Singapore - Three principles should guide state-society relations

By Gillian Koh For The Straits Times  Nov 22, 2013

Three principles should guide state-society relations: the responsibility to engage, to compromise, and to act.

  

THIS year has been a year of focus on state-society engagement. In August, the Prime Minister conveyed how his government has heard the people in the year-long public engagement exercise called Our Singapore Conversation (OSC). Apart from the omnibus policy review process of the OSC, the Government has also engaged civil society activists on a range of issues - from animal welfare where the rules have changed, to harassment this week where better laws may be formulated. When we look at the voluntary and civil society landscape and how the Government has responded to it, we can discern significant developments.

In May 1998, when the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) held its first national conference on civil society, all applications to register a society went through a slow track with no responsibility by the Registry of Societies to explain its decision if they were denied. There was no such thing as the Speakers' Corner, much less any consideration of whether or where one could organise a demonstration. Mention migrant workers and you might think of the Marxist Conspiracy. If you wanted to write and stage a play, you had to answer to the police. In terms of their standing with the Government, the "helping hands" voluntary welfare sector and grassroots network under the People's Association were the "welcomed half"; the "thinking heads" of independent groups, who added public advocacy to their service, were adversaries.

This year, some rules relating to civil society have changed - but it has not been a linear progression towards liberalisation or a free-for-all. The picture is more diverse and complex; regulation has become more nuanced with more room for free play but tighter in areas that the Government is most concerned about - activism around civil, political and animal rights; governance, and some would add, the media, given the recent attention-grabbing rules on online news sites. Nonetheless, many groups have found instances of productive engagement with the Government where input was sought - policies were changed and programmes introduced to the benefit of broader society.

In the area of the arts and expression, while public consultation on censorship rules is not new, there is greater use of citizen advisory councils to consider and deliver decisions on a wide range of issues. There are schedules of organisations and artists qualified by their track record that get "green lane" approval for their work ostensibly from the Media Development Authority, not the police. The once-proscribed form of Forum Theatre is now widely used.

In the area of nature and heritage conservation, a moratorium was placed on the redevelopment of Chek Jawa, a unique wetlands ecosystem which nature lovers hope will remain for a long time to come. Nature advocates have regularly given input on Singapore's national green and sustainability plans, and although regrettably the moves to save all of Bukit Brown were unsuccessful, government plans were adjusted.

Women's, migrant workers' and human rights groups have managed to make an impact too. Think of the dismantling of gender quotas in medical school, the introduction of the domestic maid's day off rule amidst public outcry, the new more compassionate regime in recognising the rights of injured migrant workers.

This week, advocates against the death penalty celebrated the court's decision to spare a drug courier the gallows because judges now have discretionary power to impose life terms in place of mandatory death sentences previously.

In this year's conference on civil society held by the IPS, former Nominated Member of Parliament Walter Woon said there will be a need for deeper and more meaningful engagement between civil society and Government, and a need to entrench civic virtues in Singapore for four reasons. First, Singapore is going to be a more crowded city. Second, there will be a greater diversity of interests even within civil society; third, technology, especially online media, will amplify that diversity; and fourth, political contestation will increase as education develops the populace's nose for issues of fairness and justice.

Given those trends and the lessons from the journey of successful civil society-Government engagement mentioned above, three key operating principles appear to be even more critical for the future of governance in Singapore.

Rules of engagement

FIRST is the responsibility to engage.

How can this process be further institutionalised in Government as well as among the public and civil society? Many may not know that the Government already has a protocol that requires civil servants to vouch that all new policies and legislation have benefited from public consultation before they are presented to the Cabinet for decision-making. 

However, the rationale, skills and language of engagement have to be more deeply embedded into how the Government operates. A larger corps of public-sector leaders have to be given the mandate to do the day-to-day engagement on the nitty-gritty of ground-up concerns, not wait for government ministers to weigh in.

With increasing diversity of interests across society, there will be contests over achieving different definitions of the public good. It is good that people are at liberty to make their own lifestyle choices, while upholding traditional family and cultural values. It is good to conserve our heritage, and also good to make room for new homes and roads where we can.

Both government and non-government platforms are needed to mediate among multiple stakeholders. The good practice of the multi-channelled OSC, where there was interaction among members of the public as well as between them and government leaders, has to be reinforced.

Implicit in that process is the second principle - the responsibility to compromise.

Again, the multitude of stakeholders and public-sector leaders have to trust that each is well-intentioned until proven otherwise. They need an "intercultural" approach to engagement, with all sides trying to appreciate the value system, organisational culture and motivations of the other, in order to identify what is non-negotiable and areas where there can be give and take.

This has to apply to intra-civil society conflict too. Finally, all sides will need equal access to the information that is relevant to the issue at hand. The spirit of compromise and the art of agreeing to disagree in an agreeable manner will be needed. "The brat response", as Professor Woon termed it, of being fixed in a position until one gets one's way, should be rejected. So, while new rules and laws may be needed to guide our public life, and the courts and general elections can serve as final arbiters in the worst case, it is the "habits of the heart" that must lead in state-society engagement. This is what another public intellectual Kwok Kian Woon has called "soft law" - the civic virtues of reasoning, discretion and humility. Humility reminds us that our decisions can only be contingent on the context and best available knowledge at hand. We must then leave those who follow to do better.

The third principle is the responsibility to act.

This is what emerged in the many stories of activists over the past decades - neither the Government nor civic activists were obdurate in their positions, nor only waiting for the other to act. Just do it

LAST year, a leading civil society organisation Aware mounted its "End All Violence to Women" campaign and asked opinion-makers to mobilise their own networks to call out crimes of spousal abuse. This year, Catholic social agency Caritas' new campaign on poverty aims to engage the broader public to do what they can for the poor, in their own way. The Lien Foundation has gone ahead to pilot new forms of pre-school education that help disadvantaged kids level up rather than wait for some national curriculum to arrive.

Riding on social networks and civic action, civil society and the state together can make more progress in reducing litter and illegal parking in private neighbourhoods, wiping out dengue, enhancing cross-cultural interaction at workplaces, and calling out bullying at school.

The petitionary culture of always asking "what is the Government doing about it" has to be reduced as it diminishes us as a people. Rules, laws and other government action may be necessary but insufficient to produce the pro-social behaviour we need. In fact, in some areas, peer-to- peer action would be far more effective - whether it is to disavow the flaming of a public intellectual for his call for cautious discussion on the recent hijab issue, or to reject the strategy of hacktivists like Anonymous threatening to bring down government websites, ostensibly to protest against the curbing of online media. We can tell perpetrators that they do not do these acts on our behalf and remind them of Gandhi's maxim, "the means we employ are the ends in the making".

The responsibility to engage, the responsibility to compromise and the responsibility to act - these are the habits that have to be more broadly propagated to take us on a clear evolution towards a progressive, civilised and inclusive society.

stopinion@sph.com.sg

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore. A detailed report of the Conference on Civil Society 2013 can be found online at IPS Commons.

US Government shut-down: what, why, who

Dan Roberts

theguardian.com, Monday 30 September 2013

What's going on?

Congress is fighting over how to authorise funding for the federal government beyond September. This used to be a fairly routine stage in the budget process, but has been hijacked by House Republicans, who are using the opportunity to make one last attempt to block Obamacare, the president's initiative to extend health insurance to those without cover.

Democrats in the Senate are refusing to pass any so-called "continuing resolution" if it weakens Obamacare, making a government shutdown increasingly likely.

