Why Singapore has no talents?

Life is a learning process. People get smarter and wiser after making many mistakes in life and learn from them. They worked on their problems, overcame the problems and gained experience and wisdom. The funny thing in life is that the more challenges one faced in life, the more one learns and the tougher one becomes though not always the case. A person that did not have to face too many difficulties and challenges invariably learns less, not necessarily that he is less clever. So, where can you find experienced and well trained people in Singapore when everything works so well, no problems?

In Singapore, everything works. So the people working in the industries, in the ministries, etc etc would naturally learn less as there are lesser breakdowns and problems for them to overcome and to learn from. Ok, I know you people will be shouting SMRT! Ok, there are exceptions. After the breakdowns are taken care of, our SMRT staff would be very experienced and they can market their skills to the world, for having gone through all the problems and knowing how to deal with them. I think this is the only industry and profession where we can tell the world we have the most experienced and trained people.

The industries like water and sewerage system, power and electrical system, all working so smoothly, sure got no talent. Just like in the business, banking and finance, our banks were rock solid, no problem for so many decades. Where got talent?  They got no opportunity to learn anything, so now we have to start all over again, go overseas to find the talents we need. Maybe when there is a financial crisis and out banks are at the brink of collapse we will have new talents after they survived the crisis.

The moral of the story, when you want people with talents in flood control and drainage, go to countries that are flood prone. They sure have very experienced people who would know everything about flooding and drainage. If you want experienced train operators, go to countries where trains always breakdown and you will find all the seasoned engineers and managers who have gone through all the problems. Very well trained and experience.

And if Singapore wants to go nuclear, better go and recruit the engineers and scientists from Fukushima when they are still alive. Not many would be left around for long. They have the experienced on how to deal with a breakdown. And if you want banking and finance experts, go to countries where there are many banking frauds and problems, you will find all the experienced people to hire.

Did someone say when a system is working fine, with no problems, it means you have very able people running it, proactively planning and preventing problems from happening?  These people would not have the experience of solving all the massive breakdown problems but they are so efficient to prevent problems from happening, seeing to it that everything works at the push of the button. Unfortunately if they have to apply for jobs, they would not have a string of problem solving skills to boot and some may think they have no talent, or no experience at solving problems.

What do you think? Who is the better person to employ? Those that ensure systems work with no or little failures, or those who cannot manage a proper system that runs smoothly and every day fighting fires but with a lot of experience to tell? Do you want people to work diligently until everything works so fine that people may think they are useless, nothing to do, or people who run around everywhere trying to solve problems when problems is the norm, and looking like very hardworking, very involved, because they could not ensure that the system works smoothly?

If no one was there to screw up the housing policy and programmes, Boon Wan would not have the chance to solve the problems and now can put it in his resume as the hero that solved the housing problem. Some may say the problem is still there. That is another opinion.

Underemployment – Blame the young graduates

It was a good thing that the media is now pursuing the problem of underemployment of our graduates from our world class universities that have a renowned reputation, I heard that employers really loved to employ the graduates from these world class universities and our graduates are in great demand. So if any graduate from these world class universities failed to get a job, it must be his own fault. They graduated from world class universities but without the skills the employers want, or for the reasons like some unthinking parrots would spout every day, our graduates are demanding, lazy, choosy, only want high pay but not wanting to work, entitlement mentality.  Not to worry, these sick parrots would be here to repeat the shame shit they stored in their heads instead of their bottoms.

While the media are picking up this dreadful news of our pathetic graduates, spending a small fortune and putting great effort to get their As and degrees, some asses are still telling stupid things like it is a good thing, normal that only a small percentage is not employed. Or some saying, they are not tracking, meaning why waste time tracking them, or they are only interested in tracking part time employment. Now you know why they are so blur or ignorant about the problems faced by our jobless or underemployed graduates. They don’t even know, they don’t bother. So, they quoted a Sarah that had been hunting for a job since May but ended up taking something not relevant to her fine arts degree. Reading between the lines, nobody cares despite the media starting to dig up the shit. It is her fault for taking a course that has no market demand.

