Make tomorrow's Singapore better than today

Ms Chan Lai Fung, Permanent Secretary of Education

Mr Wong Siew Hoong, Director-General of Education

Principals, teachers, student participants

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. A very good afternoon to all of you, and I am very happy to join you for this year's Pre-U seminar. This is, in fact, my first Pre-U Seminar, like many of the students here. I didn't get the chance to attend when I was in junior college; so I must be a really late bloomer, because 25 years later, MOE decided I'm good enough to come back and attend the Pre-U Seminar, not as a participant, but to speak to all of you.
   

2. This year, we celebrate Singapore's 50th birthday, as all of you know. It's a significant milestone, to look back, reflect on what we've been through together, and give thanks for all that we've achieved.

3. For the students, I know it might not be so easy for you to fully appreciate the transformation that Singapore has undergone in the last 50 years. I believe all of you were born in the 90s, when Singapore was already a modern metropolis in some ways - the transformation may not have been so stark. 

4. But if you talk to your parents or grandparents, you would know that they have lived through much more difficult times in the 50s and 60s, - it was a very different Singapore - and they would have seen tremendous, dramatic improvements in their way of life over the decades.

5. This was certainly true for my family. My grandparents and my mother grew up in Kampong Amber – this was a Malay kampong along Amber Road. If you don't know where Amber Road is, think of Parkway Parade. I think you know where Parkway Parade is. It's not a very new hangout nowadays, but it's a place I used to hang out back when I was growing up. So Parkway Parade was along Amber Road, and that stretch used to be just a beach, and there was a Malay kampong there. It doesn't exist anymore.

6. My grandfather was a fisherman. He had seven children, including my mother. His income depended on his luck at sea. With seven children to feed, it was a constant worry for them. It wasn't so easy – it depended on what his catch of the day would be. So life was difficult. On top of that, there was no electricity or piped water. The toilet was essentially a metal bucket in a wooden hut. To get water, you had to draw it from a nearby well. That was the job of my two uncles, my mom's older brothers. They were big-sized, tall and well-built, so they had the nickname of “water buffaloes”. In Hokkien, they were chwee gu - tua gu and suay gu. Because they were very good at it, they would go to the well and bring water back home. So that was the life they had.
   

7. Today, we sometimes romanticise kampong living as one that's idyllic and enjoyable. But the reality is that life was difficult and uncertain, and the next meal was never guaranteed. When I asked any of my parents or my relatives, no one wanted to go back to living in a kampong, because life was hard! Even the peaceful times were disrupted in 1964 when racial riots broke out. The tranquillity of the kampong was affected, and the whole family then worried about their safety.
   

8. Eventually, my grandparents moved out of the kampong, and one by one, the children started working and they set up their own families.
   

9. My parents got their HDB flat in Marine Parade in the early 70s. I lived in one of those flats when I was growing up. In those days, this was one of the first few HDB flats built on reclaimed land. No one wanted to buy them. It's unbelievable now, because of the beach view.

10. It cost them a princely sum of $30,000. I know some of you think it's very cheap compared to prices today. But remember, my mum worked as a teacher then, and she only earned $400/month. My dad's income was still not stable, so the household income was about $400 a month. And at that time, the CPF system was also not well developed. So out of their monthly income of $400, they had to support a mortgage of $300 a month in cash. In other words, three quarters of their household income every month went to the home mortgage and the rest was to pay for daily expenses.

11. As a result, my parents had to scrimp and save every dollar to make ends meet. Growing up in the 70s, I remember how my mum tightly managed the household finances. We didn't go for overseas holidays – instead we would spend family time at the East Coast Beach. There were a lot of fun things we could do, whether it's to go out and fly a kite or a swim at the beach. We didn't eat out very much. My mom would go to the market for cheap fresh food and cook the dishes at home, and she was very good at it. I would still remember her telling me it was 20 cents for kang kong and 20 cents for spinach, the cheapest vegetables – eng cai neng gak, heng cai neng gak – and then she'd cook at home. We grew up eating those dishes; till today, I usually don't like vegetables, but I somehow like these two vegetables because I grew up eating them. Once I had the cheek to complain to her about eating the same food, she said to me in Hokkien, “Wu beng jia jiu ho liao!” which means if you have rice to eat, it's good enough. And that was the background we grew up in.
    

