http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_226383.html
Straits Times April 12, 2008
PM warns of talent loss, leaving no 'central core' to lead S'pore
Country therefore needs to draw in foreign talent, encourage overseas citizens to return
By Lydia Lim, Senior Political Correspondent
SINGAPOREANS are the ones who will suffer if the current outflow of talent leaves the society bereft of 'a central core' that can lead the country forward, the Prime Minister warned yesterday.
It is the third time Mr Lee Hsien Loong has expressed his concern over the loss of talent since the Cabinet reshuffle two weeks ago.
He was speaking at the fourth London School of Economics (LSE) Asia Forum, which saw top minds from Britain and Asia engage in a robust debate on the best and worst aspects of today's knowledge economy.
The PM identified the loss of talent as one of three major challenges facing small, open societies such as Singapore in this era of global talent and information flows.
'To do well, a country needs a core of its ablest citizens, those with both the intellectual and social acumen to play leadership roles in the economy, the administration and the political leadership.
'Without that central core to take the country forward, the society cannot perform to its full potential, and the citizens will suffer,' he said.
But, Mr Lee said, Singapore must accept such talent flows as a reality, draw in foreign talent and encourage its citizens who study and work abroad to return home.
He also highlighted two other challenges for societies in the knowledge age, in his speech to 600 LSE alumni, civil servants, academics and executives attending The Politics Of Knowledge forum.
The LSE hosted it with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
The first challenge is the unequal distribution of economic benefits, with the lion's share going to those with the right skills and abilities.
The second is the instant transmission through the Internet of unfiltered, raw information or misinformation, with their potential to spread extremist views, stoke religious hatred and lower the level of public debate to one in which emotion rather than reason prevails.
Following his speech, the discussion shifted to the trade-offs in the economic sphere when Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, an LSE alumnus, chaired a session on how knowledge drives growth.
Professor Danny Quah, head of LSE's economics department, gave an upbeat assessment of Asia's progress in the decade since the 1997 financial crisis.
He highlighted how growth across Asia has rebounded, lifting half a billion people out of poverty.
'Asia continues to pull east the world's centre of gravity,' Prof Quah said.
Mr Tharman noted that one area where Asia has not recovered is in the rate of fixed investments in productive areas.
Part of the problem may lie in the constraints some countries face in building the institutions their societies need to assimilate knowledge from abroad as quickly as possible, he said.
Acting chairman of the Brunei Economic Development Board Timothy Ong said there remains much unfinished business because of the huge gap - in incomes, output and knowledge capabilities - between Asia's high-performing economies and the rest.
Prof Quah later said there was a trade-off between growth and income disparity.
China's income gap, for example, has widened considerably as its growth rate soars.
But the income inequality between rich and poor countries 'completely dwarfs' the gap that exists between rich and poor people within countries, Prof Quah said.
The top 1 per cent in the world earn as much as the bottom 57 per cent.
'That kind of disparity you will be able to get rid of only through economic growth at the bottom of the world distribution of countries. That's exactly what I think can be achieved through knowledge and productivity,' he added.
Even before applying for Singapore citizenship, Singapore has been my home for many years. I grew up here and studied here. I work here now and married here and have children here.
ReplyDeleteIn the early days of the internet public access to academia (Usenet), I defended many of Singapore's policies when criticized unfairly.
But today, I identify more with insanepoly, Mr Brown and TalkingCock for too many absurdities.
Maybe I'm just a late bloomer, or maybe things did get worse.
The first major grouse I have was the GRC, Group Representative Constituency. Prior to that, for a while, I was even tempted to think HDB upgrading priority for PAP wards was not pork barrel politics as the voters who expressed supporters are like early birds in the queue.
So the country went through some bad economic times. But I was applauding the government's foresight to invest in R&D as the way ahead. But today, I'm not too sure if they had really done it the right way. Medical, graphics, etc., many years passed since I was an intern in ISS, but Singapore itself has not much to show for it.
