National language has four official languages: English (Singapore English), Chinese, Malay and Tamil. Although English is the primary language of business, government, and education, Malay is designated as the national language. This is due to the geographical and historical ties to Malaysia as well as the recognition of ethnic Malays (about 14% of the population) as the indigenous people of Singapore. Traditionally, the lingua franca among the different ethnic groups in Singapore was Bazaar Malay, a Malay-based creole. Since independence, the government has been promoting English as the main language of Singapore. The bilingual education policy requires students to study two languages:
Participatory development communication essentially "listening" to what potential users of information need. They are the ones whom the communication program intends to reach. Users of information are also referred to as stakeholders of a communication program. Collecting baseline information about these stakeholders is an essential preliminary step towards developing a communication strategy. Segmentation, or dividing large groups of stakeholders into smaller groups, helps achieve focus in communication strategy development. Segmentation is usually done in two ways: What are the factors which cause a gap between the existing and desired behavior of stakeholders? Is the problem due to the stakeholders' lack of awareness or