Tuesday, October 21, 2008 9:52
TOC YOUTH WEEK: Young S’poreans’ sense of entitlement
In Eddie Choo, Main Stories • 889 views • 18 Comments
Eddie Choo / Writer
I had ended my morning jog when I saw my childhood friend walking to the bus stop. I was in a bit of a surprise, since I thought he would be at school studying or working. So we chatted a bit about ourselves and what we were doing now and all.
He told me that he was still studying, having repeated one year at polytechnic education, and that now he was doing holiday attachment at a computer shop at Sim Lim Square. So fair enough, I told him that my NS had just ended, and was now waiting to go to university. To protect his identity, I’m calling him Syl. I told him I was interested in buying a new computer, one that could support the latest games.
He then asked me about my National Service (NS) experience, so i told him quite a fair bit. We chatted about our studies, about the course that he was studying, and the course I was going to study at NUS. So I just gave him an advice that he should study hard and get a decent diploma, and that he shouldn’t drop out from school like a mutual friend that we knew.
Now you must understand that he’s a childhood friend, and we had a really fun childhood playing games together and doing some other innocently fun stuff during primary school. We went to different secondary schools, and there, things started to diverge. It seemed that he became a little too playful, and his grades suffered, but still, he managed to go to a polytechnic, which seriously, isn’t bad at all. But then at poly, he didn’t focus on his studies, and had to appeal to the poly in order not to drop out, sort of like repeated a year.
Because we still stay in the same neighbourhood, we would run into each other. So we would have all these informal chats and do a bit of catch up.
After talking to him, I don’t know why or how, I would feel this sense of great emotion, a potent mix of compassion and humility, obligation and this sense of connection. To have friends like that means a great deal of other things. One of them means a sense of responsibility, that these people whom you were having fun with in your younger days now sort of like look up to you, because you are going somewhere they can’t go, that you are doing things that they would never have the chance to do. Its a kind of leadership, in that sense, that the rest of our community who didn’t have the chance to go to university now look up to you to give something back for the community in the future.
I’m just concerned that young people go to university with a sense of entitlement, that they think that they can to university deservingly, that they are the supposed cream of the crop of Singapore academically, and they want to get their way because they deserve to. Now, in a meritocratic system like Singapore it’s fine, because I think that truly, some people deserve to be studying in university because they’ve really studied, heck, I had to study hard to get to university too. But I hope that the sense of entitlement not be too great and becomes arrogance. What I hope they would have is a sense of duty and responsibility, a sense of obligation because of the education they will receive, because of the power that has been vested unto them, implicitly or explicitly.
I learnt about these things as I was serving NS. Now, it might be weird, like, how would an experience in NS be related to these feelings of responsibility? After all, for those who know me, I was not a commander, and there wasn’t much I could do in terms of proper leadership and all. All true, but the point that kept gnawing at me was that throughout NS, there were those dull idle times where man and commanders would all gather together by themselves, and just talk stuff. And every now and then, talk would revolve the generalities involving Singapore, NS and things like that, and here on, it gets sort of interesting. There was a regular commander – he had signed on for ten years as a specialist, so he was the de facto senior commander, since his signing on means he would be more committed and not slack off as what tends to happen with those commanders serving just the 2 years of NS. Anyway, so talk would revolve around our future.
By some twist of paperwork, the kind of people who were the rank and file were not the usual direct-intake, who were usually school dropouts. They were people who usually came from JCs and Polys, from Tekong which was known for having more ‘relaxed’ training compared to the training of those in the direct-intake who would immediately go to their NS unit – the place where they might stay for the next 2 years for their lives. So here was a different kind of people – people who lost out on the chance to become commanders – that issue having been hyped up at Tekong, and more importantly, people who had so-called ‘more of a future’ by virtue of their JC education and their upcoming university education.
So some of us would sit next to the regular commander, and we would just talk about our futures after NS. He would tell us to study hard, and go have a decent diploma or degree, and most surprising, this plea not to be like him, without a proper education, and had to sign on as sort of like a last resort. And because of his lack of education, he was being sidelined in terms of priority for courses.
All of these conversations tell me something. That those who are studying in the universities and all, people who are most likely going to have a decent shot of success of their own futures, have an implicit responsibility towards the rest of society. We are expected to be ethical in our dealings and conduct, and we should be doing things to give back to the rest of society.
The system might be elitist, but the people shouldn’t be.
———-
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18 Comments
Youths have zero work life experience.....why waste time on them?
Fudder Kang Ah Loo
CHANGE in the INC will require at least a Real REVOLUTION.
