Ideas for Singapore

[Jon-san]

My proposal:

Introduce Open Bidding COE (Certificate of Employment):

As a citizen with a PR as a wife, I wanted to add my own 2 cents to this. I sincerely and whole-heartedly agree that, if PAP hasn't already lost my vote with what they have done in the last 10 years, implementing such a policy will guarantee them a permanent loss of the vote with no cause of resolution or reprieve.

Why do I feel this strongly? For starters, my wife is better educated than me. She makes a POSITIVE contribution to our society (because she is a teacher). Now, those of you who have teachers as friends will hear of one common story, where many would-be teachers join, but few remain. It is a fairly high-paying job, with rather good returns (in the form of students/parents gratitude, etc) yet MANY citizens choose to shun it! Why so? Because a teacher's life is harsh! They work from mornings to afternoons, teaching and educating. In the afternoons and evenings and sometimes late into the night, they have markings, CCAs, PTAs, and all sorts of other miscellaneous work accorded to teaching staff. Many of her citizen-status cohort have left the teaching profession because they realise that teaching isn't such a cushy job after all. Not the high-paying short-hours jobs they were expecting. What does this say about our citizens then?

Making policies with a hammer in one hand and a rock in the other will drive away many classes of foreign workers, be it in menial or professional jobs. Who then will educate our children? The citizen-teacher who's heart is not in the job, but in the monthly pay check on the 12th of every month? Who, after completing his bond and collecting his first gratuity payment, leaves for "greener" pastures?

Pardon my emotional outburst. I can take a hit to my wallet, but not one to my heart. I know some of my statements can be unfair to the minority of citizen-teachers who actually put their heart and soul into educating our children, but that's the problem isn't it? That they are just the minority!

Oh, and in case any are wondering why my wife hasn't chosen to take up a citizenship, it is because of her lifelong reliance on medication for her illness which, as everyone knows, costs an arm and a leg here, whilst her native country gives it for free.

[yeokiwi]

I realised that I wrote a lot of ramblings.. I shall end this by giving this link to a 7 part youtube video of an analysis of Singapore by Taiwan Media... It is interesting to watch what Taiwan media thinks of SG..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC-dkoR0K...re=related

The show is probably only as good as a lousy introduction to Singapore and LKY.

"Ba Gua" coins to replace the dragon vein?
Lee Hsien Loong went to UK military school?
We put troops in Taiwan to counter-attack foreign armies if Singapore is fallen?
Singapore Airlines had a big office in Taiwan because S'pore needed to bring soldiers back to s'pore for counterattack??
Taiwan gets advanced weapons from us?
LKY was communist? He might be closed to the leftist but to said that he was a communist....Even Lim Chin Siong also did not claim that he was a communist...
PAP originated from DAP?
Malaysian Chinese cannot be ministers or policemen?
COE was introduced to reduce fuel consumptions so that it will not affect our fuel reserve?
Driving the car in Singapore for a day costs $200 in misc fees?
Weekend cars need to pay $30 per hour to drive in weekdays?

The mistakes are too numerous. Simple research on the net will reduce at least 90% of the mistakes and they did not even bother. In fact, I gave up after 5 clips...

It was basically a talk show that tried to be entertaining and facts were not important.

[Musicwhiz]

Oh, and in case any are wondering why my wife hasn't chosen to take up a citizenship, it is because of her lifelong reliance on medication for her illness which, as everyone knows, costs an arm and a leg here, whilst her native country gives it for free.

I am sorry to hear this, Jon-san. I have utmost respect for educators such as your wife as I believe they are nurturing the youth for greater things in life. Please ask her to keep up her excellent work!

[Zelphon]

My proposal:

Introduce Open Bidding COE (Certificate of Employment):

As a citizen with a PR as a wife, I wanted to add my own 2 cents to this. I sincerely and whole-heartedly agree that, if PAP hasn't already lost my vote with what they have done in the last 10 years, implementing such a policy will guarantee them a permanent loss of the vote with no cause of resolution or reprieve.