What's really going on?

A battle for the soul of the Republican party is waging between conservatives with presidential ambitions or long-term ideological goals, and more moderate lawmakers who are worried about losing control of the House in the 2014 midterms.

Speaker John Boehner was initially reluctant to link Obamacare to the continuing resolution because he feared the inevitable shutdown would be blamed on Republicans and hurt their electoral chances much as it did to his predecessor Newt Gringrich after the last shutdown in the 1990s. However, an influential group of Tea Party radicals in the House has teamed up with senator Ted Cruz to force Boehner into a more confrontational strategy.

Who's to blame for this?

Boehner's weakness as leader of the House caucus is a big part of the problem. He struck a last-minute deal with vice-president Joe Biden to avert the last budget standoff, dubbed the fiscal cliff, in January, but this angered many on the right of his party, exacerbating rather than defusing the simmering tension.

He has little support from majority leader Eric Cantor, who is thought to be angling for his job, and Republican whip Kevin McCarthy, who is close to the Tea Party. Nevertheless, the majority of House Republicans were not previously thought to be so rabidly anti-government, and Boehner has failed to use their numerical advantage to further his more cautious instincts.

Other party heavyweights such as Cruz, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are willing to let the Tea Party prevail because they need the right wing on their side to win a 2016 presidential primary. Senate majority leader Harry Reid is not without some blame either: urging President Obama against any talks at all with Republicans, who the Democrats compare to "terrorists".

Why now?

Congress has been at loggerheads over the federal budget ever since Democrats lost control of the House in 2010. As well as the fiscal cliff drama that played out over New Year, both parties narrowly averted a government shutdown in 2011 by striking a last-minute deal to cut spending.

This time, however, their differences may be harder to resolve because so much bad blood has already been spilled. Politically, Obama has little to lose from severing communications with congressional Republicans, because they are already blocking the two other things that matter to him – gun control and immigration – and is therefore even more reluctant to give up his only other big domestic achievement by delaying Obamacare.

But this lame duck status only encourages presidential hopefuls in both parties to focus more on jostling for longer-term advantage. The coincidence of this lapse in existing spending authorisation with the start of Obamacare's insurance exchanges and the forthcoming breach of government debt limits in two weeks may have led to a perfect storm.

Does it matter?

Government shutdowns have been survived before. In the 1970s they were commonplace – at least, until a legal ruling that forced non-essential workers to stay at home rather than work for IOUs. The second of Bill Clinton's standoffs with Newt Gringrich lasted 21 days over New Year 1995-6.

This time, however, the US economy is in much weaker shape, with a fragile recovery seen as vulnerable to the dip in consumer confidence that a protracted shutdown would probably bring. More worryingly, the debt ceiling breach expected on October 17 presents an incentive for diehards on both sides to keep fighting their corner as long as possible.

If a shutdown is not resolved within a week or so, the two issues are likely to be conflated into one giant standoff that threatens not just federal workers but the world economy.

How will it end?

A slightly more optimistic scenario is that Boehner succeeds in using the upcoming debt fight as a way to persuade his hardliners to let the continuing resolution pass and postpone their Obamacare fight until next month. This would only buy time, but would at least bring the shutdown to a swift conclusion.

The chances of more lasting resolution, or "grand bargain", as it optimistically became known during the fiscal cliff drama, look close to zero, with the sides where they are at present. The best hope for many Democrats is that Republicans receive so much public opprobrium that they lose the 2014 midterms or change tack to avoid that happening.

Conservative Republicans would be happy to see Obama forced to cede as much power as possible over domestic policy and are likely to carry on focusing on their core supporters, perhaps until after the 2016 primaries. And Speaker Boehner may be happy if he can strike a deal that lets him hang on to his job for another few weeks.

The Idea Of Singapore

 By Lee Soo Ann

IN WRITING Singapore: From Place To Nation for students, I came to the paradoxical conclusion that Singapore is no more than a place where foreigners sustain foreigners. More accurately, it is a case of one kind of foreigner sustaining another kind.

Singapore may be returning from being a nation to being a place again. What had sustained Singapore, then, in its history?

During the British trading settlement in 1819, Singapore was established by the East India Company out of maritime rivalry between the British and the Dutch at that time. Located in Malacca, the Dutch had a chokehold on shipping going to China unless the British could establish a station south of Malacca. Stamford Raffles had heard of Temasek from the Malay Annals, which he could read from his knowledge of Malay acquired when he was governor of Java. Consequently he sailed to the mouth of the Singapore River and, as the saying goes, the rest is history.

The location of Singapore at the tip of the Malay peninsula gave sailing ships an advantage when resting between the two monsoons, unlike resting in Penang, which was already British, as it was too far north. Chinese junks used to sail from China to South-east Asia from Zheng He's time. Its location on the Strait of Malacca route to Australia and New Zealand gave Singapore a further advantage when the telegraph and telephone linked Britain to these colonies. With the shift to steam from sailing ships, Singapore became a coaling depot, for ships sailing to Japan and China as well. Singapore's proximity to oilfields in Sarawak made it into an oil distribution centre.

One may conclude that the prime maritime location of Singapore is responsible for its success in its first hundred years as a British territory. However, the location of Singapore has never changed in its entire history.

What did change was the capacity of foreigners to meet foreigners in Singapore in safety and to make a living for themselves. The Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824 ensured that Dutch rivalry did not menace the economic growth of Singapore. The Dutch had all of the 15,000 islands of what is now Indonesia to grapple with. Foreigners meeting foreigners is not a new concept but British rule made this concept real in Singapore. When foreigners brought with them different currencies as the medium of exchange, the British instituted the Straits dollar. This dollar gave birth to local banks which complemented the previous dominance by British exchange banks. The British left each ethnic community to largely police itself and the growth of free trade was accompanied by the free inflow and outflow of people. Only during the 1930s Depression was there a limit on the number of males allowed in. Women however were not subject to quotas, and considerable numbers came during the 1930s, which contributed to equalising the sex ratio, the consequential formation of families, and the baby boom of the 1940s and 1950s.

The limited self-government in 1955 followed by full internal self-government in 1959 saw a different group of foreigners entering Singapore to play an active role, and these were from the Federation of Malaya formed in 1948. As Singapore was a British colony until 1963, Britain allowed those "up country" to enter Singapore. Many Malaysians entered Singapore after it was separated from being part of the Straits Settlements in 1946. The 1957 Citizenship Act created Singapore citizenship, and many foreign-born residents of Singapore (especially those born in China) took advantage of the provision that they had stayed in Singapore for several years previous to 1957 to obtain citizenship. This explains why there were many pro-communist Singaporeans who were able to enter politics.

Many Malaysians who entered Singapore became Singapore citizens. It was only after 1965, when Singapore separated from Malaysia, that Singapore citizenship was more strictly granted.

The People's Action Party (PAP) government, which came into power in 1959, had many of these foreign-born citizens. Many of the leaders of the PAP were from the Federation. In the 1959 Cabinet, only one - Mr Lee Kuan Yew - was born in Singapore.

It was a case of one kind of foreigner sustaining another kind, those born in the Federation sustaining those born in China, to put it in broad terms. Of course, there were Singaporeans born in Singapore, but they were in the minority, for the simple reason that for the several decades before 1946, the majority of those residing in Singapore were males. In 1911, the percentage of Singapore island Chinese born in British Malaya was 20 per cent. In 1947, the percentage improved but was still only 40 per cent. British Malaya meant Penang, Malacca and Singapore. If we were to remove those born in Penang and Malacca, the percentage of Singapore island Chinese born in Singapore would be much lower. Singapore citizenship before 1957, if granted according to Straits Settlements rules, was obtained by only the small minority born in Singapore.

