How housing, education and the economy combine to give S’poreans hope for a brighter future

Economic well-being is not one dimensional and is the intersection of at least three areas of public policy — housing, economy and education. When combined effectively, they improve well-being and give Singaporeans hope for a brighter future, said Education Minister Ong Ye Kung in a recent speech at the Singapore Polytechnic 65th Anniversary Gala Dinner.

Below is an excerpt of his Dec 3 speech, where he also touched on a shift in the style of governance here and how Singapore society can better manage and accept differences in opinion.  

At a recent dialogue, a student asked me: “Why does the Government only look at the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of success for our country?”

I answered: “We do not and we should not.”

If we can only have one Key Performance Indicator for our country, I think it would be the well-being of Singaporeans.

But well-being itself comprises many aspects — safety, security, health, air quality, education, recreation, housing, employment, the cost of living and social security; the list goes on.

Even when we combine all of them into one happiness index, it is not meaningful. It tells you nothing, it is just a number.

Having said that, a major part of people’s well-being is economic well-being. It is not a macro-concept; in fact, it is very personal.

Any worker will tell you that he hopes to progress in his career. Any student in the Institute of Technical Education, polytechnic or university, will likely tell you she hopes to graduate and get a good job. Any entrepreneur, will tell you that he wishes to grow his company to be profitable.

If they attain their desires, their salaries, bonuses, and profits will all add to GDP. That is why all countries track it, because it is a dipstick of the state of economic wellbeing of its people.

But there are other aspects of economic well-being to consider.

ECONOMIC WELL-BEING: LESSONS FROM ABROAD

Two years ago, I was on an official visit to Hong Kong and toured a Hong Kong University. At a dialogue with faculty and students, they told me that almost all their students would secure jobs upon graduation.

I remarked that in that case, the students must all be very happy. They immediately corrected me.

They said they were not happy, because while they would be able to find jobs, most would not be able to afford homes as property prices had risen beyond their means.

I have also visited countries in the Middle East, which are investing heavily in education, including inviting top international universities to set up campuses.

My hosts readily admitted though that having top universities is not enough. It is imperative for their economic strategy to succeed.

Otherwise, they would be producing a pipeline of talent with no destinations.

These two anecdotes illustrate one thing: Economic well-being is not unidimensional. It is the intersection of at least three areas of public policy — housing, economy and education.

When combined effectively, they improve well-being and give Singaporeans hope for a brighter future. They engender a shared belief that by working together, we can have a better life tomorrow.

HOUSING: ANCHORING US TO SINGAPORE

The starting point is housing. When Singapore became independent, the Government exercised its power to acquire privately owned land to build public housing for the populace.

It recognised that as an immigrant society, home ownership would anchor the people to our young nation.

So between 1963 and 1985, the Housing Development Board (HDB) built over 500,000 flats to provide affordable housing. Today, 90 per cent of Singaporeans own our own homes — 79 per cent own HDB flats.

The importance of home ownership is etched very deeply into the psyche of Singaporeans. I serve in a constituency in Sembawang, which has many new Build-To-Order flats.

Week in week out, I see first-hand, the enthusiasm of families — young, old and third generation families — all putting their heart and soul into making their flats their homes. They own a lease that lasts a century, which will easily see through theirs and their children’s generation.

Beyond the confines of their flats, they are constantly reaching out to others, and devoting their efforts to making a congregation of strangers into a community.

Their efforts are amplified by the HDB town centres and the Ministry of National Development is going even further, to develop even better home sites in towns with distinctive characteristics and greener features.

Homes anchor us to our country and give us something to protect and to fight for. They are our safe haven and refuge.

They are the social foundation for individual Singaporeans to unite and collectively build something bigger together.

ECONOMY: DIVERSITY IN OPPORTUNITIES

Next, the economy. Mother Nature dealt us a unique hand: A small island, zero natural resources, but a deep-water port at the intersection of global trade routes.

She is telling Singaporeans: You make a living by connecting yourself with the world. You make a living with your wits and your hard work. And so we did.

It is essential that we succeed in doing so, because we need to be able to earn a living as people in order to gain the dignity of self-determination as a nation.

Reliance on global connections to earn a living has of course tied Singapore’s economic fate to international trade. But with that, we have built many layers of economic activities.

We started with the port, where we have shipping, ship-building, offshore and marine engineering. Then we extended the transport connections to aviation and logistics.

Transport and logistics sharpened our competitiveness in manufacturing. We then added services — tourism, infocomms, finance; and now we are going into innovation with research and development, creative industries, start-ups and Fintech.

This is also why Singapore continues to push for free trade initiatives — CPTPP (The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), Asean Economic Community — even when international trade is faltering in the world, even when the United States and China are mired in a trade dispute.

We just press on, because trade is our life.

Our diversity of sectors come together like a smartphone with all the functions and apps embedded.

You use it to stay in touch with friends, navigate to your destination, make payments, search for information, book movie tickets, order meals, and sometimes, make a phone call.

Your life revolves around it and it is not so easy for you to declare the smartphone redundant. Such is the resilience of the Singapore economy today.

This diversity of activities presents a wide range of opportunities to Singaporeans, especially our youth. It makes it both a possibility, and an imperative, for our education system to offer various disciplines and pathways, for our young to fulfil their aspirations.

