Problem is the status quo will be compromised. This policy to attract foreign ‘talents’ would only intensify, and these naive Singaporeans believe the situation will improve for the better, and stubbornly hold onto their livelihoods in this nation entrenched in a vicious cycle which will lead to its downfall.

I’m a Singaporean but why have I mentioned Singaporeans as ‘they’ instead of ‘we’? Because in my heart, I’ve no longer considered myself Singaporean. The one-party hegemony was commendable in the 70s to 80s because we needed a strong party to establish the backbone of a new nation. The one-party hegemony disgusts me now because it is a facade to abuse power and authority, crafting policies without considering the welfare of the citizens who slog so hard to make this nation a reality in the first place.

Those who wish to stay naive and allow your future generations to suffer, feel free to do so. For myself, I still have a year of university education to go, and I already have migration plans in mind. 2 in fact, and what’s left is to do well in my studies to make myself more appealing and eligible for the schemes. I’ve wasted 2 years of my life doing NS, whereas my female peers are already independently earning their own keep, and those darn foreign ‘talents’ who steal our ricebowls are walking around the city as if they’re kings.

I’m not gonna waste another minute contending with the government’s policies. We’re pretty much powerless against an established one-party hegemony which has sunk its roots deep in our soil for decades. I advise you to do the same.

Thank you for your reply. Actually, I have been steaming about this issue since I graduated. I am surprised that this practice has been going on for more than a decade. A decade should be more than enough time to correct bad execution of a good policy. I had to let off some steam by posting some comments on my blog.

NS for Singaporeans
Job Opportunities for FT

Why are Singaporeans still asleep???

We have to vote them out. period.

All these nonsense and BS should not be tolerated anymore. Unless of course you want your children and grandchildren to suffer. Whatever situation we are in now would only get worse if the MIW are still around. Why can’t majority of Singaporeans see this?

Really sick and tired.

Any Government that misuse our thrust or distort the ‘pledge’ will find themselves replaced. No Government is indispensable.
Yes, Governments come and go.
We Singaporeans will continue to grow.

‘We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality, so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation.’

Majulah Singapura – Come, fellow Singaporeans
Let us progress towards happiness together
May our noble aspiration bring
Singapore success
Come, let us unite
In a new spirit
Let our voices soar as one
Onward Singapore
Onward Singapore

Thanks my fellow. Kudos to your views and suggestions. I am currently in my final year of study in uni. Engineering too. Haa. You really need to be one of us to understand how sad it would be to see local unis flooded with foreigners. I have been getting along well with my foreign counterparts and do appreciate their presence. However, it seems that this kind of presence has become overwhelming these days.

Sometimes, it really trigger my thought that are we Singaporean students really that daft or simply lazy? I guess many of us can perform equally well if given the equal opportunities to excel. I sincerely hope that one day, the government would focus more on grooming the local undergrads. Spend more money and sponsor more exchanges with overseas uni. Let the locals be true role models and ambassadors of Singapore’s education to the world. Getting too many foreigners and giving them free education doesn’t reflect good on the country. It not always improve the overall academic standards, but sometimes could tarnish the good reputation of students from local unis.

The article that enraged several Singaporeans did not enrage me. Since my university days, I have already known that the government has been providing free tertiary education plus monthly allowance to PRC/Indian/Asean scholars. This has been going on for more than a decade. NTU/NUS graduates, especially the engineering graduates, will know better.

Attracting foreign talent is a wise policy. Being able to attract the best minds in the world is what made America great. But, if this is done in a manner that discriminates the locals, it will backfire on the country and its political leaders as well.

I got worried about Singapore’s future when a new colleague who just graduated from NUS this year told me that almost all of his coursemates have migration on their minds. My kids are still young, so my stakes are high.

One of the issues that made graduates like him so demoralized as a Singaporean is the way free education + allowance was given out to foreign scholars in the local universities. It is easy to understand why the Singaporean students felt discriminated in their own land. They saw this before their very eyes during their school days. The rantings on internet forums have expressed them all and I do not wish to repeat it here. I would prefer to provide some ideas for improvement rather than complaints against the government.

Attracting foreign students is a good policy. The problem lies with its execution. Some suggestions that I make;

Avoid attracting students from countries with brighter prospects than Singapore

We already know what happened. 1 job application in Shanghai attracted more than 70 applicants from PRC scholars sponsored by Singaporean tax payers. I don’t blame the PRC scholars. It is what the average person will do. We all work for money, don’t we?
It is the same reason why SMEs do not provide training to their employees. Why train them if they will hop to the MNCs eventually? You spend money to train them only if you are confident of retaining them.

Look to economically-backward countries with a ready pool of talent.

The Malaysian Chinese was such a talent pool. If Malaysia back then had boomed like China now, Singapore would have lost these talents. In Singapore, many of the senior management in public-listed companies and even the civil service hail from Malaysia. Malaysia Boleh!