Singapore was essentially an immigrant society, a frontier town, and it was only from the late 1940s onwards, with the onset of the baby boom, that those born in Singapore became more numerous. However these Singaporeans born in Singapore at that time were infants and children. They are now adults, of course, but then another spurt in those foreign born came from the 1980s onward.

A major reason is the fright Singapore leaders had after Separation in 1965, of the 1970 withdrawal of the British armed forces. The Government initiated anti-natal policies in 1970, which started with the legalisation of abortion. Abortions rose to one-third of pregnancies, and births fell. The level of abortions has now fallen, but is still around 10,000 a year.

Rising educational opportunities for women meant that they could join the workforce and seek further education for themselves, which limited them to the men whom they could look up to, unless the men themselves became better-educated.

Home ownership used to be of basic units, but over the course of time, there was continuous upgrading with couples choosing to live "beyond" their means, so that both husband and wife needed to work to pay off the mortgage. The extension of housing loan terms from 20 to 30 years after the 1985 recession meant that couples saddled with long-term loans were less likely to want larger families.

What this meant was that the intake of foreigners had to be liberalised, from "traditional" sources like Malaysia to "non-traditional" sources such as Thailand and Bangladesh for construction, the Philippines and Indonesia for domestic helpers, and so on.

The foreign worker levy was introduced in 1990 to ensure that the cost to the employer of employing a foreigner would be equal to that of employing a Singaporean, but as this levy was in absolute and not percentage terms, eventually the cost of employing a foreigner fell.

And so it is today that the wages required to attract a foreigner may be high for the foreigner, though low for the Singaporean, so that the wage level in Singapore tends to be set by the foreigner. The average wage level for the Singaporean has not risen much in the last 10 years.

On paper, there are 3.5 million Singaporeans and 1.5 million foreigners, but these foreigners are largely working adults. However, only two million Singaporeans are working, the others being those who are old or young or still studying.

It is true that foreigners are needed to sustain the Singapore economy but the Singapore economy also needs substantial numbers of foreigners. Foreigners are helping to sustain foreigners!

If we take into account the fact that a substantial portion of Singaporeans are actually foreign-born (either in China or India or some other place, or Malaysia), the dominance of "foreign" Singaporeans is unquestioned. Singapore is now a place where foreigners meet and help one another, much like what it was then under British rule.

Those leading Singapore now can be likened to those who governed Singapore under British rule. This was largely beneficent rule, for the British did not "exploit" Singapore like what some other European powers did in their rule. Singapore did not have commodities or crops which could be supplied to the "mother" country.

Singapore was merely a place from where Britain managed its economic interests in South-east Asia, for not only was there Peninsular Malaya, but there were also Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei.

Those who govern Singapore now need to have the ability of the British to manage different kinds of foreigners, and in large numbers too.

The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and also the Department of Economics at the National University of Singapore.

This is an edited version of the essay that is published in Commentary Volume 22, The Idea Of Singapore, The National University of Singapore Society.

The Straits Times

Published on May 04, 2013

China's population policy

By John Wong, For The Straits Times

China's one-child policy has outlived its usefulness and needs to be changed before it has a further negative impact on economic growth.

  

FIRST introduced in 1979 as one of its ''core state policies'' in the reform period, China''s family planning policy (jihua shengyu zhengce), commonly known as the one-child policy, has since been very controversial. This is because it restricts most, if not all, urban couples to only one child (boy or girl), though many exceptions have been variously applied in rural areas and for ethnic minorities. It is probably the world''s harshest population control programme affecting the largest number of people - about 60 per cent of China''s population.

With the policy having outlived its usefulness, President Xi Jinping now appears set to change it. But China will have to live with some of the unintended consequences for some time.

From the start, the government had to introduce draconian measures to ensure its implementation. The policy caused a lot of suffering (such as forced abortions), along with a number of negative social consequences, including female infanticide and a serious gender imbalance.

The government has justified the huge social cost by claiming that the policy prevented 250 million births between 1980 and 2000 or 400 million births between 1979 and 2011. This has, in turn, alleviated many economic, social and environmental problems that would have accompanied a higher population growth.

Mao and Malthus

ADVOCATING family planning was traditionally seen as opposed to orthodox Marxist ideology.

Back in 1957, when economist Ma Yinchu (then president of Peking University) proposed a mild form of family planning, Mao came down hard on him for being a ''Neo-Malthusian''. To Mao, every additional mouth meant an additional pair of hands. China''s population was then around 650 million, but growing rapidly at over 2 per cent a year. China thus missed its first chance of reining in population growth. 

By the time Deng Xiaoping was about to embark on his economic reform in 1979, China''s total population had swelled to nearly a billion. It was growing at 1.5 per cent a year, with a total fertility rate (TFR, the average number of children per woman) at around 2.6.

State councillor Song Jian, a rocket scientist by profession, then put forth his ''Theory of Population Control'' to Deng. According to Mr Song, China''s population would reach 1.7 billion before the year 2000 by simple extrapolation, and possibly 2.7 billion in the following 50 years.

THAT was a staggering number to Deng and his economic planner Chen Yun. Both still had fresh memories of how Mao had struggled to feed China''s teeming millions when its population was then well below a billion. Deng immediately realised how this potential ''population time bomb'' would jeopardise his economic reform efforts. Clearly, any reform benefits would quickly be eaten up by population growth. China would risk running into what development economists call the ''low-level equilibrium trap''.

Furthermore, population growth is not just about its exponential rate of increase (what the Malthusians call ''geometric progression''). It is also about the least understood problem of ''hidden momentum'': the time needed for a baby girl to grow up to produce another baby girl. In other words, any demographic change requires at least one generation to produce the desired results.

It thus became clear to Deng and Chen that controlling population growth was crucial for the success of his economic reforms. The only way to achieve the desired level of population growth level within the required time frame was therefore to beat the ''time dynamics'' by squeezing the fertility rate well below its natural replacement level. And this would have to start immediately.

Implementation

IN 1980, Chen thus declared: ''Our present priority is to advocate for one child birth per couple''. Such is the origin of the one-child policy, with TFR at 1. The National Population Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) was soon set up, which would subsequently spawn a huge bureaucracy of over 500,000 staff all over China. Suffice it to say that the policy was not a political or ideological product; but rather, a very bold and pragmatic pro-reform and pro-growth social experiment based on ''hard numbers''.

China''s total population by last year had grown to 1.35 billion from 975 million in 1979 - a 38 per cent or so rise in three decades. In the same period, China''s total nominal gross domestic product (GDP) increased from 410 billion yuan to a hefty 52 trillion yuan, or a 126-fold increase. Its per-capita GDP also increased 92 times. Viewed from the angle of reform and economic growth, the policy has indeed achieved spectacular success. In fact, the policy has been too successful by overshooting its original targets. Since the early 1990s, China''s TFR has fallen below the replacement level of 2.1.

Successful economic development everywhere is the best contraceptive, as it is bound to bring about a sharp decline of TFR. The official TFR from the NPFPC (which has become an interest group lobbying for a continuation of this policy) was for years put at 1.8. More realistic independent estimates for current TFR are around 1.5 to 1.6. For Beijing and Shanghai, the TFR has dropped to only 0.7, the lowest in the world.