The only shining star that emerged and commercially successful was Sim's Creative Tech, and despite his arrogance in the early years, Sim did his best. He just didn't have the sharp acumen of Steve Jobs. And in all, he was really alone, doing it without government assistance.
Making it easier to enbloc sales was another grouse, but what took the cake was the selling out to legalise casinos. It is a move of sheer desperation to prop the economy.
As for the talent loss, the PM should just accept that Singapore doesn't offer that much scope to attract these talents to stay - not for the gold, not for the personal satisfaction.
But the other side of the coin is this: overseas experience is vital for talents to develop their potentials. You just got to give them something worth returning to.
And it's not in terms of cash.
It's in terms of relaxing the kind of society we want to build, respecting and entrusting the non-PAP type of people to put in their views and let them do their stuff.
I know my opposition to casinos is contary to many other people, but I can only accept it if there was a referendum on changing the law, not unilateral decision by the PAP.
You're right. Singapore must offer something we would want to return to. Until that emerges, I'll still stick to my plan of moving overseas.
ReplyDeleteMok, in your case, I'd suggest travelling around first, on holidays, or better still, exchanges. Many Singaporean found it is easier taking themselves out of Singapore than taking Singapore out of themselves. Even I've been caught by surprise. It's probably true for other nationalities who lived mainly in one country.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've lived in four, though the first three were during my youngest years before ten.
Living in London, Paris, or San Francisco used to seem nice, until I went there myself and saw how most of the citizens lived. So far, Melbourne has been the nicest on the average in terms of climate, cost and standard of living. Finding a suitable job for myself though would be another challenge entirely.
Oh, I don't think it's so much a matter of taking Singapore out of myself (we have our uniqueness which I do treasure!) as it is about living on my own terms. I find that I cannot do that in Singapore.
ReplyDeleteI don't delude myself that it will be easy to uproot, move and adapt to a new country, customs, culture or even language, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.
Why don't PAP start recruiting foreign talents from overseas to work for PAP? I thought China and India offer a huge pool of talents to tap into. Certainly, Singapore can benefit from foreign talents, rather than relying on local home-grown talents
ReplyDeleteOne, the PAP spoke often enough against foreign interferences whenever the other political parties develop any sort of closeness to foreign individuals or groups, like when SDP met with human rights/press freedom NGOs.
ReplyDeleteTwo, it's admission that they can no longer provide the talent required locally. One of the main PAP boast is that they could provide talented leadership or groom good leaders.
Three, getting foreign talents to support local economy is one thing. Getting foreign talent to support a political party is quite another. PAP had told voters often enough that foreigners don't have the same stake in Singapore as Singaporeans. When things go wrong, they can pack their backs and go home, but not the Singaporeans.
Four, what PAP wanted was for people to stand in General Elections, not just giving them advice, which they may probably be already getting from "foreign talents" anyway, just not well-known.
Five, if a door is opened to foreign talents into Singapore politics, there's more chance of these foreign talents supporting the other political parties, not the PAP.
Or you mean offer them citizenships and run in the GE, like foreign talent programme in sports?
ReplyDeleteHardly likely. The sports programme itself was more a flop than success.
Why would a real political talent from India/China want to give up their original citizenship and take up Singaporean nationality? What would reflect on their patriotism and loyalty?
I feel that one of the reasons why Singapore is facing this problem of talent loss is due to its education system. Singapore's education has already been criticised for being too elitist and too emphasized on meritocracy (i.e. on grades/performance). Check out how secondary schools are divided into SAP schools, Independent schools....in producing the 'elite' that will hopefully become political leaders of Singapore. Instead of focusing on egalitarianism, Singapore is probably more interested in streaming and producing a small number of 'elite' that hopefully will lead the nation. But the problem lies in that these small number of elite might not necessarily work for the government. They might be more interested in private sectors or working overseas, which offers better opportunity.