As with all great Revolutions, its achieved with SACRIFICEs, PAIN and lots of PAIN. Else, it would not be called a Revolution.
Can youths take hardship ?
sigh….
DONT CATCH ME MINDEF
“So some of us would sit next to the regular commander, and we would just talk about our futures after NS. He would tell us to study hard, and go have a decent diploma or degree, and most surprising, this plea not to be like him, without a proper education, and had to sign on as sort of like a last resort. ”
did you just imply that those regulars in SAF are there because they signed on out of sheer desperation and lack of choice? I’m sorry but isn’t that what MINDEF always tried to NOT portray? undermining their efforts now? =)
“he had signed on for ten years as a specialist, so he was the de facto senior commander, since his signing on means he would be more committed and not slack off as what tends to happen with those commanders serving just the 2 years of NS.”
sorry but I think that’s the exception rather than the norm. there are many NSFs who “slack off” but somehow still can contribute more meaningfully than these “committed” and “on the ball” regulars.
victor @young generation@
NS…just a joke…
1 Q come to my mind..
why we need to go for NS…loyal..??
to who…sing or pap…??
HAHAS…salary so less..
if u say for loyalty…
do u youth really need to be loyal to sing???
did not takecare of singaporeans..still need to be loyal??
i wonder…………………………………………..
chorus
“Why does TOC want to spend time on these group of people when they have zero working experience to know about the REALity of this system we live in?
They mainly spend time mugging their books , playstation , movies , MP3, and pcc. i mean play catch cockles.
Youths look 1st world in terms of makeup, dress and material thingies.
But based on my encounters with them, they were brought up to avoid Questioning all things. This is the main aspect where I feel the youths have a 4th world mentality – 3rd world democratic citizens know how to survive and question, thus inappropriate to describe youths as 3rd world, unfortunately.
I really seriously worry the youths cannot compete.”
So bitter, so cynical.
I think you should worry about yourself first with such narrow minded and myopic views.
ddd
You should actually go to a local uni and see the numbers of foreigners here. Then go out in the working world to work for 6 years to repay your own school fees and serve your reservist cycles, while your foreign counterparts need not pay a cent and some have left without serving even the 3 year bond which really cannot be easily enforced. Then you come back and write this article conclusion again. You might want to ask, can I use my own cpf for my study abroad, no you can’t. Can I be entitled to the same tuition grant for foreigners in local uni for my study in overseas unis, afterall i did my ns and my overseas unis are reputable ones, no you can’t. Then ok, you go back and chat more with your commanders in your reservist.
Kang Ah Loo
Its the Truth to say that Youths students do not have working life experience. The males do not even have done NS and know what it is all about.
I think this is unquestionable fact.
When you don’t have it, that is just what you have.
I guess Asia is a very different ball game from the West.
In the UK, the parents typically do not pay for their children to attend university. A child is expected to get out of the house at the age of 18 and live on his own.
He is expected to take out a loan from the Student Loan Company (a UK GLC) to finance his university education while working part-time and receive minimal pocket money from his parents.
Although he begins his career with debt, he also spent his university years attending the School of Hard Knocks and become a more mature and independent person.
I think this is a good model to mould a proper sense of entitlement among youths today.
do we youths really need working experience to survive in the “real” world? If so, then the number of youths that you can find in the working world is simply incomprehensible. Go to your local (which one isnt?) McDonalds and you’ll be able to find them.
The foreigners? Something should be done about them. They’re simply sucking up all our money and space which could instead benefit other singaporeans whom have suffered for singapore all their life( Since their enrolment at the local PCF). Where else in the world would you find little kids so proud to wear to ruling party’s crest on their chest? That can only be found in singapore i guess.
I personally was an NSF commander. And yes, the NSFs do it better then the regulars. But that is MY PERSONAL experience. There are top notched regulars out there…but they are only a minority compared to the NSFs who normally outshine these regulars. Perhaps something can be done about it. Perhaps MINDEF can take on good people who actually have a passion for the army and not those who choose the army as a last resot.
laserpointer
@Donaldson Tan
How do you think that students can get employed and pay for rent and food at the same time while competing among themselves in school?
what are the kind of jobs here in singapore that they can earn some decent money?
He is expected to take out a loan from the Student Loan Company (a UK GLC) to finance his university education while working part-time and receive minimal pocket money from his parents. – Donaldson Tan (#8)
How do you think that students can get employed and pay for rent and food at the same time while competing among themselves in school? – laserpointer (#10)
The parents are still supporting the kids. However, kids are expected to be more independent and responsible for their finances.
There is a small number of Singaporeans who actually does this too. They take out a loan from NUS/NTU/SMU/CPF to finance their education, while teaching tuition part-time. They still live with their parents and their parents provide a minimal sum of pocket money.