Social dynamics

DEMOGRAPHY is much more than just counting heads. Mr Song Jian had no doubt got the numbers right. But, along with many Chinese leaders in those days - all of whom have similar science and technology backgrounds - Mr Song was oblivious, if not ignorant, of the many underlying socio- economic forces associated with rapid demographic transition. As population growth declines, its structure also changes. Once its TFR falls below the replacement level, the population starts decreasing in size and then growing older. China''s population is expected to peak in about 10 years at 1.45 billion. Last year, the share of population over 65 reached 9.4 per cent, compared to only 4.5 per cent in 1979. More seriously in 2012, the age-related labour force started to shrink for the first time. This means that China has started to lose its comparative advantage in labour-intensive manufacturing activities.

All in all, the one-child policy has long outlived itself, with socio- economic costs increasingly out-weighing the initial benefits. Though the policy has been relaxed over the years, Mr Xi is set to change the policy further or even abolish it altogether.

With continuing economic development and urbanisation, the decision of a Chinese couple today to have children will increasingly depend on the family income, the cost of bringing up children, opportunity costs in terms of leisure and the wife''s career, and so on. Such is the microeconomic theory of fertility behaviour associated with the Chicago School.

Singapore is the case in point. All the Government''s pro-natal efforts, including handing out generous incentives and benefits to women, have not succeeded in reversing the declining TFR trend.

Accordingly, China''s new population policy, in whatever form, might just come too late. All demographic factors are long-term in nature. At present, China has not yet faced labour shortages. But the overall adverse effect of a declining population growth will slowly set in. The long-term challenge for China is how to get rich before getting old.

The writer is a professorial fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore.

 The Straits Times  Published on Nov 13, 2013

A global education for a global age

By Fareed Zakaria

WHEN I arrived at Yale from India in the fall of 1982, I felt distinctly unprepared. I had gone to a first rate, rigorous high school in Mumbai but, like many entering freshmen, I found that Yale operated at a different level.

In one sense, though, I had an advantage. I had studied, in depth, a whole different civilisation, and that background in Indian history, politics and culture gave me a broader context in which to place my Yale education. If Yale's collaboration with the National University of Singapore (NUS) succeeds, it will create on a much grander and more sophisticated scale a global education, a unique blend of East and West, which would be a vital asset in an increasingly connected world.

Criticisms of the Yale-NUS venture have centred on Singapore's politics. This has obscured the fact that Yale-NUS is, above all, a pioneering educational experiment. Yale and NUS hope to create a new model for liberal arts education in Asia - with lessons for all of us all over the world.

Imagine a curriculum in which students read Aristotle but also Confucius, who was his contemporary, and ask whether culture or politics explains each thinker's concerns. Imagine studying the rule of Charles V, the Hapsburg emperor, but then comparing him to Akbar, who ruled more people in India contemporaneously. Imagine an introduction to science that focused on solving problems rather than memorising a body of material. The goal of the project is to create a liberal arts curriculum that spans Western, Asian and other traditions, that trains rigorously in science and social science and that will, as a result, provide inspiration for Asia's burgeoning universities and societies.

A few years ago, the previous minister of education of Singapore, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who played a key role in the proposal to bring the liberal arts to his country, compared the Singaporean and American systems: 'We both have meritocracies. Yours is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. We know how to train people to take exams. You know how to use people's talents to the fullest. Both are important, but there are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well - like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority.'

This is the impressive and appropriate source of the Singapore Government's interest in liberal arts education. And Yale, more than any other institution I know, has 'a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom'. That is the kind of culture that Yale hopes to see develop on the Singapore campus.

Many top Singaporean and other Asian students already come to the United States to get this kind of education, but ultimately, for critical pedagogy of this type to spread throughout Asia, there need to be functioning models of high-quality, engaged and creative teaching in Asia itself. That is what Yale-NUS College will provide - a model for conducting residential liberal arts education in Asia.

In talking with the faculty and administrators who have been involved in planning, I have been impressed with three facets of the college: the commitment to critical and creative thinking, the efforts to link residential life ambitiously to the educational missions of the college and the effort to reinvigorate traditional liberal arts curricula for the needs of contemporary students in Asia. By testing our ideas in a very different context, however, we will surely learn things that will be helpful in enhancing the educational experience at Yale.

Singapore is not a liberal democracy, though it is not so different from many Western democracies at earlier stages of development. It is not the caricature one sometimes reads about. Singapore is open to the world, embraces free markets and is routinely ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

It has also become more open over the last 10 years. In fact, it is to enhance and enrich this process that Singapore has invited Yale to help create a liberal arts college. There will be differences in perspectives among students and faculty, foreigners and locals, but that makes it an ideal place to engage with issues of democracy and liberalism.

I can imagine a fascinating seminar on democracy that would be much feistier in Singapore than at Yale precisely because there will be those who take positions quite critical of what is received wisdom in the West.

Singapore has a great deal to learn from America, and NUS has a great deal to learn from Yale. That's why they have engaged in this collaboration. But it is a form of parochialism bordering on chauvinism - on the part of supposedly liberal and open-minded intellectuals - not to see that we too, in America and at Yale, can learn something from Singapore.

In fact, together, Yale and the National University of Singapore can teach the world a new way to think about education in a globalised world.

The writer is the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, editor-at-large of Time magazine and a successor trustee of the Yale Corporation.

This article first appeared at www.yaledailynews.com

The Straits Times, Published on Apr 7, 2012

Our home: Think big, plan long term

By Liu Thai Ker

THE current debate on population consists of two key aspects.

On the one hand, the Population White Paper touches on issues related to our ageing population, the low birth rate by Singaporeans, the social impact of a high percentage of foreigners and so on.

On the other hand, there is a complementary paper about achieving quality environment for Singapore at an increased population of up to 6.9 million by 2030. The latter involves the hardware aspect of our nation building - the construction of buildings, roads and other infrastructure.

Let us focus on the hardware issue. In our land-scarce island-nation, where there is almost zero tolerance for mistakes, we have to look at the issues rationally and calmly, with foresight, skill and brave hearts. We have to look past symptoms and identify causes. Only then can we find appropriate solutions with minimum mistakes. The hardware core issues in the current debate on population size should be about limited land, more people, higher density, quality environment as well as the floor area standard per person for all his or her activity needs.

There are a few factors to consider.

First, it is easier to achieve quality environment with a relatively low population density, and increasingly more difficult to achieve quality environment with increasing density. But higher density does not necessarily equal bad environment; conversely, low density does not automatically equal good environment. The key is whether it is well planned. As a reminder, in 1960, we had 1.89 million people. To date, we have 5.3 million - an increase of more than 250 per cent. Despite the increase, and the fact that we are among the densest cities in the world, we have managed to be consistently ranked among the world's most liveable cities.

The message here is, given clear vision, determination and skills, we can manage high density as well as good environment. In other words, we can have our cake and eat it too.

Second, very few city governments are able to stop population growth by sheer decree. This is especially so if the city needs to stay relevant in the global arena. China is unable to stop the population growth of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Even small countries in Scandinavia are experiencing population growth, although at a much slower pace than Asian countries and cities. Therefore, in Singapore, we can only try to find ways to slow down, rather than to stop population growth at an arbitrarily fixed growth rate and for a fixed point in time.