ReplyDeleteStreaming at an early stage seems to be a characteristics available only in Singapore. I don't think you can truly tell a kid's true talent at primary school. Alot of people develop their talents only after they have grown up (after 16 years old). But Singapore starts streaming at primary school, then go into different type of secondary schools etc. In fact, your fate has already been decided at a young stage. If your grades at primary school is not good, you go down the drain.
I feel that education should always focused more on holistic education (known as 通才教育) first before specialisation at a later stage, instead of focusing on elite education such as 精英教育. It gives people a greater general education (more knowledge and skills) before allowing them to specialise.That helps to allow more egalitarian and greater pool of local talents, rather than training specialist that doesn't give them flexibility to switch to other professions later.
If you check the education system of Germany, Japan, US, Taiwan, they are more focused on producing greater pools of 'general talents' rather than 'specialised talents' (i.e. less focused on elite education). That's why they don't face much problem in talents loss.
I don't think these countries are good comparison because they have the critical mass to more than sustain talent outflow.
ReplyDeletePopulation and size, HK makes better comparison, but HK is a very different society. Unlike SG which has to work hard to attract investments, even during economic downturns, the world is still knocking on HK's door. HK is a survivor society, and its school aren't geared towards producing educational elites.
SG's system is very much reminiscent of educational institutions of Imperial China - producing academics who knows the texts, training bureaucrats and technocrats, but not entrepreneurs or visionaries.
There's no shortage of elite academic institutions in US or Japan. But most success stories like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs don't come about from following the beaten path.
To get talented and high performing citizens to take up political leadership in Singapore is a tough sell - to have to subordinate to a party system which they might have some objections to. High caliber people have their own ideas and wouldn't readily follow the old guards. Political parties like those in the US have room for dissessions within the ranks, but not Singapore.
Perhaps, a better democratic system in Singapore might help to prevent the fear of lack of talent in the political leadership in Singapore.
ReplyDeleteCheck out http://disgruntledsporean.blogspot.com/2007/07/taiwanese-on-singapore.html
I agree with your view of small population of SIngapore.
ReplyDeleteAs said, Singapore does lack an entreupreneur and creativity culture. Even companies like creativity inc. are just counted as minorities of success story.
Perhaps, you might want to read about the story of the success of Taiwan's strong Hi-Tec industry, where today most of PC and electronic parts, handphone, I-pod to Playstation were made by Taiwanese Hi-tec firm. The creativity and entreupeneurship culture was started in 1980 to encourage Taiwan talents to return from US to Taiwan. They were actually classmates who studied and worked in the US but returned to Taiwan and founded companies such as TSMC, UMC..together with other Hi-Tec firm such as ACER, ASUS, Hon Hai Precision etc. Btw, they were all located near to my hometown in Hsinchu. ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) was home to more than 4600 research engineers in Taiwan. Since the 1990s, Taiwanese electronic firm has moved from just OEM to firms that self-design and innovate new products.
Even in China, most of the IT parts manufactured and exported to the world are run by Taiwanese-invested firms with management, marketing and technology expertise from Taiwan.
For more info, check out http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_20/b3933011.htm
Read also the story of Taiwnan's Entrepreneurship Spirit at http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/taiwan-story/science/tw_s06.html
I feel that Singapore may be small, but it has certain advantages such as greater communication link with different parts of world, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, world class facilities.
In Taiwan, the 'hardworking' entrepeneur culture is often paraded as "打拼精神“ as illustrated in the famous hokkien song "Ai Biang Zhe E Yang 爱拼才会赢". Perhaps, it has some influence in Singapore, but Singapore seems to be more interested in the Kiasu 怕输 culture, which has a negative impact on entrepreneurship.
The laws and the constitution has been changed many times since independence, surely your objections must reach further back then?
ReplyDeleteOur system is such that in a parliament dominated by one party they can change the law as they see fit. The solution to prevent this is to elect more opposition members.
