immigrants, singapore, equitable

When I was an undergraduate student at the National University of Singapore, I never understood why there were so many students from China in our school who were basically studying in NUS on a full ride, using taxpayers' money to fund their education...and at the end of it, all they had to do was just to work for three years at a Singapore-registered company. I don't know what the figures for compliance are like, but I was told most work around that requirement.

Forgive me for being too simplistic in my perception here, and I've got nothing against a more liberal talent policy, but it made me wonder: Is Singapore so desperate for foreign talent that we are willing to set our bar so low for a free education? The joke back then, totally unverified I must add, was that we were so desperate, even for China's third-tier talent after the first two-tiers have left for the U.S. and Europe.

I am under no illusion that we should expect immigrants to switch their allegiance and loyalty to Singapore after studying in that little red dot of ours, even if they have been brought over as thirteen-year-old's (yes, the Singapore government has intricate schemes bringing China students into Singapore schools at various stages). You can't buy these things, these things are cultivated organically. Besides, it is our expectation that they switch their loyalty overnight -- and not theirs.

Yes, Singaporeans still have a lot of growing up to do politically and socially, but at the same time, it is also realistic to expect the Singapore PAP government to put their electorate first before all else. It doesn't have to compromise our commitment to free trade and a liberal migration policy...all it means, is for us to have some sort of dignity without being too arrogant. This is particularly urgent, as this Economist article illustrates how our mind-boggling GINI coefficient, second only to Hong Kong in the world, is threatening fragile economic and social fabric. Read this for a further illustration.

Yes, the government has taken steps to combat this problem, but I am not sure what slowing down the intake of migrants and investing in a new National Integration Council would do to help mitigate the present situation. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said as much when he told The Economist that it may take years before success with integration is apparent...which makes me wonder: why don't the Singapore government use the money to invest in our young people instead? What are they doing in the interim?

Honestly, I am not sure whether this is anything beyond a public relations problem for the Singapore PAP government. To give the PAP the benefit of the doubt, I am not sure if they aren't doing things differently because they don't want to, as much as they simply do not know how and what that alternative looks like.

This is a policy paradigm that would value well-being, going beyond the GDP and good employment figures to make sure that greater equity -- note, not the utopia of equality -- exists in Singapore society (including and especially the ministers' wages). Maybe considering introducing greater sophistication into our social security system, as Mukul G. Asher and Amarendu Nandy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy have suggested. 

So the problem isn't so much that we have so many foreign students being given free rides at our universities. It's still a problem, but approaching it as a "problem" is a negative approach that deals with the phenonemon without resolving the conundrum. A "positive" problem-solving approach would be to consider ground realities and how it should matter in the overall picture. The greater problem is therefore, the government's fundamental economic strategy for Singapore and how it contributes to increasing inequity in every aspects of Singapore society.