Third, we should bravely face the harsh reality that while our land mass - despite further but not unlimited reclamation - is limited, our nation will last for unlimited years. What should we do then to plan for continuous population increase, even at a lower rate, while retaining and even enhancing the hardware of our physical environment? By quality environment at noticeably higher density, I mean that we will still need to continue to retain our open spaces, golf courses, institutions, amenities as well as a range of low, medium, high and even higher density housing and so on.

These are the core hardware issues. Let us not be unduly distracted by the current symptoms such as the present problems of short supply of public housing, rising property prices, congestion on our MRT, and the occasional flooding of our streets. Though irritating, these are not fundamental issues. Given careful monitoring of supply and demand, as well as timely implementation, these matters can be resolved professionally with imagination and technology.

But we should not pin our hopes unduly on technology to solve our fundamental problems. Nor should we be persuaded by temporary feel-good factors such as pretty park designs, iconic buildings or busy shop streets. We want them, of course, but on the solid foundation of successfully achieving quality macro-environment, at higher density that is sustainable for a long time.

Looking ahead, the issue of the future population size of Singapore is complex: on the one hand we want a good environment; on the other hand we must continue to grow economically with an additional labour force, domestic as well as foreign, in order to maintain our hard-earned position in the world. What we have achieved is truly remarkable. Despite our extremely small size, we have managed, over the last 50 years, to earn many and diverse accolades among the world's top cities. This is the position that we must not only try to maintain, but to enhance as well. 

Any alternative to this scenario is to run the risk of becoming marginalised if we stay in our present comfort zone. It is not something we wish to see for the long-term future of our country, and for our children and grandchildren.

We have attained this highly enviable status not only by foresight, determination, consummate skill and sheer hard work, but above all, also by looking at our problems and needs squarely in the eye. In many cases we have found solutions that were against the fashionable trends of the time elsewhere in the world.

One good example of this special attribute of ours is our public housing policy. Against all criticism, we resorted to building high-rise, high-density public housing as far back as in 1960. We knew that we had no other choice if we were to break the "Backbone Of Housing Shortage" and achieve the seemingly impossible goal of "Home Ownership For Everyone". Our public housing is now studied by nations all over the world. By 1985, Singapore had become a city with no homeless people, no squatters, no poverty ghettoes, no ethnic enclaves. Not many cities around the world today can make that claim.

We must therefore soldier on to solve our unique problems as we have done many times before.

In summary, we need to look past 6.9 million people and look past 2030. We should tally up how many more buildable sites we have (as big as possible) while retaining our quality environment.

However, while physical planners will play a crucial role in shaping the physical environment, their effort should be complemented by a whole of Government effort. That is, being mindful of our limited land supply, we should try to accommodate population growth, local and foreign, at as slow a pace as possible, towards the distant future.

To achieve this, we need to take an even harder look at our education system to nurture smarter talent to drive an even higher value-added economy at increasingly higher productivity.

In the end, we have quality talent, high-yield economic activities, very slow population increase, manageable population density, and quality environment - not only to provide a good home for citizens but also to attract foreign investment and foreign talents with their families.

The writer is a director of RSP Architects Planners & Engineers.

By Invitation features expert views from opinion leaders in the region and Singapore.

The Straits Times

Published on Feb 13, 2013

MDA clarifies online news licensing scheme amid criticism

May 31, 2013 11:18 PM Yahoo Newsroom

Singapore’s media watchdog on Friday clarified new licensing rules for online news sites after the scheme was widely criticised by Singapore’s online community as a move to further restrict press freedom in the city-state.  From June 1, websites that regularly report Singapore news and have significant reach will require individual licences to operate.

Currently, most websites are covered automatically under a class licence scheme. But the Media Development Authority (MDA) will require websites to be individually licensed once they meet two criteria. These are: if they report an average of at least one article per week on Singapore's news and current affairs over a period of two months, and have at least 50,000 unique visitors from Singapore each month over a period of two months. The individual licenses have to be renewed every year.

Under the new framework, these sites must also put up a performance bond of $50,000, similar to that required for niche TV broadcasters. MDA said the move would place such sites on a "more consistent regulatory framework" with traditional news platforms like newspapers and television stations, which are individually licensed. The licence makes clear that online news sites are expected to remove content that is in breach of MDA standards within 24 hours, once notified to do so. This material could cover content that is against the public interest, public security, or national harmony.

Under the scheme, online news sites will need to obtain individual licences if they report at least once a week on Singapore’s news and current affairs over a period of two months, and are visited by at least 50,000 unique IP addresses from Singapore each month. They must then put up a performance bond of $50,000 and comply within 24 hours with any of the regulator’s order to take down objectionable content.

Ten sites currently fit the media regulator's criteria, of which seven are run by Singapore Press Holdings.  The 10 are: straitstimes.com, asiaone.com, businesstimes.com.sg, omy.sg, stomp.com.sg, tnp.sg, zaobao.com as well as the sites for Today newspaper, ChannelNewsAsia and Yahoo News.

Currently, news sites are automatically granted a “class license” that already require them to observe guidelines prohibiting content that incites racial or religious hatred, among others, said the regulator.

More than 20 activists and bloggers behind alternative Singapore news sites such as The Online Citizen, publichouse.sg and TR Emeritus called on MDA to junk the licensing scheme, which they fear would impact citizens’ ability to “receive diverse news information”.

Media Development Authority (MDA) said the new licensing framework would apply only to sites focused on reporting Singapore news and that bloggers’ personal sites would not be subject to the new licensing terms. “The framework is not an attempt to influence the editorial slant of news sites,” MDA asserted.  MDA said it would only step in when complaints are raised to its attention and when it has assessed that the content is in breach of the guidelines. In the past two years, it has only issued one take-down notice for the “Innocence of Muslims” video.

Also, the watchdog clarified that the $50,000 performance bond need not necessarily entail cash up front, and that licencees can consider a banker’s guarantee or insurance. The bond was among the features of the licencing framework that raised concern. The bloggers and activists who called on MDA to ditch the scheme said that the bond would potentially be beyond the means of volunteer-run and personal online platforms like theirs. The group had also said they believe that the introduction of the licencing regime had not gone through the proper and necessary consultation, and had been introduced without clear guidance.

Publichouse.sg’s Andrew Loh noted that the MDA’s clarification on what constituted reporting Singapore news did not jive with its statement on Tuesday defining a “Singapore news programme”.

“I think you're just confusing everyone,” he said in a comment on the MDA’s Facebook page.  Loh and other members of the public also posted on MDA’s Facebook page comments expressing anger over an interview with BBC in which Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for Communications and Information, which oversees the MDA, said, “As long as they [the public] go onto online news sites to read the news, I think it is important for us to make sure that they read the right things….”

Singapore has been accused of having restrictive controls over the media. Recently, it fell 14 places to a record-low 149th position in the latest annual press freedom ranking of Reporters Without Borders.

Malala Yousafzai: Battling for an education in Pakistan

By Orla Guerin BBC News  

When a Taliban gunman shot Malala Yousafzai last October, the bullet travelled beyond her native Swat Valley in northern Pakistan. It echoed around the globe, and ricocheted through another conservative community in the north - with surprising results.

Aid workers, and teachers, began to fight back. They lobbied parents about the need to educate their daughters. They began holding meetings and putting pamphlets through doors. And the Malala effect kicked in - parents refused to be cowed, and sent their daughters back to school. "There was a positive change, especially in the mothers," says Qurratul Ain. "They allow their daughters to go to school and work like Malala, and raise their voices for their rights, especially child rights."