I don't think very much of Mr Brown or Talking Cock. They typically offer no solutions, only sarcasm and whining (How Singaporean). Some of the opposition websites and artciles make for better reading, mostly they are rational, put forth their own arguments and offer an alternative.
GZ made an interesting comparison to Taiwan and I think he missed a couple of points about why Taiwanese are more willing to return and build their bases in Taiwan. One; Taiwan has enough of a hinterland and growth engine in China to make it lucrative to be based back home. Singapore has Malaysia but the nature of Singapore's relations and cultural affinity with our neighbours pretty much means we are a market unto ourselves. Going overseas pretty much means going global. Hong Kong as another example too can leverage on their relation with China, something they have capitalised very strongly on for the past 8 years.
Second, and perhaps more importantly Taiwanese (and to a lesser extent Hong Kong) have a greater cultural affinity with their own country. This might sound weird at first, but the fact is culture plays important role in how people see a place. When a Taiwanese goes home, he walks the streets hearing the language of his childhood, sees his Chinese signs on every street and shop, can converse in his mother tongue to everyone he sees, can visit his ancestors graves to pay his respects, partake in festivities he grew up with as a kid. All these things are hard to experience at least authentically overseas. So when he is back in Taiwan he feels at home. Many Singaporeans on the other hand do not identify strongly with their cultural elements, some of the cultural elements they do identify strongly with is, well, not of their own and can be found anywhere (Christmas for example) Unfortunately too many Singaporeans see the good in other places but do not relate to what makes Singapore truly Singapore.
In this we do have some disadvantages, we are a very young nation, we are a very westernised one, while we pay lip service to the cultures of our ancestors, most kids growing up today are more likely to identify with American/European culture than they do with Asian culture. in the cultural movement to appear modernised, cosmopolitan and cool, increasingly cultural traditions have been thrown to the wind and discarded as being old-fashioned, superstitious or just plain un-cool. (The last four weddings I attended did not have the traditional Yam-seng toast, i get the impression all the brides thought it was way uncool and couth)
So all else being equal what draws people back to their own countries are cultural affinities. You need to feel that you are home.
Not really. I'm not particularly aware of significant changes made without parliamentary votes taken.
ReplyDeletePerhaps significance might be a matter of perspective. I personally do not think much about making casinos legal, and cannot empathise with the hoo-haa over it. Changes to the ISA, jurisdiction of legal apparatus from overseas (i.e. UK) and the abolishment of juries are to me more significant changes than allowing casinos.
ReplyDeleteWere these done without Parliamentary votes?
ReplyDeleteI am not sure, I can try to check.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I think I have little right to complain about it as those particular changes which probably occurred before I took up citizenship in 1996, though I did become more politically aware about a couple of years or so before that.
ReplyDeleteCan't recall which year was GRC introduced, and whether I was a citizen then, but I shot some pointed questions about it to YPAPs who were assigned to defend it on cyberspace, then mostly limited to soc.culture.singapore . They kept quiet when they couldn't answer my questions, at least not publicly or leave any evidence.
I think, it all depends on individual. Young Singaporeans are English educated. That means they tend to read more books written by Americans/Europeans. Therefore, you are more likely to identify with American/European culture than Asian. Consequently, westernization is there. Even Singapore's surrounding are designed by western architects.
ReplyDeleteBut if you read chinese books or media, you will tend to read books or articles written by China nationals, Taiwanese or any other chinese. You tend to identify more with chinese. You tend to speak more chinese language and appreciate chinese culture.
That's how I transform myself from a pure-english-oriented mindset to a more chinese-oriented mindset by immersing myself in chinese studies.
Just to highlight a further point I made about Taiwan's attractiveness from business/financial point of view:
ReplyDeletehttp://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080506/tbs-tpg-taiwan-china-21231dd.html
Taiwan is going to be see better years as investment flows back.