By attracting talent from countries which are not likely to provide richer opportunities than Singapore, our money gone into nurturing them is not likely to go into waste as they are not likely to go home. The loss is not limited to waste of money. We are actually training potential highly intelligent competitors who can destroy us. After the dot-com bust, Taiwanese engineers from Silicon Valley return to Taiwan for greener pastures. Those in the industry will know that the US-trained Taiwanese set up world-beating companies that destroyed prominent US-based Silicon valley companies.

Foreign talent can be a double-edged sword. If the host country is not able to provide ample opportunities to grow these talent, they will go to greener pastures and use their talents against the host country. There is nothing immoral about this. We should not fault them for doing what we would have done ourselves if we were in their shoes.

Enforce penalties for breaking the contract

Working as a design engineer in the electronics industry, I have heard of PRC engineers who return to China without serving their obligation of working in Singapore for 3 years after getting free scholarship in local universities. Authorities should enforce whatever penalties in the contract to punish these contract breakers.

Letting these dishonorable scholars go scot-free is not fair to the past Singaporean bond-breakers who got named and shamed. Unlike the foreign scholars, the bond-breakers did not break the contract. They honourably compensated the authorities for breaking the bond. Their punishment was getting shamed in public. Nothing happened to the foreign scholars who went home. To correct these double-standards, the authorities should get someone of the likes of Philip Yeo with fire in their belly to enforce the penalties for breaching the contract.

At the very least, we can shame these people by placing their names on the internet. This will also benefit global employers when they do checks before hiring these dishonorable people. This will also punish them by impacting their job prospects.

It is fine if people go for greener pastures but it is not ok when they break contract terms. It is bad business practice to allow people who screw you go scot-free because it encourages more people to screw you more. I hate the idea of foreigners laughing at how stupid we are for being such a big sucker.

Foreign scholars must be real talents, not parasites

The recent case of the Indonesian scholar Widjaja who committed suicide after a bloody fight with his lecturer is a good example. He was known to be an avid computer game player which was suspected to be the cause of his C grades. Taxpayers do not pay scholars to come here to play computer games. Students like Widjaja are not exceptional cases. I have met a couple of them during my university days, though they are still a small minority.

The presence of foreign parasites(even 1 or 2) who get free money from taxpayers is a great demoralizer to Singaporean students. Singaporean students who pay for their own education must be convinced that the foreign scholars are real talents. If they see foreign students with poorer results get free education and allowance while they themselves don’t, the locals will think of migration. There must be terrible punishment for foreign scholars who do not perform as expected. Maybe we can get them to make financial compensation for poor academic performance.

Don’t make scholarships completely free. Free stuff nurtures parasites. I know this because I have personally encountered lazy foreign scholars during my university days, fortunately their numbers were small. We spend money to nurture talent, not parasites. Put some co-payment component into the scholarship.

Get foreign scholars to spend time tutoring the weak locals

Make it compulsory for foreign scholars to tutor the weak locals to earn their monthly allowance. If the foreign scholars fall behind in their own grades, they lose their monhtly allowance as they are no longer eligible to teach the weak. They have become the weak!

Another advantage is that this will encourage social integration with the locals. The closer social links these foreigners forge with our country will encourage them to stay put here.

Spend more money nurturing local talents

When local talents go for greener pastures by job-hopping from company to company, only the company suffers. The country still gains as these people stay within the country. When foreign talent move out of the country and compete against us, the host country loses big-time.

It is surprising that I even have to put in this suggestion as common sense dictates that we should spend more money on ourselves than on others. The fact is that there is a growing perception among Singaporeans that the government is allocating too much resources on foreigners at the expense of its own people. I think government will take steps to correct this perception as the election nears.

Majority of employee class Singaporeans are still unaware that they will be jobless soon. In George Yeo’s reply to kojakbt_89 about RWS hiring Singaporeans, he said that:

“MOM’s policy is to set dependency ratios and leave it to companies to operate freely within them. I don’t think MOM will release data for specific companies. CPF info is confidential. Why not get an MP to ask the question in Parl, PAP or Opp or NMP? But under MOM, no MFA please.”

http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=3in1kopitiam&msg=29090.1

So what does dependency ratios mean? The answer can be found from MOM website:

http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/work_permit/application/requirements/computation_of_company.html

e.g. For a Services Sector company (dependency ratio 50%) with a total of 10 employees, they can hire 5 PRs and 5 foreigners. You see, a company can don’t hire a single Singaporean citizen and still comply with MOM regulations without breaking the law. This is because PR and Singapore citizens are considered as “local”. We also know how easy it is for foreigners to obtain Singapore PR nowadays.

http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/work_permit/application/requirements/Services_Sector.html

But with the rise of China, a lot of new opportunities opening up in China, these students have no qualms NOT TO SERVE THE BOND but head straight back. They believe they would not never step into Singapore if they get a job back home.