TR EMERITUS

If you are familiar with the comments made (Letter to ST’s Forum) skip it and read the rest of my piece. Promise you it’s worth reading. When I first saw the “brownface” advertisement, my initial reaction was that it was a rather interesting (and perhaps even intelligent) advert, in that it was trying to show that whether we are Chinese, Indian, Malay or Eurasian, deep down we are the same, as the same person was used to portray the different races (Why depicting ‘brownface’ characters is no joke, Aug 3). I also thought, by using the same character, the message was that in Singapore, even though we may be of different races, fundamentally, we are the same people and, therefore, should be united and be treated the same. It does not matter if a person is Chinese, Malay, Indian or another race. It is always possible to construe a message in different ways. A simple statement like “this dish is interesting” can be interpreted to mean it is unique, it is something which I will not want to try again, or it is tasty. I just wonder if the (silent) majority of Singaporeans may have thought that the advert was quite innocuous. I also wondered if perhaps the reason the same person was used was for cost saving? Joseph Tan Peng Chin Above appeared in ST’s Forum on Monday I agree with the writer and so do many other Chinese (including TRE readers) going from their commentswhen TRE used Indian lady takes issue with charge that Nets ad was “brownface”. But I have to disagree with the writer that the casting had to do with cost. I’ll explain in another post why. When I sent https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49205225 to a FB friend, he asked me what did two of these three links in article had to do with S’pore Model from ‘racist’ D&G ad says it almost ruined her career Are adverts being deliberately racist? Outrage at China’s ‘racist’ whitewashing advert I told him that the two showed that ethnic Chinese could be thin-skinned and as vicious as the Nairs. Finally, from a bunch of Yale-NUS College students In the past week, Singapore has been ablaze with controversy and debate over the brownface Mediacorp ad campaign and the police investigation into the rap video response by Preetipls and Subhas. As a community of students concerned with Singapore’s civil democracy and racial discourse, we at CAPE are disappointed by the knee-jerk reactions of censorship and blind condemnation, instead of discourse and a sincere attempt to understand and reflect upon the experiences of racial minorities in Singapore. CAPE presents a primer of 6 infographics reflecting on racism as more than just some “western SJW thing”, discourse versus censorship, and questions to ponder with the state planning an enhancement of current judicial firepower in regulating race and religion. (Of course they have to be PC: their grades depend on it. I’ll critick the piece some other time.)   Cynical Investor Cynical Investor blogs at Thoughts of a Cynical Investor        Read More →

As a true-blue Pioneer citizen who have lived through the era of our founding fathers, just reading the reported Parliamentary debate between Education Minister Ong Ye Kung and Workers’ Party Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Leon Perera and MP Png Eng Huat, tells me that the Ministry of Education has a mountain of information to hide on the subject of government awards of scholarship and tuition grants to foreign students. If I were asked the same question by Minister Ong on what I would do if I were the Education Minister and if I would send all the foreign students home, (an empty challenge thrown at Leon Perera), my honest reply is simple and straightforward. As Education Minister under a new regime, there is no way to continue expending $130 million a year on scholarship and $210 million on tuition grants, (now reduced by Minister to $108 million), totaling $340 million a year on foreign students in studying in our local universities, polytechnics and other educational institutions because this PROGRAM is wrong in principles, to start with. Minister Ong’s justifications of this program for foreign students are summarised as follows: 1. $130 million a year is just 1% of Singapore’s annual Education budget of $13 billion as the budget is spent “overwhelmingly” on local students; 2. Annual government spending on scholarships and tuition grants for foreign students has fallen by 50% over the past 10 years, which means it is fine to continue to give free tax payers’ money away to educate foreign students. 3 The $130 million and $108 million are nominal figures…”but do not reflect the cost to the system as a whole, noting that overhead costs such as building and manpower will be incurred even without foreign students.” Response: What he meant was that since taxpayers’ money has already been incurred on the infrastructure and manpower in the universities and polytechnics, it is no problem to bring in foreign students at no cost to them. What kind of logic is this from a Minister? Why did MOE raise the tuition fees for the universities, polytechnics and ITEs a year or two ago, adding extra financial burden on the parents of undergraduates. 4. There are advantages of admitting foreign students into local IHLs, give Singaporean students opportunities to build bonds and networks with students from other countries … and they are also a catchment of people who can contribute to Singapore.” Response: This is so “primary school” in substance. Does he know some foreign students on scholarship in the universities mocked our Singapore students and boosted their free grants and pocket money given to them by our government while our poor boys and girls have to work part-time to earn pocket money to go to school? 5. “Every education system in the world will provide some support to international students and Singaporeans are also benefiting from foreign sponsorships for their studies.” I know this is not correct. Now, Minister Ong admitted “The aid given by universities in other countries comes from the university… Response: In our system, it’s a bit (no,BIG) different. Ours is a much more public and centralised system.” And he was unable to provide any numbers to show how much other governments are spending on scholarship and tuition grants for foreign students. Why the need to go so far? Just tell us how much funds did China and India spent on scholarship and tuition grants for Singapore students studying in their educational institutions? Despite the fact that this scholarship and tuition grant program has existed for over 10 years, the government has not even issued a full report on the actual amount it spent to educate the foreign students, the benefits accrued to Singapore and how much value they have added to the quality of academic performance to our universities. The total supervision and management of this scholarship and tuition grant program has proven to be slack by the MOE over a long period of time with no good excuse. Compare the handling of the foreign students up to 4% who defaulted on bond obligations to our local scholars who are certain to face legal action and public reprimand. The justifications provided by Minister Ong to support the scholarship and tuition grant program cuts no ice because the millions of dollars spent on foreign students can be better used to help and support more Singapore students to universities. To say that foreign scholarship students do not displace Singaporeans in universities and polytechnics cannot be correct because all foreign students, upon receiving a confirmation of scholarship, are assured of a place in the selected university while our local students are still in the queue for a place. In each cohort, about 2000 foreign students were admitted into the local universities with scholarship and tuition grants. if these places are given to our local polytechnic graduates, more can pursue tertiary education at home instead of having to spend a huge sum to go overseas on fathers’ scholarship. In my view, this scholarship and tuition grant program, has more political objectives than educational. If what Minister Ong said were good justifications to continue with such program, then why is the government not submitting a full report to Parliament for a thorough debate. This matter is long overdue in the hands of the Education Minister, whoever he may be. Peoples Voice supports a full investigation into this scholar and tuition program for foreign students. All foreign students are welcome to come and study in our top-rated universities, polytechnics and junior colleges but on their own cost.   Kok Ming Cheang      Read More →

There was a recent report on increase in suicide rates among young people. This is wasteful. It is bad for society. The underlying cause is a stressful and competitive education system. Those who cannot cope with this system find a bleak future. They prefer to take their own lives. To overcome this problem, we need to reduce the stress and competitiveness of the education system. We need to give every young person the confidence that they can be productive and have a good future. Some people are academically inclined. Other people have other skills and interests. We need to give a good future to all of them. We also need our young people to enjoy their childhood and to make friends among their school mates. They can find life to be enjoyable, while they study hard to meet the required education standard. The goal of education is to ensure that the students are educated and have the basic skills. They should also develop their characters to be compassionate, helpful, considerate and social. They should not be required to compete with each other to produce the top students. If we remove the stress and competition in the education system, more young people will enjoy their childhood and develop to be useful members of society. There will be a segment of people with are disabled and have special needs. We have to help them to cope with their special needs, and give them the chance to be productive and to meet a lower standard that is appropriate to their situations. This will certainly reduce the suicide rate among young people.   Tan Kin Lian        Read More →