previous team sums up their debate.

The two-page proposals of all participating teams will be posted on MOF’s Facebook by 22 January 2011 (for Prelims) and 10 February 2011 (for Finals). All updates on Budget Challenge 2011 will also be made available on MOF’s Facebook page.

Each team will be judged on the quality of its initiative including the content of the two-page proposal (40%), the persuasiveness of its presentation (30%) and the organisation of the argument/quality of questions asked (30%).

The top three teams will be awarded attractive prizes. 

• Winner : $1500
• 1st Runner-up : $600
• 2nd Runner-up : $300

All participants will also be awarded a certificate of participation. 

In addition, ten randomly selected fans who contribute to the Budget Challenge 2011 proposals on MOF Facebook will win a small prize each. Winners will be notified via Facebook.

You may wish to send any enquiries on the Budget Challenge 2011 to MOF_Debate@mof.gov.sg