Why do I feel this strongly? For starters, my wife is better educated than me. She makes a POSITIVE contribution to our society (because she is a teacher). Now, those of you who have teachers as friends will hear of one common story, where many would-be teachers join, but few remain. It is a fairly high-paying job, with rather good returns (in the form of students/parents gratitude, etc) yet MANY citizens choose to shun it! Why so? Because a teacher's life is harsh! They work from mornings to afternoons, teaching and educating. In the afternoons and evenings and sometimes late into the night, they have markings, CCAs, PTAs, and all sorts of other miscellaneous work accorded to teaching staff. Many of her citizen-status cohort have left the teaching profession because they realise that teaching isn't such a cushy job after all. Not the high-paying short-hours jobs they were expecting. What does this say about our citizens then?

Making policies with a hammer in one hand and a rock in the other will drive away many classes of foreign workers, be it in menial or professional jobs. Who then will educate our children? The citizen-teacher who's heart is not in the job, but in the monthly pay check on the 12th of every month? Who, after completing his bond and collecting his first gratuity payment, leaves for "greener" pastures?

Pardon my emotional outburst. I can take a hit to my wallet, but not one to my heart. I know some of my statements can be unfair to the minority of citizen-teachers who actually put their heart and soul into educating our children, but that's the problem isn't it? That they are just the minority!

Oh, and in case any are wondering why my wife hasn't chosen to take up a citizenship, it is because of her lifelong reliance on medication for her illness which, as everyone knows, costs an arm and a leg here, whilst her native country gives it for free.

I agree with you that being a teacher is a tough job in SG.

My GF is a chinese teacher and she is a Singaporean...
Now that is very rare... Don't you agree???

Teacher's pay is actually not that high.. Anyone in private sector long enough can get higher pay advancement than a teacher...

Problem with the teaching environment now is that a teacher is not only required to teach but also have to coordinate a lot of Sh** work apart from teaching... Like CCA, project work, seminars, papers to write.. etc..

A teacher is no longer graded on how well she taught but by all the wayang work she does...

In addition, there's a lot of office politics in public sector like teaching...
And the person who gain the fancy of the principals or HOD will definite advance faster than those in unfavorable light..

In private sector, we can always job hop if we do not like our working environment but that is very hard in teaching sector...

Our education sector has degraded to one where too much emphasis is placed on grades and teachers has to meet various KPI (not related to teaching) to gain recognition..

And who came up with all these crap KPI ???

It is the booksmart scholars who aced in their paper qualification and given positions of importance in public sector !!!

Also, we are also importing loads of teachers from China and India for the languages classes due to lack of teachers in these field..

As I pointed out earlier, the easy pool of foreigners has made local employers addicted and every shortages is being met with imports, while the salary is being suppressed amid high inflation... This is also true in Public Sector...

Frankly speaking, if I am a PR, I will also choose to remain a PR because there is no incentive in being a Singaporeans..

[sgd]

I agree with some of the forumers comments that we need foreigners. But maybe some of you were too young or maybe some of you cannot remember.

Back in the 80's when China was still an embargoed third world country, nobody wanted to invest anything in China. Do you remember who it was that started the ball rolling? Who was it that encouraged companies to "go global" does anybody remember?

Once we went in and showed that it was "all clear" the whole world open shop in China that was when low cost manufacturing started to make a very big impact on the region.

So while our very commendable EDB did a great job to bring investments here our politicians showed them the door and told them to go regional but once out the door found it much cheaper to just leave why even bother staying? So to stem the exodus they brought in FT to keep wages low and keep companies here.

FT cannot be blamed for our problems, yes my countrymen we are in this predicament is because of our politicians bad gambles, they have already pawned ours and our children's future yet some among you even voted them shame on you.

There is no way we can ever compete with China on manufacturing, they have 1 billion people and cheaper than us by 5 fold and tomorrow if the North Koreans embrace capitalism they will become even cheaper than the Chinese and even harder for us.

The only way is to overhaul, slowly step away from manufacturing move more into knowledge based economy like what the British did back in the 60's and 70's.

A strong china is not good for Singapore. Other than cheap made in china products what other benefits are there?

[cif5000]

If you were not a Singapore citizen, what/where would you want to be?
If you would like to be a xxx citizen, why aren't you one now? What is holding you back?

Conversely,
If Singapore is where you want to be, be good, be wise, or be careful. Be a good citizen. Step forward if it is your calling. Step back if you are just another trouble maker.

Countries are meant to be selfish. Why should the world be divided? We have much to progress.