And there was a bonus - enrolment went up, with an extra 30 girls coming to school, swelling the numbers to almost 300. 

'Follow her example'

A slight 10-year-old called Tasleem is one of the new arrivals. She's polite, and chatty, and wants to be a policewoman. Tasleem says her mother was angered by the sight of Malala being rushed away after the attack, fighting for her life. "Before Malala was shot we didn't think we should go to school," she told me. "My Mum saw what happened on TV. That made her think. After this she decided her girls should also be in school and should get a good education. "

Tasleem lowers her eyes when she recalls how the campaigning teenager was shown no mercy. "She was attacked so brutally," she says, "and she had done nothing wrong. The men who shot her probably didn't like that she was helping girls to be educated. We should all follow her example," she says firmly.

Sitting alongside her is Nadia, a studious 10-year old who dreams of being a doctor. Like Tasleem, she is the first girl in her family to go to school. "I used to tell my father I want to go to school," she says. "He always said no. But when my parents heard about Malala's story they said you should go to school. When I started I didn't know anything. Then my teacher explained things to me. I learnt how to read and write, and a lot of other things."

Malala has changed the equation for these girls, in this mountain hamlet. But many children in Pakistan never see the inside of a classroom.

Lost generation

The country has the second highest number of children out of school in the world, and the figures are getting worse. Around 5.4 million children of primary school age don't get an education, according to the latest statistics from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). There are an additional seven million adolescents out of school. And spending on education has been decreasing in recent years. 

Pakistan invests seven times more in the military than in primary schooling. What these numbers add up to is a lost generation.

Many children in Pakistan only learn lessons in hardship. The country has an army of child labourers born into poverty, and often into debt. A leading Children's rights group here, SPARC, estimates they could number as many as 12 million. At a kiln outside the city of Hyderabad, in the southern province of Sindh, the BBC filmed some of them at work. Children as young as four and five squat for hours, shaping mud into mounds to be baked into bricks. They are caked in dust, and scorched by the sun. Everyone has to pull their weight - even scrawny boys pushed wheelbarrows around the site.

Ten-year-old Jeeni toils here with the rest of her family - nine siblings, mother and father. Like many at the kilns, they are members of Pakistan's Hindu minority. They earn just 300 Pakistani rupees ( £2; $3) a day, which isn't enough for one decent meal. And to get that, they have to produce 1,000 bricks, which takes up to 15 hours.

Under her faded pink headscarf, Jeeni has a troubled and weary look. Her young shoulders are carrying an adult burden and these days it's heavier than ever. "If we earn, we eat," she says, "otherwise we go hungry. My big brother was hurt. He can't help our father making bricks. He can't make any money. So now it's only us - younger ones - who are working." As she speaks, her voice breaks and she begins to cry. Jeeni's father, Genu, who is hollow-cheeked, knows his children are being robbed of their future, but says he is too poor to stop it. "I understand the importance of education," he says, sitting in the dirt. "I had some schooling myself. If I die what will happen to them? They are illiterate. Anybody will be able to trick them. But I can't manage to send them to school."

Jeeni went to school once - for a day - but transport was costly. She longs to return, but that dream may be buried, brick by brick.

Why Education system must Evolve

 RELOOKING the determined pursuit of excellent grades is not a precursor to a "de-grading" of systems of assessment and an inevitable descent into mediocrity. Rather, it challenges the assumption that grades matter above all else in the real world of commerce, social interaction and governance.

Performance-focused employers need people who can deliver results - execute tasks, demonstrate innovation, cut deals, size up opportunities, weigh risks, manage projects, raise revenues, solve problems, communicate issues, negotiate agreements and interact with diverse groups. Having scored top grades in science, literature or maths is no guarantee that a candidate can easily acquire such competencies that increasingly count more in a fast-changing world.

This lies at the heart of the debate on the future of Singapore's education system, as expounded by Education Minister Heng Swee Keat when he noted that schools would have to move beyond equipping students for examinations and prepare them for life. Towards that end, secondary schools will offer by 2017 a programme intended to help students understand the relevance and value of what they are learning. Another programme will encourage them to better understand both themselves and their relationship with others. These schemes will institutionalise cognitive values necessary if the education system is to help Singapore meet the qualitatively new demands of the globalising economy.

That the country can focus now on these higher-order skills attests to its success in first ensuring a strong educational foundation for its young. However, unlike times when students had to be made employable in an industrial economy, today's information economy demands that they are equipped for workplace demands that cannot even be foreseen when a child enters school. Hence, the need, as Mr Heng made clear at his ministry's annual workplan seminar recently, for all-round students who can collaborate with people from different backgrounds in an environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.

Parents and educators can make a real difference by laying aside their own assumptions and experiences. They need to help children learn to live in the complex world in new ways. This is largely uncharted territory with no study guides, assessment workbooks and private tutors readily available. It is at home, around the dinner table, in particular, that children get to imbibe a sense of what they must do to thrive in a challenging world. And it is in school that they will be transformed, beyond the changed curricula, by the cultural change of making them more than the sum of their grades.

The Straits Times  Oct 03, 2013

 EDITORIAL       

Changes in Education in Singapore

Education Minister Heng Swee Keat recently announced changes to the education system. But is there a need to change? Aren't we doing fine? By many accounts, Singapore has one of the best education systems in the world. Singapore students are top performers in international tests. Its curriculum-based textbooks have been adopted by 39 countries.

A common gripe, however, is that our students are only exam-smart and that our education system is very competitive and highly stressful. Such concerns suggest that there is always room for improvement. Addressing these concerns at the Ministry of Education's Work Plan Seminar, Mr Heng unveiled plans for a "Student-Centric, Values-Driven Education" with four key attributes. At first glance, we may wonder whether these are achievable or a far-fetched vision. Is it possible to engage every student? Can every school be a good school? Will every teacher be a caring educator? Will every parent be a supportive partner?

These, in my view, are not statements of outcomes but statements of strategy. The idea is that actions guided by these principles would lead to a better education system through which our learners can receive a well-rounded education, with positive learning experiences. They also reiterate that the responsibility of educating a child rests not just with the school but also with the student, parents and the larger community, reminding us of the African saying, "It takes the whole village to raise a child".

MEASURING ACHIEVEMENT, TO WHAT END?

In line with this vision, the minister announced the removal of the achievement-oriented school banding, saying that academic results alone cannot be a good yardstick of a good school. While this has been welcomed by some, there is also disappointment expressed that removing competition poses a danger to standards of education. 

This makes one wonder about the purpose of the banding. While the practice has its merits and has served the purpose of identifying schools that have achieved academically, be it in terms of progress or sustained achievement, and spurring innovative programmes to enhance learning, it fails to provide insights on how the school, educators, students and parents have brought out these achievements. So, yes, the banding measures achievement, but the question is, to what end?

Should we simply measure achievement for the sake of measuring, or should we measure achievement to learn and improve? In other words, is measurement going to be of achievement - or for achievement?

COLLABORATE, NOT COMPETE

Interestingly, many of the news articles on this issue have covered only the abolition of the banding but have not elaborated on the alternative that takes its place. This is to recognise key attributes that contribute to a good school, such as best practices in teaching and learning, character and citizenship education, student all-round development, staff development and well-being, and partnership (with parents).

Though banding of schools based on academic results and recognition of good schools based on best practices have the same goal - to improve quality of education - they operate differently. The awards are suitable as administrative measures of the performance of schools, and therefore push schools to come up with various innovative programmes so as to be the best.

