http://therealsingapore.com/content/ex-top-civil-servant-ngiam-blames-govt-biz-elites-regressing-nations-progress
By Ngiam Tong Dow, a former Permanent Secretary (Administrative Vice-Minister) of the Ministry of Finance and the Prime Minister’s Office of the Government of Singapore. He has also served as Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry National Development and the Ministry of Communications. He was also the Chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Development Bank of Singapore.
Our four universities and six polytechnics confer degrees or diplomas on some 30,000 graduates a year across the knowledge spectrum.
These young minds offer us the perfect platform for building up a Singaporean core. Though they may have outstanding academic achievements, they may not all be job-ready. Just as our full-time national servicemen have to complete Basic Military Training to be battle ready, similarly, we need to train and induct trainees before putting them to work.
Much more effort needs to go into giving our well-educated young talent the necessary support to help them build on their core competence, so they can perform at the workplace and truly become part of a sterling Singaporean core. This cannot be left to the whim and fancy of individual companies.
I would therefore suggest that the $3.6 billion set aside by the Ministry of Finance for the Work Credit Scheme (WCS) to support wage increases for those for those earning up to $4,000 a month be used instead to pay the salaries of young cadets for one year. At the end of the year, the employer can decide to offer them jobs or release them back to the market.
The employer will be required to reimburse MOF half the stipend paid to those who are rejected for whatever reason. This clawback is necessary to ensure that HR departments organise training and induction programmes with serious intent to retain suitable cadets.
On the supply side, university dons will have to be proactive in seeking out training positions for their fresh graduands. Their responsibilities as teachers do not end simply with the conferment of degrees. They will have to get in touch with prospective employers, understand their needs, and teach their students to have the skills, knowledge and aptitude to meet the needs of business and industry.
Unless we make an all out effort to raise Singapore's core competences, we will slide back to be a stagnant backwater as we were in danger of becoming in the 1950s.
When we started out in the early 1960s to industrialise our economy, the average educational level of workers was barely that of the Primary School Leaving Examination. So Singaporeans had to be satisfied with low-skilled, low-wage jobs sewing garments, assembling transistor radios and knitting hair wigs.
By concentrating on industrial training, we were able to upgrade to higher skills -precision engineering involving miniature ball bearings, watch movements and constant speed drives.
As we stepped up enrolment in universities and polytechnics, we were able to attract knowledge-based industries such as petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, repair and maintenance and soon, manufacture of Trent aircraft engines.
Our growth trajectory was rising smoothly from labour-intensive to skilled and knowledge-based activities, until the global financial crisis struck. Instead of punching above our weight, we performed below our knowledge potential.
Today, we have thousands of young graduates becoming property agents or relationship managers selling esoteric products.
We have acquired gourmet taste but have no clue how to fry an egg. We outsource whatever chores we find disagreeable to do ourselves.
In recent years, Singaporeans have fallen into the bad habit of kicking the can down the street. If Singapore, once so rich with promise, fails, I would place it squarely at the door of our political, administrative and business elite.
It is a hard judgment. Unfortunately it is true.
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