This concept seems very ancient in Singapore today. What is the point of wasting time and resources when talents are available from the rest of the world, fully trained and paid for and ready to work? This makes a lot of sense in its own ways, very cost effective, and the talents are there just in time when needed.
In the 60s and 70s, in the days of LKY and GKS, planting your own seeds and grow them, turn them into trees to bear fruits were an important policies for the nation builders. There is nothing like your own citizens to depend on, trained and grew over the years, tested and proven, to run the country. Many of the Pioneer and Merdeka generations benefited from this policy. Many were fresh graduates, many were non graduates, without real skills and experience to fill many jobs that needed to be filled. Many grew in the job, some failed, but the net result is a bunch of dedicated leaders in different fields, in the govt and ministries, to turn Singapore into a well managed, organised, discipline and rich city states.
In those days, many local corporations and ministries have executive training programmes, management trainees, taking in fresh graduates to train them from scratch to become the next generations of leaders. The system worked well then, Many of the top executives, ministers, civil servants were the beneficiaries of this system. But they have forgotten how they arrived where they are today. The scheme was quietly abandoned. Now every donkey will bray, foreign talents best, bring in more foreign talents. Without those schemes in the past, these donkeys would not have a chance to be where they are today. The foreign talents will filled their positions.
Today, the fast pace of change and the availability of easy foreign talents, all cooked and baked, to be consumed, makes such policies irrelevant and unnecessary. Today, when nation building is no longer important other than lip service, anyone will do as long as he can do the jobs and looks good for the job, locals or foreigners do not matter. Foreigners can be given the pink IC and turned into citizen with the stroke of a pen and be completely trusted with everything, with the most sensitive positions and information.
The priorities today are very different from the past. Today, citizenship, loyalty, trust, reliability do not have the same value and importance. A hotel does not need real and loyal citizens. Instant noodle is convenient and equally good. Why bother with the tedious and expensive process of training and grooming our own young citizens to be useful and productive over a longer period,... and also very costly? Just a call to the recruitment agency, there will be thousands of foreign talents available, so many to pick and choose. Chiat beh leow!
There is no need to plant your own seeds, water them, nourish them and wait for them to grow and to bear fruits in the long term. Too tedious, not cost effective. Instant tree, instant talents, instant citizens is the way to go.
What do you think?
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