12. I believe this experience is not unique to my family. Our parents and grandparents – if you talked to them, I'm sure they would have similar experiences – they all made personal sacrifices over and over again, so that all of us can have a better life.

13. This is the spirit of sacrifice that our Pioneer Generation embodied. And this is also the spirit that spurred our founding fathers to devote so much of their lives to the development and building of modern Singapore. 

14. There's none more than Mr Lee Kuan Yew who personified this spirit of sacrifice for the common good. This was what brought hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans out to the Padang, queuing for hours to pay their respects to him. On the day of his funeral service, you saw many lining the streets despite a torrential downpour, to bid him a final farewell.

Singapore – a land of opportunity for all

15. For all of us who went through that week of national mourning, I believe, will never forget that experience in our lifetime. It also made us better appreciate how far we have come in building a nation from a fragmented and diverse society.

16. No one could have predicted 50 years ago that Singapore would be where we are today. Around the world, our red passport commands respect. Singapore punches above its weight in many areas – we have one of the best education systems in the world. We have the most successful public housing programme in the world. We have by international benchmarks one of the better healthcare systems in the world. And we have the lowest rate of unemployment among developed societies. This is why governments around the world come to Singapore to study our model, to see how they can apply what we have done here in their own countries.

17. But success also comes with its own attendant issues. In Singapore, as is the case with many other developed nations, we grapple with issues of income inequality and social mobility. Globalisation has forced us to change rapidly, and sometimes painfully, as entire industries are restructured and once stable jobs become redundant.

18. For most people, the changes mean more competition and more stress in life. You see this in daily circumstances -parents are placing more emphasis on academic achievement at an early age. I think the students sometimes feel it. So the parents want their children to get a good foundation starting as early as pre-school, get into a right school, get into a good school, and go into university and land a good job. 

19. All parents wish the best for their children, but I somehow didn't feel like this was the case when I was growing up. The pressure wasn't the same. I remember that I struggled when I went to kindergarten. I was crying like practically all the time. I just couldn't adjust to the environment somehow. It was so bad that my kindergarten teacher complained to my mother and said that your son was not doing very well, so you need to be prepared that your boy may not be able to cope well later in primary school.

20. My mom was rather blasé about the whole matter. I recall her telling the teacher if I'm not academically inclined, then so be it, I'll just have to find something else to do and start working. Fortunately, things didn't turn out the way my kindergarten teacher predicted. Something clicked when I was in Primary School, I started focusing on my studies, perhaps motivated by a desire to prove to my mother that I could excel in school. Somehow I did.

21. I ended up as one of the top students in my Primary School cohort. But even after that, it never occurred to me or my parents that I should aim to go to a top secondary school, whatever a “top” or “elite” secondary school meant because I had no conception of that when I was young. I only wanted to go to the same secondary school in the neighbourhood as all of my classmates, as my older brother and all of my cousins, and that was Tanjong Katong Technical, now called Tanjong Katong Secondary.

22. I enjoyed my time at TK tremendously, and still keep in touch with my old schoolmates. Once we had a gathering, and someone said that he would prefer his children to go to a different secondary school from TK, for example, it could be a SAP school or one with an Integrated Programme. Please don't misunderstand, I have nothing against a SAP school or schools with an Integrated Programme. They are very good schools, and some of you came from there. I'd definitely encourage a child or student who chooses to go to a SAP school or an IP school if he or she wishes to do so.

23. But I think for some parents, there's a feeling that they must somehow get their children into the “right school” and the “right academic track” to ensure their future success in life.

24. I can understand the concerns of parents who want the best for their children. But I wouldn't want to live in a Singapore where you have to go to the “right school” to fulfil your potential. I don't think anyone of us would want to live in a society that getting into the “right school” is the critical determinant for your future success in life.

25. So we must do everything we can to keep our society open and inclusive, and to provide opportunities for anyone to succeed, regardless of which path they take, at whatever point in their lives.

26. That's why the government is investing heavily in early childhood education to give everyone a good start in life, and setting aside dedicated resources to make every school a good school.

27. I said just now that the education system we have today is among the best in the world – that's certainly the case by any international standards. But I would be the first to acknowledge that the system is not perfect, and we are always trying to make it better. We are creating more pathways of progression, and giving those who do not succeed at first many more chances to make good.

28. Take the example of Goh Jia Hui. His PSLE score was just 101 points – I think everyone in this room easily got more than double his score - and he was placed in the Normal (Technical) stream in Yishun Town Secondary School. Thanks to a teacher who saw the potential in him, encouraged him, motivated him, even made him class monitor; he decided to change his ways and work hard.