[tanjm]

I do realize the people are upset about foreign workers. But you do have to realize that Singapore is a country with no other resource than its infrastructure and people. Given a job description that can be filled, companies will go to the one that has the least cost (after accounting for all costs such as taxes, logistics etc).

You need to either upsize your skill or your job if you feel threatened. There is no free lunch. All the Singapore government can do is to give you a decent education and try to attract businesses to locate here.

I lead a team of 5 people. 1 Singaporean, 2 Indians, 1 taiwanese and 1 Malaysian. It is very difficult to find the people with the right skill regardless of nationality. If I cannot find people, than the business I support would just go away (not just my team but all other supporting services which would have Singaporeans as well). This is my second career. My first one was as an Engineer.

---

My company has a sort of a mini MBA school for promising junior IT staff. Of the 20 or so people in that programme, only 1 was local. But the person they tapped as the outstanding person in that programme was a Singaporean.

She was articulate and spoke very well. Her bosses said when she was sent to Switzerland, she fitted in like she had been there for years. That is the kind of "talent" we should aim for. Be better than just being able to do stuff that any half competent university or polytechnic can churn out. Be able to do multiple tasks/jobs and communicate and just plain do the job better.

[Big Toe]

Nearly all developed countries will have their core competence and their very own industries and brands.
Here, looking at our large local companies, most of them can be traced back to the garment.
This will not work as we progress to become a developed country. There will not be innovation.
The leaders of these large local firms will not try anything new and innovate.
New ideas may fail and failure/radical ideas does not go down well.

On a brighter note, change is in the air and uncle loong is taking trying to walk his talk.
That's a good sign, let's see what comes next.

On the part of innovation, there will not be any sparks if you put square headed folks in charge.
They represent the opposite of innovation and if the square heads(not directed at anyone in particular)
are spear heading the initiatives, innovation is doomed for failure. The private sector should take a bigger
role in this. The structure would be complicated but this will somehow have to be worked out.

[iisterry]

The only way is to overhaul, slowly step away from manufacturing move more into knowledge based economy like what the British did back in the 60's ...

I'm curious if you have chanced across Tan Jee Say's proposal on the New Singapore Economy?

Link


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We do need to realize that most people are not against foreign workers, they are against foreign PMETs who come in for a free ride at our expense.

Neither are they against genuine foreigners who are contributing to society. Singapore has co-existed and worked with foreigners since time memorial. It is a question of how much is enough.

We had a "Stop At Two" policy some time ago, a "Graduate Mother's Scheme" and many other policies designed at social engineering. A Total Fertility Rate of roughly 2.1 has been accepted as necessary for population replacement. Anything less would obviously lead to a greying and declining population.

The easy solution chosen was to simply open the floodgates. This provided a massive cheap pool of labor. The repercussions are just being felt now.

It is the issue of a non-level playing field which is the subject of contention. NS liability for some, PRs buying properties with the sole purpose of capital gains upon leaving for others. This is detrimental to society in terms of capital retention.

While we do not want to be a close-door state, there is a balance to be struck and stringent rules to be applied.

We need to start grooming our own local talents instead of tempting others with scholarships and other perks in the hope that they will stay and contribute.

The hegemony of the government over local companies needs to be looked at. Massive government-linked companies controlling every aspect of society is the sure-fire way to sound the death knell for innovation.

LHL appeared to be spearheading some changes, the composition of the Cabinet however appear worrying. Mainly from the Public Service & Armed Forces and subordinate to him. Will we have an issue of "Yes, Mr Prime Minister"?

Another contentious issue is regarding Temasek Holdings & GIC. There needs to be greater transparency and accountability for they are essentially dealing with the nation's reserves. Placing the wife and the father in charge is, definitely, a no go.

[flinger]

If you were not a Singapore citizen, what/where would you want to be?
If you would like to be a xxx citizen, why aren't you one now? What is holding you back?

Conversely,
If Singapore is where you want to be, be good, be wise, or be careful. Be a good citizen. Step forward if it is your calling. Step back if you are just another trouble maker.

Countries are meant to be selfish. Why should the world be divided? We have much to progress.

A true capitalist speech. The question is if they are meant to be, does that justify been selfish?

What is the role of the govt in a country? Is it purely a capitalistic role only?

etc...etc...etc...etc...