EDUCATION: PREPARING SINGAPOREANS TO LEARN FOR LIFE

That brings me to the third policy area — education. Our education system is well regarded internationally, and many countries try to emulate it.

While the features can be reproduced, one cannot replicate the underlying spirit, philosophies and values.

Take for example, the passion and professionalism of our teachers, and the fact that they are highly regarded by society, which is an invaluable asset to our education system.

There is also the Government’s philosophy that financial circumstances should not prevent anyone from fulfilling their educational potential.

Hence, although higher education is already very heavily publicly subsidised and funded, we recently enhanced the bursary schemes to make it even more affordable for students from lower income families, so long as they have secured a place in any of our publicly-funded institutes of higher learning.

What is hardest to emulate is the meritocratic order in Singapore.

Parents and students know that regardless of your background, hard work and good performance means access to opportunities and a good shot at success. No one will be denied opportunities because of where you came from.

Today, we are preserving these underlying strengths and values, while reforming the education system. The reform is necessary because our environment has changed drastically.

In the past, we knew what kind of investments and jobs were coming in and we could prepare our students to take up those jobs when they graduated.

Now, with technological advancement and disruption, it is not so straight-forward to predict the jobs of the future. What we do know is that our young need to possess deep skills, especially humanistic skills, which computers and robots cannot easily take over.

We also know that to develop skills, we need to tap into the diverse interests and talents of our young and make sure they hone those skills throughout their lives.

That is why at the heart of the recent education reforms, is the need to define a broader meritocracy. A recognition that each child possesses unique strengths and talents, and no child’s fate is fixed.

The education system must cultivate in them a confident learning identity with a strong mindset of personal growth and the motivation to learn for life.

It is in this context that we took steps to reform the system — dial back the overemphasis on academic grades; reduce the number of examinations; phase out streaming in secondary school; introduce aptitude-based admission to higher education; and open up varied pathways for students, including Work Study pathways.

The coming years will be critical for implementing these new initiatives. While they represent the structural changes, they do not tell the full story of the reforms. There are also important changes in curriculum.

We need to help anchor students to core moral values from young, let them appreciate cultures outside of Singapore, and enable them to navigate and thrive in a digital world. These are critical competencies for the future.

HOPE: COMING TOGETHER OF THE THREE SYNERGIES

So there you have it — the three synergies — which bring hope for each generation.

Housing as a social foundation, economy to present the opportunities, and education as a means for personal growth and to seize those opportunities.

Incidentally, I realised that if you string the first few letters of home, opportunity and education, you get the word hope.  

Looking ahead, how do we keep this Singapore hope alive and strong? Let me offer three thoughts.  First, we need to recognise that the aspirations of a nation are never static.

My grandparents’ generation lived through the Japanese Occupation and racial riots, so for them peace and stability were paramount.

My parents got married around the time Singapore became independent, so they looked forward to a better life, and better education for my brother and I.

My wife and I — both Generation Xers — want meaningful careers, to know the world better and to make a difference to people around us.

For the young today, they are concerned about climate change as an existential threat. As our livelihood improves, we are more sensitised to those who have yet to benefit, and wish for a fairer and more just society.

Every national leader needs to understand the generation that is coming of age.

Economic well-being is evergreen, but it is never the only priority of a nation. This is especially when a country, like ours, has reached a fairly high level of economic development.

Growth will slow down, and a new generation will have and need alternate, non-economic collective goals.

Second, the Government needs to engage the people and understand their preoccupations. That is why Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat launched the Singapore Together movement in June this year.

I do not think the movement is just about ministers walking the ground more often and holding more dialogues — which we do. But it is a shift in the style of governance — beyond working for Singaporeans, to working with Singaporeans.

Take our education reforms. The Ministry of Education could not possibly have come up with the initiatives we are implementing entirely on our own.

Many of the ideas came from parents who shared their views with us, academics who gave us insights, Members of Parliament who spoke passionately in the House, and those who shared their opinions with me at coffee shops, and pushed me to think deeply about the issues.

But the views we receive are always varied, even opposing. The job of the Government is to assess the most appropriate thing to do, make a decision, figure out how best to implement it, and then explain the rationale to the public.

In a consultative process, the decision will go against the opinions of some, and there will be a perception that the Government did not actually listen to them. But I think this problem is unavoidable.

As the Government, we just have to be sincere about it and do our best to explain our rationale, and get better at doing this over time. As citizens, we can also play a part.

We know that the algorithms of social media today create echo chambers. So we need to make a conscious effort to emerge from behind our keyboards and connect with the real world, through in-person interactions.

I believe only then will society improve at managing and accepting differences in opinion, and a more consultative model will work.

Finally, to sustain hope for the future, we must continue to strengthen our institutions, whether it is HDB, the Economic Development Board, schools, institutes of higher learning, hospitals, or our uniformed services.

Because institutions do not just take care of the old and evergreen issues, they also build capabilities to tackle emerging issues and chart the future.

Institutions must evolve with the times. In the process, there will be failures and mistakes. When that happens, we must avoid taking actions that inadvertently sow distrust and undermine them.

Because the only way to absolutely prevent mistakes is inaction, which will be disastrous in a time of change.

Our institutions have done well for Singapore. They are capable and public-spirited, and I hope Singaporeans will support them, and help strengthen them over time.