On the other hand, the measures of best practices allow schools to learn from one another and build the overall quality of education in Singapore, while recognising the effort that has gone into this.

So which would be a suitable approach for nurturing our students: Competition (banding) or collaboration (sharing of best practices)? The answer is obvious.

ASSESS STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

What else is needed to make these changes successful?

I hope that there are also changes in ways of assessment. If school assessments continue to be mainly exam-focused and academics-oriented, it is highly likely that this is what schools, educators, students and parents will continue to work on. It stands to logic that what will be delivered is what is going to be measured or counted. To ensure that the various stakeholders do not go back to the old heavily exam-oriented practices, the way forward would be to assess student engagement as an additional measure.  This would require new tools or tests: We should consider alternative assessments and include more formative tests that support assessment for learning, in addition to the typical summative assessment of learning (such as the final-year exams).

However, as grades in standardised national exams (such as the PSLE, GCE "O" levels, "A" levels) or traditional end-of-year/ module exams have been conventionally used as the "currency of education" to gain admission to higher education or jobs, it is not easy to do away with such exams.  I can hear the murmurs that additional assessment would mean extra work and stress. But this additional assessment will help students learn.

REVIVING 'TEACH LESS'

Another aspect not mentioned in the minister's address was the impact of changes on curriculum. Student-centric learning activities would require more time, as it involves active engagement and not just passive transmission of information and knowledge to the students. So the question is, are teachers going to be expected to cover the same curriculum or content to the same extent?  If we expect our teachers to do so, carry on with other teaching-related administrative, co-curricular activities, counselling and mentoring duties and, on top of this, come up with ways to engage students, our teachers are going to be overwhelmed.

Therefore, we may also need to rejuvenate the concept of "Teach Less, Learn More". With a re-scoped, student-centric curriculum, the focus would be on not content coverage but deeper, meaningful and valuable learning for life.

As an educator, I look forward to the changes, for there are numerous advantages to student-centric education. This is evident from the teaching and learning literature. Based on this, I am also confident that our students would enjoy it and am hopeful that they would adapt well.

As a parent, I look forward to connecting with my kids' schools and hope this is not limited to information sharing but purposeful interaction. Perhaps, as a first step, schools can consider creating opportunities for parents to experience the student-centric education. Our experience of school was so different that we may need to go back to school today.

(Dr Nachamma Sockalingam holds a PhD in Educational Psychology and is a lecturer at SIM University's Teaching and Learning Centre  20 September 2012   )

              

Copyright © 2012 MediaCorp Pte Ltd

The year of values

 By Asad Latif For The Straits Times

A year of scandals excavates the fundamental notion that moral gravitas is needed for public leadership

THERE is the story of a Singaporean academic who attended an overseas conference many years ago. A foreign colleague asked him, in all seriousness and without condescension, whether Singaporeans live on trees. "Yes," the academic replied without rancour, "and we use lifts to get up there." High-rise Singapore, transplanted by the questioner who knows where, came out well in that repartee.

Not so, however, in another story of an international gathering where the host asked what the guests thought of having mutton for dinner. "Mutton? What is that?" asked a hungry visitor from an impoverished Latin American country. "Dinner? What is that?" inquired a famished participant from an even poorer country in Africa. "Think? What is that?" wondered the fat Singaporean.

The second story is a fiction, an urban legend cooked up most probably by a fat and clever Singaporean, but the first tale, I am told, is true.

Between them, these two stories capture an enduring caricature of Singaporeans - an economically prosperous but a politically primitive people who have relegated their powers of thinking to an authoritarian state imbued with almost mythical powers of coercion. The motif that runs through this caricature is one of absence: the absence of self-generated and self-sustained social and political values needed to underpin the country's survival and success in the long term.

This year has been much about values: moral values of personal probity that should govern the behaviour of politicians and civil servants; political values that should guide the evolution of what has been termed the "new normal" of politics after the watershed General Election of 2011; social values that should determine how immigrants are integrated into national life; and shared values that should mould expectations of the Singapore way of life two decades down the road. In all these areas, citizens are looking for an evolving value system that will lay the basis for consensus on the way ahead.

Take the public interest in the sex scandals that surfaced this year. Going far beyond the prurient, the interest raised the question: Are the private morals of those holding public office a private or a public affair?

The underlying assumption in the question is that morals are a part of the value system by which citizens judge their leaders.

How far Singaporeans do so, what exceptions they are prepared to make, and why so are further questions, but the scandals excavated the fundamental notion that individuals must be morally fit for public office. That idea lies embedded in the value system that the founders of independent Singapore instituted, whereby not only talent but also moral gravitas was required to run for the leadership of Singapore.

Beyond the state-nation

IN POLITICS, however, the new normal supposed to have been inaugurated by last year's general and presidential elections was consolidated this year as citizens kept up their pointed questioning and critique of politics and policies. In this area, I would argue, Singapore is moving from being a state-nation to becoming a nation-state. Ever since 1965, the state has sought to build a nation by leading citizens, influencing their choices and instilling in them a sense of common identity. Obsessed with the need to ensure economic survival, the patrician state embarked on social engineering to create a viable system of economic values. It left no stone unturned as it tamed opposition parties, rebellious trade unions, an adversarial press and activist individuals to recreate society in its taciturn image.

The Singapore Inc which emerged in that depoliticised environment was supply-side: The state supplied and controlled the tools for the making of the nation. It is in that sense that I call Singapore a state-nation. It is testimony to the success of state-building in Singapore that the nation-state is emerging with such supreme self-confidence today. Just as the state-nation was supply-side, the impetus for nation-building driven by the state, we can say the nation-state is demand-side, where the value system demands that politics move beyond the needs of the state to consider the demands of citizens more closely. In this sense, Singapore is becoming more of a nation-state, where citizens' budding sense of national values and identity is influencing if not seeking to lead the state. The state now has to justify its policies more closely in terms of what people want. Its legitimacy rests increasingly not only on its performance but also on the processes that it has followed in taking decisions.

The often intemperate reactions to the presence of immigrants are extremely unfortunate, but they perhaps are a part of this journey of nation-building. Singaporeans are not a xenophobic people - because there is no single ethnic identity for xenophobia to coalesce around - but they are a people who are immensely proud of what they have achieved collectively in less than 50 years of independence. They place value on being Singaporean. Singaporeans believe that foreigners who wish to make Singapore home cannot change those terms of existence unilaterally.

Take Singaporeans' attachment to English as the lingua franca in a nation of many races. English has achieved almost totemic significance as a language to lubricate conversation among the races, and fluency in it has become a mark of immigrants' commitment to belonging in this society. The inability or refusal of some immigrants to speak the link language has been cited as a sign of their refusal to integrate. Hostility towards immigrants is an adolescent phase of the nation's march to maturity. It must be no more than that. It is economically and demographically indefensible to be hostile towards immigrants in a country so dependent on foreign workers and so short of Singaporean babies - but it is perhaps a necessary phase to be undergone for Singapore's social value system to evolve.

National conversation

INTERESTINGLY, the response by the state to such pressures and values from the people has not been autocratic repression or subtle attempts to intimidate them into silence. Instead, there appears to be a genuine, open desire on the Government's part to know what exactly most Singaporeans want and how they wish to get there.