29. In ITE, he graduated with a perfect GPA of 4.0 in the field of aerospace technology, and later enrolled in Singapore Polytechnic's Aeronautical Engineering course. Then he recently graduated with distinction from SP - that's where I met him - and he has already received two offers from world-class universities in the UK. So after his National Service, he has already gotten a place in the university. And when he completes his degree programme, he hopes to pursue a career as a pilot with the Singapore Air Force.

30. So Jia Hui's story is an example of what we are trying to do in our education system – to make it more flexible and porous, so that there is no single track or no fixed channel of progression, but we want to provide many alternative paths to accommodate a wide range of talents.

31. That's on the education system. There's also a need for change and reform outside the education system. Because a lot of learning today takes place in our schools and tertiary institutions – so we cram a lot of knowledge within the first 20 years of our lives. There's not enough of continuous learning happening in the workplace.

32. And as a result of this, having worked hard to go into university and get a degree, some people feel that they've learnt all that there is to know and that they will be all set for success in life.

33. But in reality, things are quite different. With rapid technological changes, your skill sets and knowledge today may be irrelevant sooner than you think.

34. More importantly, we should acknowledge that we are all susceptible to certain biases and overconfident tendencies that are infused in our natures. It's called pride, and all of us have it. If you don't think you have it, then you're wrong. As the Nobel-laureate economist Daniel Kahneman puts it, humans have an “almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance”. It takes humility to accept that there's a lot we don't know, and that a lot of what we think we know may be distorted or wrong.

35. Let me give you a personal example. I was fortunate; I got a scholarship to study in America. I went to Wisconsin to do my undergraduate degree, and then I went to Michigan for my Master's. When I was at Michigan for my Master's programme, that was just after I had just finished my undergraduate studies, also in Economics, so I was rather puffed up with the knowledge that I had accumulated. I thought I could do well in my Master's programme, which had students from all over the world - Latin America, Africa, Asia. It was a programme for Applied Economics, so a lot of practitioners were in the class. And some of them were struggling with the theoretical concepts of Economics and Mathematics, and I was good at it. So I thought this was easy, and that I could do well in this class.

36. But during one class discussion on development economics, students started talking about Singapore's experience. For some reason, somebody brought up Singapore's experience; they were interested in it and they were interested in the economic policies we had adopted. And then they started asking some questions. So I was the only Singaporean in the class, and naturally everyone turned to me for some answers or for some insights. And to my great shame and embarrassment – I had none to offer, because I had not read about Singapore's economy, I knew very little about what happened in Singapore. I could solve a mathematical economics problem, but I knew very little to explain to them, my fellow classmates, my Professor, what Singapore had gone through in the early years of economic development, and what policies had worked for us.

37. And so this incident was a wake-up call in some sense for me because it motivated me to read more, to go beyond what I had learnt in college, which was largely theoretical and US-centric, and to understand what happened in Singapore's economic development process.

38. It didn't stop there. This was an experience in college, in America. When I returned to Singapore to work in the civil service, I again thought I was equipped with everything I needed to know for work. But then, when I started work I realised that while I was a specialist in economics, many of my work colleagues were more well-read than me in other areas. They had a far better appreciation of the things that were happening around the world, like the rise of China and India, the conflicts in the Middle East, the developments in Southeast Asia which have an impact on Singapore. These were things that people around me were reading about, which I was not. I was narrowly focusing on one subject – Economics; then again I realised it's not sufficient to be focused on this area, and I needed to read more widely.

39. So again, this was a wake-up call for me. I realised the limits of what I knew, and the need for continuous learning. Far from ending our quest for knowledge the moment we graduate, school is really a launch pad to keep learning and improving ourselves through life.

40. This is why the Government is investing more in our people through a new national programme called SkillsFuture. You may have heard of it; it's not just a slogan. It's a nation-wide push for skills development and lifelong learning. This new approach is not about cramming for exams, it's not about comparing grades or putting people on a curve. Instead it's about empowering every Singaporean to keep learning and improving.

41. And it's also an important part of how we want to build a more open and compassionate meritocracy. Because with SkillsFuture, everyone will be able to continuously acquire skills and expertise. So regardless of your starting point in life or your academic qualifications, you will be able to keep improving and do better in life, so long as you make the effort.

