Training to become hawkers

I read in the main media of this great opportunity to become hawkers in Singapore’s famous hawker culture business. ITE has started a new hawker course to teach and train aspiring young people, very likely armed with degrees or diplomas to become hawkers. This new profession is about the best thing that has happened in Singapore for the young and entrepreneurial Singaporeans since getting a permanent job is quite difficult as most of the jobs were taken up by the 2 million foreign talents working here, and with more coming in to become locals and Singaporeans. New Singaporean graduates are finding it tough competing with these new talents, or is it that employers for some reasons, prefer to hire foreigners instead of Singaporeans, and other than becoming taxi drivers, it is better to become hawkers.
 
The ITE course, Introduction to Managing a Hawker Business, has attracted 25 aspiring young people to learn this new trade. Among the things that they would learn other than managing a hawker stall would be things like how to source for suppliers and yes, how to formulate a business plan. This is serious business.
I am calling my grandfather to apply to be a lecturer for this course. His experience as a hawker for 50 years, from the time he arrived in this island, with out a penny, with no education, would be very useful to the new trainees that have no clues about running a hawker stall. My grandfather would be able to teach them all the tricks of the trade, including sourcing for suppliers, how to cut operating cost, how to work from 6am to 12 mid night, how to stand frying char kway teow for long hours without going to the toilet.
 
But there is a caveat. My grandfather would not know how to teach them how to write business plan. Also he would have to conduct his course in Hokien. He had never been to school. He learnt his trade the hard way or what they called, OJT. There was no one to teach him how to be a hawker then, and no hawker courses to learn how to be a hawker.
 
Hope if he got the job, the highly educated trainee aspiring hawkers would bear with him and be willing to learn from him. Hawker business is not so easy and they don’t teach them in schools or the universities. So my grandfather and his peers would be the best lecturers/trainers for such a course. They had been there and done it, no pure reading by the books.
 
This poses a new query in my mind. Who are they getting to train these aspiring hawkers, people with experience in being hawkers or text books academics? I am still puzzled by the availability of such experts in the hawker business. Would a Mat Salleh help?
 
Ok, ok, I am kidding. My grandfather must be 150 years if he is still alive. But hawker business is going to be a new profession for our young people since they no longer can become IT professionals or other professionals in Singapore. This is their best hope to earn a decent living and have a permanent job or profession. Otherwise they would likely be unemployed or underemployed.
 
The caring govt has come forward to give them a helping hand by initiating such a great course to train them to be hawkers. If not they would not have a clue how to become a hawker. Singaporeans must be taught or they would not be able to do anything on their own. This is like they said, no initiative, cannot think, cannot find out on their own, a product of Singapore’s tuition culture.
 
My grandfather did not need any tuition or training to become a successful hawker. He would faint if he knows that his class would have highly educated young people with no ideas about how to be a hawker. He would like say, seow.

Oxfam’s finding on Singapore’s inequality ‘simplistic and prescriptive’

SMU don Eugene Tan commented on the Oxfam report on Singapore’s income inequality that the ‘methodology was simplistic and prescriptive’. It ranked Singapore 149 out of 157 nations, just one notch above Laos. Singapore’s position fell from a high of 86 last year to near rock bottom, a ranking comparable to the ranking for Singapore’s main media. How atrocious! Would the comments be more friendly if the rankings were like those for our world class universities? Incidentally the rankings for our world class universities have received a few condemnations and they have started to think of a more realistic and relevant way of ranking our world class universities, ranked in the same ethereal realm of existence as the top universities of the world.
 
With such bad ranking on income inequality, this report rightly deserves to be rejected and dismissed. How could Singapore be lying so low down there in the company of Laos and not right up there with the top European countries? Must be very biased, or yes, simplistic and prescriptive. And Minister Desmond Lee was also unhappy with the report and was offended. He said, ‘We think it is more important to look at the outcomes achieved instead.’ Yes, agreed, these people coming from nowhere, never lived here before, making such unruly comments on our domestic affairs and so critical and simplistic some more.
 
Let me just make one quote from the Oxfam report as reported in thenewspaper to support a case against the unstinting and unfair criticism of this best run state in the world. ‘Singapore could tackle inequality at home by spending more, strengthening labour rights and enacting anti discrimination laws.’
 
But Singapore has been spending a lot more to help the poor students, including many from other countries to study in our world best schools, polytechnics and universities, with scholarships covering fees, living expenses and housing. This is in the tune of several billions over the years. How much more must Singapore spend before Oxfam is satisified? The govt even legislated to spend the poor people’s life savings, otherwise they would not spend, to protect them from health and life expectancy problems. This money spent the Oxfam sure would not know. They must add this as part of the social spending to help the poor, to level up the income inequality.
 