How can our world class universities be churning out graduates that did not have the skills employers want? Do our universities think that our graduates are all children of millionaires or ministers and went to universities to study for fun, study courses that have no market value because they don’t need to work after graduation? Why offer courses that have no market demand, not marketable and making the poor graduates struggled to get the degrees and wasting 3 or 4 years of their lives in the universities for nothing? Do the universities have the responsibility to do their due diligence to offer relevant courses and not issuing degrees that cannot be eaten?  Whose fault is that? The universities or the students? No need to ask for the answers. It must be the students. The question, is it fair to blame the young students who did not know what the job market is all about? Aren’t the universities in a better position, with better knowledge, to offer the relevant and useful courses for the students?

And who was that to say that only two percent of the graduates are unemployed or underemployed and that is healthy? In normal cases it is healthy. But when 2 million foreigners are employed here, many with fictitious degrees, some with fake degrees, some with longkang university degrees, it is NOT ok. Something is very wrong. Something is very sick.

By the way, apart from the professional degrees, many degrees are not designed to fit into the job market fresh from the universities, eg the arts and social sciences, the general sciences, humanities, the artistic courses. How can employers expect young graduates to be immediately employable and with the skills to start work when fresh out from universities?

While those responsible for the plight of our graduates from our world class universities are talking cock, I hope the media will continue to pursue this issue and highlight the pains and suffering of our young and their parents, being left on the lurch by the people responsible to look after them in the initial years of their working life, the people that they voted to protect their interests.

The media should also dismiss the fools and irresponsible Singaporeans that are running down our young graduates and passing silly comments that the unemployed and underemployed graduates have only themselves to be blamed. The media should also take to task those million dollar people in education for turning the other way when our graduates from our world class universities are bashed and ridiculed as worthless and with a piece of paper that cannot be eaten. The media can play a big role to champion the cause of our miserable graduates from our world class universities as they have been abandoned by the very people they trusted and placed their hopes on. They are on their own, dismissed and discredited, insulted and taunted by irresponsible Singaporeans in their own country.

There is a time to fight and defend your very own brothers and sisters. If no one is going to fight for them, then, like the Sarah they interviewed said, the last option is to go overseas.  Oh yes, Skillsfuture will train them to be employable overseas when they cannot find employment in their own countries. And the govt is going overseas trying to attract overseas Singaporeans to come back home because we are losing our Singaporean core. Dunno what shit they are talking or doing. So these young graduates can first go overseas and then be invited to come back later in life.

In the meantime foreigners, more than 2m of them with half past six degrees are happily employed, all with the right skills, better than our world class university graduates. And they have no problem securing a job here, even applying from a distance, in their home country.

Singapore the safest and most peaceful place on earth

A chaotic year went by and many will ‘kee chiu’ if I say Singapore is one of the safest and peaceful countries in the world. We should count our blessings and thank a forward looking, proactive and good planning govt that is all the time worrying about our national security and the preservation of our social fabric. Chee Hean had made two statements yesterday, one after protecting our social fabric from a breakdown of social cohesion that would lead us down the rubbish chute of social unrest and racial strife. And it is a miracle that we could keep our social fabric intact after stuffing the little island with more than 2m of the people highly prone to violence from around the world. The few punching bag incidents are peanuts and tolerable. We can live with that. It must be the successful integration process that the govt has put in place and the good jobs that were given to the foreigners that resulted in this harmony. This is something to be proud of, and a price worth paying for.

The next important statement by Chee Hean is on cyber security. This is an increasing threat to our smart nation where the decision to cross the road or what to eat, or whether the oldies at home are safe, are all wired and computerized. Then there are the transport system, the water and flooding system, the electrical grid, banking and finance, the health records and our power system. With so many systems being wired up, the opportunities for them to be targeted for mischief are plentiful and very real.

And thanks again to the great policies of the govt to import the best foreigners to boost up our IT industry and our cyber security. It is a cat and mouse thing and we need the best cats to catch the most intelligent mice. And if the mice are from foreign sources, we need foreign cats to deal with them. Ah, to set a thief to catch a thief really works. What about local threats? They would route their attacks from overseas and the foreign cats would be well placed to catch them too. Our cyber security and cyber defence are in the best hands, the best foreigners money can buy to guard our security and to protect us.