This desire underlies Our Singapore Conversation (OSC), which began in October amidst some cynicism over its purpose but which is settling into a national dialogue on the future of Singapore, whatever the partisan affiliations of citizens or the interests of political parties. There is much to be gained from the OSC - if the results of a smaller exercise are anything to go by.

This year, the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) held a series of sessions looking at scenarios a decade ahead. Drawing on participants from a range of professions and interests, its Prism project elicited a variety of thoughtful if sometimes contradictory views. Participants in group discussions challenged one another's views in a serious but friendly way. They questioned premises and differed over outcomes, but in the process, they became more aware of why others thought of issues in the way they did. While the conversation benefited from expert facilitators, it was not guided, let alone directed, at preferring one scenario over another. That open-endedness added to its authenticity.

If the OSC similarly helps Singaporeans to step outside themselves and enter others' turfs, it would play a valuable role in nation-building.

There will always need to be a balance between imagination and realism in seeking a new system of values. The international landscape, beset with grave economic problems and political turmoil bubbling beneath the apparently calm waves of the Asian scene, will remain a reminder of the limits of possibility available to a city-state. But, within those limits, Singaporeans are thinking hard about how to keep mutton - and chicken and rice - on the dinner menu while exploring the values that come with being Singaporean.

The writer, a former Straits Times journalist, is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Moving from value to values

 By willie cheng for the straits times

 The Straits Times  Dec 29, 2012

CERTAINLY, there is a palpable move from an almost exclusive focus on (hard economic) value to (softer social) values. 

In a previous article, I argued that we, as a nation and a society, had been driven largely by economic imperatives. In the words of Professor Michael Sandel of Harvard University, who made this observation of many developed countries: "We have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society, (where) everything is up for sale and where market values govern every sphere of life." And the consequences of our market society have been increasing inequality and the devaluation of social values.

However, there has been pushback against widespread marketisation and its effects, particularly in this last year. For example, there were calls for a national happiness index, not just gross domestic product, as a measure of progress. Educational reforms to remove school banding and reduce PSLE stress and other forms of excessive competition (competition being a core market-based trait) also began in earnest. One reason for this pushback may be the result of the significant economic progress we have made. In Abraham Maslow's theory of human motivation, people naturally first seek to fulfil their basic physiological needs, then quickly progress to fulfil higher-order needs such as aesthetic needs and self-actualisation.

As a country, we have largely met our basic economic needs. Most of us have our stomachs filled and a roof over our heads. And in looking over the horizon, some citizens find that there are good role models such as the Nordic economies where there are equitable distribution of income, work-life balance, and sustainable development. 

While heeding the call, including from within his own party, to move away from "growth at all costs", Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong nevertheless defended the need for some growth. "Without growth," he said, "we have no chance of improving our collective well-being." Hence, the current governmental policy focus is on "inclusive growth" and achieving a better balance between growth and equity. To be sure, economics and bread-and-butter issues will remain important in Singapore, but going forward, it looks like there will be greater consideration in favour of social values by the Government and the broader population.

A classic value-versus-values decision, for example, was that regarding the casinos. In 2005, when the decision was made to build two casinos, clearly value trumped values. While the economic payoff did come, we have had the occasional, and likely perennial, debate over the social costs of gambling and the most appropriate measures to contain them. I would hazard to say that if we are confronted with such a decision today, or say, a decision for a third casino licence, it will likely not be the same decision.

What values?

YET, it is not a straightforward case of national and societal decision-making being weighted in favour of social values versus economic value. A further question is: Which (social) values, really? After all, some values can be poles apart from each other.

Witness three recent situations that hit the headlines and the diametrically opposite reactions (reflecting diametrically opposing values) to each.

The first was when Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer resigned over an extramarital affair. The public reaction appears to be divided between those who considered it was right and just for him to resign, and those who viewed the situation as "a private indiscretion" that is separate from and irrelevant to political office.

The second situation was the two-day strike by bus drivers from China. On the one hand, there was public outrage and swift action by the employer and the authorities against what was deemed an "illegal strike" because the workers did not give the requisite 14 days' notice of the intention to stop work in "an essential service". On the other hand, there was an outpouring of sympathy from other quarters for the low-income foreign workers' grievances over pay and living conditions, and the need to treat them fairly.

The third situation was the scrapping of Mandarin announcements at MRT stations. Some xenophobic commuters cheered at not having to put up with what they felt was unnecessary pandering to the increasing numbers of arrivals from the mainland. Others felt that to be fair, there should be announcements in all four official languages. Indeed, we have always lived in a heterogeneous society. However, it seems that changing demographics and modern, perhaps more crowded, living may be increasing stress levels and the social divide.

Singaporean society has long been viewed as a largely conservative one. The conservative majority lament at what they see as the erosion of the family unit and moral values. They wring their hands at increasing permissiveness, infidelity and divorces, and declining marriage and birth rates.

However, there is a growing and more vocal liberal portion of the populace that is seeking more space, alternative lifestyles and the right to choose what they can do and cannot do.

Add to this the issue of different races and religions, as well as the recent influx of foreigners. This makes for a big mix of different value systems and cultures that need to be reconciled and integrated.

Leading values

AMID this tussle over values, there is an opportunity for political and civic leaders to take the high ground and define the kind of values that can take us harmoniously forward. In 1988, then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong envisioned a set of principles for Singaporeans to live by. These came to be called "Singapore's Shared Values", and they are:

• Nation before community and society above self;
• Family as the basic unit of society;
• Community support and respect for the individual;
• Consensus, not conflict; and
• Racial and religious harmony.

While these core values were never outrightly rejected by Singaporeans, somehow they never gained traction, nor are they much mentioned these days. Analysts argue that such values cannot be "mandated and managed from the top". Values have to come from citizens, and cannot be achieved with just sloganeering.

One common value

YET, we all grow up with values. Some were taught to us. Some may be intrinsic in us as human beings. A good starting point would be to find one common value that can be reinforced and built upon for the greater good. One such value might be what is known as the Golden Rule or the Ethic of Reciprocity: Treat others in the way in which you would like to be treated. This is a rule that can be found in almost every faith and religion. In some cases, it is stated as the obverse, for example: Do not do unto others as you would not others do unto you.

And for those who are not religious, this rule can also be explained from the perspective of philosophy (seeing ourselves in others), psychology (empathy for others) or sociology (treating others as fellow human beings).

The beauty of this rule is that everyone knows it. We can all relate to it. It actually resonates with our fundamental (selfish) human nature, even if the end result is that it emphasises selflessness, empathy and community. In other words, it is a simple and universal value. At the same time, it can be transformational.

Imagine if we had collectively applied the Golden Rule in making choices in the following cases.

First is the weekly day off for foreign domestic helpers. It would not have needed 10 years of campaigning by the likes of Transient Workers Count Too and the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics for such a law to be passed. How many of us want to work seven days a week without rest? And now that the law will be effective on Jan 1 next year, none of us should seek to take advantage of the monetary loophole in the law to continue to deprive domestic helpers of their weekly day off.

Second is the Nimby (not in my backyard) syndrome. Instead of protesting against a foreign workers' dormitory or nursing home being built in our neighbourhoods, we would be welcoming and looking at the benefits of such a facility, that is, we should be thinking how Gimby (good in my backyard) it would be.

Third is the adultery prevalent in the many sex scandals we seem to be reading about this year. If we do not wish for our spouses to cheat on us, then we should not be doing it to them.

The writer is a former managing partner at management and technology consulting company Accenture. He sits on the boards of several commercial and non-profit organisations, and is the author of Doing Good Well.