As for strengthening the labour movements and labour rights, how much more is needed when the govt assigned the PM to be to head the labour movement? This is damn powerful ok, to protect and to fight for the workers’ rights and interests. No country would put such a high power minister to work for the workers. So the comment by the Oxfam report is too simplistic or ignorant.
 
More anti discrimination laws? On what, sexual inequality or wealth inequality? Ok, sexual inequality is now gaining support, especially for the LGBTs. Give the govt some time and all sexes and bisexuals will be equal, no more discrimination. Oh wait a minute, I read about this on sexual inequality, ‘Singapore has no equal pay or non discrimination laws for women, its laws on rape and sexual harassment are inadequate and there is no minimum wage except for cleaners and security guards.’ Holy cow, where did this come from? See how many women ministers we have and think the top salary earner in Singapore is a woman. Ok, I have no statistic to back this up. Caveat.
 
Laws on rape? Come on, Singapore is virtually free of rape crimes against women. Why do you need more laws on this when it is quite irrelevant? You need more laws on rape if the country is infested with rapists, not safe, safe Singapore.
 
As for wealth inequality, the best legal provision is the abolishment of estate duty so that everyone can inherit their homes after the death of the owner of the estate. Rich or poor, all are treated as equal. Poor Singaporeans need not lose their estate as a result of death, and can pass on their HDB flats to their descendants forever.
 
See how simplistic is the Oxfam report? They did not know that our poor are so rich and happy that all the poor in the whole world would want to be poor in Singapore. This is a fact, a spoken fact. Why is it a spoken fact? Because no one in Singapore dispute this fact when spoken.
 
Whew. I said my piece for Singapore. I defended Singapore’s integrity.

The AHTC case and the flaws of switching management

It is so obvious that the problems facing the AHTC case need not arise and must/would not be allowed to be repeated if the management of town councils remains with a statutory board or ministry ran by civil servants. The management of a town council, the complexity and operational details involved, and the importance of such services remaining in tact and continuou, demand that it must be run by a permanent body of staff. It cannot be otherwise.
 
The AHTC case highlighted the problems and flaws and unnecessary troublesome administrative handling over of funds, records, duties and responsibilities that could not be efficiently transferred from one management to another over a short spell of time. Such procedures and processes, the involvement of funds and monetary matters, necessitate very careful, arduous and detailed scrutiny and inspection before a transfer can take place. And worse, under the politicized nature of the system, when a different and often unfriendly party won an election and having to take over the function and running of a town council, in a way exposing the predecessor’s work to be scrutinized for wrongdoings, make the transfer of responsibility a hostile takeover with both parties placed in a very difficult and confrontational position. How could such a belligerent and antagonistic system be to the interest of the residents that expect a public service to continue to run efficiently, smoothly and without disruption?
 
When a political party takes over the running of a state after winning a general election, all the staff of ministries and stats boards remain in tact, with all the systems and procedures, including software and hardware, remain practically unchanged until such time when the new govt is ready to make changes. The services of the respective ministries and stats boards will not be affected in anyway or in any serious ways. Assuming the same terms of changing all the staff and systems in ministries should take place like the changing of the guards in the town councils, there is no way the new govt can start to administer a country and all its ministries and stats boards given the time constraints.
 
The expectation of a new town council management to start operating and running a town council almost immediately is insane. An incoming town council could insist that all the documents, accounts and system be proper and free from errors before taking over and this would lead to an endless explanation and bickering of what is being handed over. This is simply plain impossible and unacceptable.
 
It is time the town councils be returned to be managed permanently and continuously by a stats board with permanent staff and system for the good of the residents. No one or party or politician need to be put through running a town council to prove themselves to be able to run a country. This is a red herring, a myth. It does not happen in any other country and historically, new govts are form in democratic countries after winning an election with people that came from all walks of life except running a country and they ran the country and doing no less better than people who had the experience of running town councils.
 
One does not have to run a small company to run a big company or organization. Running a small company or organization like a town council has very little relevance to running a country. If that is the critical experience to run a country successfully, then the first generation of leaders would have failed or must fail. They did not, without the experience of running town councils. So did the leaders of all the countries in the whole wide world.
 
This town council thing must be put right for the good of the people and country. All the political bickering is unnecessary, stressful, silly and a waste of public funds and resources that could be put to better use and more important things.

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