Singaporeans can sleep well. All the computerized systems will be safe under the watchful eyes of our foreign IT experts. This may be called defence in depth like having gurkhas to guard our installations. Foreign mercenaries can play a big role in our safety and security. So far so good. This is not ownself check ownself. This is depending on foreigners to check ownself and to protect us. The foreigners not only protect us, they also provide good jobs for us and integrated very nicely with our citizens. This is like what they say, have the cake and eat it as well.

Let’s hope our social fabric will remain intact when we hit 6.9m. Let’s hope we would not be dragged into a war by some of our good friends or because of them terrorists would want to teach us a lesson for meddling with their domestic affairs.

This is another good thing to remember for Christmas.

Futuristic Train Terminal

Many would think this photo is a screen shot taken from the Star Wars movie or some Sci fi movies coming out from Hollywood. This is real. This is not back from the future or the future. This is the present.

Where would you think this is from? Singapore's Bishan or the Tuas depot of tomorrow? Or is it in Japan, Germany, France or the USA?  Keep guessing.

Many critics or western media will say these trains are good to see but would break apart after two days. Some will say there are made of cheap parts, plastics, cannot move, maybe got horses inside the trains to pull it along.

These are the latest bullet trains from China. They are breaking all the records for speed and safety features. And they have been running for more than a decade. And they have been running from China to Central Asia. They have been operating in Europe, in Africa, and will be running in Indonesia, Thailand and the USA.

How about that, a present from China for Christmas?

Merry Christmas everyone.

Photo credit to China Daily.

Schools raise cut off points for admission

The PSLE result was so good that top secondary schools have to raise their cut off points for admission. Many PSLE graduates were disappointed after doing so well and thinking that they could get admitted only to be thwarted by the new cut off points. And at the other extreme, 7 schools need not raise their points and did not receive enough students to run their classes. Even if they were to lower their cut off points, it would not make any difference. The MOE is now having a different kind of headache on what to do with these schools. Should they be merged or close down?

The exceptionally good results of our students, and kudos to the schools and the teachers, are not a once off phenomenon. The trend has been consistent for the last 4 decades. The funny thing is that we have lost one whole generation of industry leaders. According to the foreign recruiting agents, not Singaporean recruiting agents, we don’t have talents and the only talents they could find are in the 3^rd World villages. And if you want them to do any placement, they will go scouring the little villages where talents are plentiful, especially in banking and finance and also IT, to give you the best. They just can’t find the talents they need from the local cohorts that were famed for their straight As. I dunno what happened to these bright students when they grow up? Becoming part time employees or doing temp jobs?

And the loss of talents is not confined to just IT, banking and finance. It is across the board. Even top postman job must go to foreigners, top gardeners job, top animal keepers jobs, curators of junks, oops I mean antiques,  etc etc must also go to foreigners. And foreign talents are starting to fill the politicial positions as well. That is how good our education system has become. And not a single Singaporean dares to dispute this fact, that we don’t have local talents for top jobs. Maybe in 30 years time. They have just planted the shoots and waiting for the harvest in 30 years time. Yes, in 30 years time we will have local talents for top jobs. Don’t worry.

For those who just completed their PSLE, in 30 years time they will be about 40 years old, just about right. They will be just in time to be the top talents Singapore is waiting for.

Oh, what about the schools that cannot attract students and facing a bleak future of no students? Not to worry. I have several solutions. One simple one is to go to 3^rd World countries and offer them scholarships to pick up the village best to be our future talents. There is only one problem, or maybe not a problem, only a paradox. These village talents will shine if they continue to stay in their village school system and when they graduated, they will be headhunted to be our foreign talents. But if they are to study here, in our world best education system, would they score straight As like our local students but ended up with no talent and unemployable like our local students?

The village talents must think very hard on which is the better system that will bring out their best. From experience and empirical data, it is better that they stayed in the village school system that will turn them into top grade foreign talents for this city state.  And they can say, cheap and good, a cheap education but with excellent results.

What do you think?