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BY SERENE LUO
SAN FRANCISCO: The trophy is a figu-rine of a child sitting on a wire spiral,amid stacks of newspapers, with herhands thrown up in glee.
She holds a placard that declares TheStraits Times the 2010 winner of theWorld Young Reader prize for Newspa-pers In Education category.
The prize was awarded by the WorldAssociation of Newspapers and NewsPublishers (Wan-Ifra), which representsmore than 18,000 publications, 15,000online sites and over 3,000 companies,for ST’s revamp of its weekly secondaryschool publication, IN. Its editor SereneGoh received the prize at theassociation’s 12th Readership Confer-ence in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Said Ms Goh, 39, who is also editor ofIN’s sister publication for primaryschools, Little Red Dot: “It’s the teach-ers and students who crystallised ourmission for us.
“Teachers wanted help teaching andstudents wanted help coping, so we putthe two together and created a productthat would give The Straits Times pur-pose in the classroom.”
IN was revamped early this year tomake it a more current and useful toolfor English and social studies classes.More interactive activities were added,
with a greater focus on the majority ofstudents in the Express and Normalstreams.
This is the second time IN has won aWorld Young Reader accolade – it firsttook the Brand prize in 2006.
The Newspapers In Education prize,one of eight categories, is given out tonewspapers that are able to improve lan-guage learning and play a crucial role inclassrooms as a learning resource.
Judges from countries such as Brazil,Panama, Poland, Spain and Australiapicked IN for engaging young readerswith “great editorial work and interac-tive contests”.
Other papers that won awards includ-ed The Metro, from Poland, which wonNewspaper Of The Year, as well as aprize for public service for its campaignon attitudes towards Internet piracy.
At the prize presentation, chairman ofthe Wan-Ifra committee for young read-ers, Mr Scott Schurz, who is also presi-dent of Hoosiertimes Inc in Indiana inthe United States, said that newspaperscan help “where young people need helpmost”, such as learning a new languageor making their environment better.
Referring to the future of newspapersin today’s digital world, he added that“newspapers that take young readers se-riously are key to the future of us all”.
Last Friday, The Straits Times alsoheld a forum for more than 230 teachers
from primary and secondary schools –the largest turnout since the forum wasstarted three years ago – to showcasehow newspapers can be used as a teach-ing resource.
Said Ms Bertha Henson, 46, ST associ-ate editor and supervising editor of theSchools programme: “We’re glad to playa part in helping students improve theirEnglish and understand the importanceof current affairs. We will continue to im-prove the content of both IN and LittleRed Dot as we believe in investing in ourfuture readers.”[email protected]
Schools interested in subscribing can contact MrDavid Tan on 6319-1005 or send an e-mail [email protected]
The IN team (above) that accepted the award:circulation manager David Tan, journalistSerene Luo, supervising editor Bertha Hensonand editor Serene Goh. ST PHOTOS
IN receives World Young Reader prize inrecognition of its value as a teaching tool
The trophy is made from copies of IN andLittle Red Dot.
HONG KONG: A case of H5N1 avian fluhas been detected here in a womanwho may have caught the disease inChina, prompting the Hong Kong gov-ernment to raise its alert level.
Secretary for Food and Health YorkChow told reporters yesterday thatthere was no indication of human-to-human transmission of the influen-za.
Relatives of the 59-year-old wom-an are showing no symptoms, MrChow said, but the Hong Kong govern-ment has raised its flu response levelto “serious”.
The woman returned from a trip toChina on Nov 1 where she visitedShanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing, ac-cording to the Ming Pao daily andhealth officials.
Her husband said she had visited apoultry market and eaten chicken,said Mr Thomas Tsang, controller ofthe Centre for Health Protection, at anews conference.
Mr Chow said: “I don’t think wecan say with certainty whether it is animported case or a local case.”
Health officials will conduct viralstudies to see if they can match the vi-rus strain to samples found previouslyin northern or southern China, he add-ed.
The woman showed flu symptomsone day after returning to Hong Kong,Mr Tsang said. She remains hospital-ised in serious condition with a lung in-fection and may be placed in intensivecare.
Six people died in Hong Kong in a1997 bird flu outbreak that promptedthe health authorities to cull all chick-ens and ducks in the city.BLOOMBERG, XINHUA
ST schoolmagazinepicks upglobal award
H5N1avian flucasedetectedin HK
prime�news
THE STRAITS TIMES THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18 2010 PAGE A3