Making your life count for more

42. So these are some of the important policy shifts that we are making in Singapore today. You may not feel the impact of the changes right away. But they are important changes that will help build a better Singapore for the future.

43. And all of you, all the students here, you are part of this future, and will play an important role in shaping it. In fact, many of you are at a point in your lives where you are starting to think about what you want to do in the future – what universities to go to, what you want to study, and what careers you would like to pursue when you graduate.

44. As you are making these decisions, you are likely to hear people tell you to follow your passion, stay true to yourself, do what matters to you most. This is standard advice you get from all graduation speeches.

45. This is all very well and good.  But at the same time, I would like to encourage you to think about what impact your life can have on others. So don't just think of what you would like to do, think of how your life can be used to make a difference to other people.

46. Because at the end of the day, a life worth living is a life lived not just for yourself, but also for the people around you – our community, our nation, and even the world at large.

47. We all have different talents and we can all serve in different ways. Take the example of Isabelle Li. You may have heard of her. She is one of our top table tennis players, and she has decided to defer her university studies to train full-time, so she's dedicated herself to full-time training so that she can represent Singapore at the Rio Olympics next year. It's a big personal sacrifice, but she's doing this to bring sporting glory to Singapore. Incidentally, she's also competing at the SEA Games. We're now hosting the SEA Games, if you do not know that already. The Games has started, and the official opening is this Friday. So I'd do a small advertising pitch since I'm also in charge of sports. Please come and cheer for Team Singapore, and support our athletes who are going all out to fly the Singapore flag high.

48. Or take the example of Dr Tan Lai Yong. Some of you have spoken to him, and I believe he will be a panellist at this seminar. Dr Tan gives free medical treatment and advice to Bangladeshi and Indian foreign workers, and takes them out for weekly trips and outings. He also hosts meals and visits for disabled or less privileged kids on weekends.

49. He was trained as a medical doctor on a PSC scholarship. He could have pursued a career as a doctor in Singapore. Instead, he became a doctor in rural Yunnan for 15 years, where he treated the sick and trained some 500 doctors in poor villages. As a result, he has made a bigger impact on the lives of many people – not just in Singapore but also in China.

50. And of course earlier, I mentioned the sacrifices that Mr Lee Kuan Yew made for the nation. And indeed, he could have chosen a very different career path too. He could have remained in law and he would have done very well for himself. But he chose to go into public service. He was driven by something larger than himself, larger than the pursuit of material gain, larger than the standard trappings of success. He was driven to serve the nation, to serve Singapore with all his heart, and in all his waking hours, until his final days.

51. Across these examples, you will find a common thread of people who make personal sacrifices for a larger purpose, or a higher calling.

52. These stories run counter to the messages we sometimes hear today – that we must do all that it takes to achieve individual happiness as soon as possible.

53. But perhaps there is a paradox of happiness. When you set out to achieve happiness, you will not find it so easily. But when you stop looking for it, and you start focusing on serving others, that's when you are more likely to find personal fulfilment and satisfaction. In other words, by letting go, we find; by giving, we receive.

54. I think our Pioneers understood this ethos and morality very well. That's why they were prepared to make many personal sacrifices, to serve the larger good, and to help build a better society, and ultimately a better Singapore for future generations to enjoy.

Conclusion

55. Singapore today is no longer a developing nation. But we are not yet truly an advanced nation. We are in a strong position today. But we also face challenges.

56. For example, we have peace and harmony today – but there are also new divisions and fault-lines in society that may threaten our cohesiveness.

57. We have HDB flats for every Singaporean, but we also have to address the challenge of income and wealth divides.

58. We are self-sufficient in water, but we still face many resource constraints and we remain vulnerable to other security challenges.

59. So we've not solved all our problems, and there's still a lot of work to be done. There is no assurance that we will succeed; there is no assurance that we will be better off 50 years from now, but that makes it all the more important that we all do our part to secure our best chances for success.

60. So I hope all of you will take seriously this responsibility of charting the path forward for Singapore. All of you, the young people here, are the new pioneers of your generation. So make your lives count for something. Matter to someone, some community, other than yourselves. Pursue causes that you feel can lead to a better society, and do something to help your fellow citizens lead a better life.

61. If you do this, then I'm confident we can make tomorrow's Singapore better than today, and we can look forward to an even bigger SG100 celebration 50 years from now.