However, these people usually come from poor families. Unlike the case of the UK, one is expected to do so whether you are from the poor or middle class of society.
laserpointer
@Donaldson
There’s a large proportional of university students who taking either bank loans or from the cpf to finance tertiary education as well as the same time earning pocket money from teaching part time tuition. Look at most of the tuition agencies websites and you will find most of the tutors are undergrads. I don’t think it’s a small number that you are talking about here.
@Donaldson
Yes I agree that ‘kids’ have to be more independent. And yes, I won’t agree that there is a SMALL number of Singaporeans who actually does this. As a student myself, I went through Polytechnic and attending University at present, you are wrong to say that. Unless they have the privilege of having financially rich parents, then it’s an exception. Usually, my friends who are able to finance their tertiary education, goes abroad. Go check out how many “Oxfordians” and “Cambridgians” are Singaporeans recently, you’ll be amazed. Why aren’t these affluent Singaporeans enlisting themselves in local Universities instead? By the way, my friend who went abroad to Oxford, was given a scholarship to enter NUS. Why are scholarships being given to the rich people in Singapore? Even he asked me personally as he could afford the tuition fees in Singapore if he wanted to. Google it up, the amount of ‘rich’ Singaporeans compared with the ‘poorer’ or working class Singaporeans being offered a scholarship. An article about this issue was out in the straits times last month I guess.
Financial-wise, I think inter-ethnic marriages isn’t a good thing in Singapore. Why? My friend who is a Chinese-Muslim (dad=Chi, mum=Arab-Malay), isn’t able to utilize the Mendaki’s financial schemes to fund his tuition fees in University. And trust me, he went to CDAC with not much opportunities either, the officer there dubbed him ‘malay’ and CDAC offered loans with interests the same as the local banks. Racial divide?
I’m not too sure if the new education system at present allows students to enter JC without a 2nd Language. Take myself for example, I have no 2nd language subject, dropped it as I kept failing in secondary school. Due to me speaking English at home (inter-ethnic parents) using a universal language to converse since young, I did badly in the 2nd Language field. I received a L1R4 of 11 pts and couldn’t enter JC. Appealed and did all the roundabouts to get through, apparently it didn’t work. I ended up in poly and worked my way through attaining high grades to get to University. Long route? Whose fault was it? Why wasn’t flexibility given to students who had ‘talent’? I understand Singapore wants to protect its population from western decadence by inculcating the need for 2nd language, National education and history of our ethnicity and cultural heritage. But since the evolution of the internet and immersion in various globalized education (student exchange, private institutions etc.), are we really eroded by western influence? Will this hamper the working environment in Singapore? I thought Singapore was headed towards the ‘knowledge-based’ economy, and the ‘global’ country ideology… If ‘mixed-races’ Singaporeans who does exceptionally well in academics are forced to adopt to the local form of educational system, I believe a majority will seek elsewhere for opportunities (abroad) and those who cannot, will spend a larger duration of their lives appealing and struggling through to achieve a substantial education.
Donaldson Tan
I don’t think it’s a small number that you are talking about here. – laserpointer (#12)
I won’t agree that there is a SMALL number of Singaporeans who actually does this. – min (#13)
Maybe it is a bad idea to prescribe a qualitative descriptor to the term number. I admit that there is almost nobody among my peers that actually fall in that category. However, it was through my ex-girlfriend´s eyes that I first saw the reality of an underprivileged class in Singapore. My relationship with her brought out my compassion for the underprivileged in Singapore. The compassion remained with me ever since.
Usually, my friends who are able to finance their tertiary education, goes abroad. Go check out how many “Oxfordians” and “Cambridgians” are Singaporeans recently, you’ll be amazed. – min (#13)
I don´t need to google. I am one of the many affluent Singaporeans who are in the privileged category. Oxbridge isn´t the only place of choice. I personally find London more attractive than Oxbridge because London is the world´s capital for commerce, technology and fashion.
Why are scholarships being given to the rich people in Singapore? – Min (#13)
I personally object that a scholarship grant should be regarded as a prize. It should be a key instrument to make the education system more equitable and more accessible to the underprivileged.
Due to me speaking English at home (inter-ethnic parents) using a universal language to converse since young, I did badly in the 2nd Language field. – Min (#13)
I do not think this is an issue of universal language, but rather the standard of spoken/written language being enforced at home. I do not have inter-ethnic parents. However, I speak English exclusively to my English-educated parent while I speak Mandarin exclusively to my Chinese-educated parent. As a kid, my parents used to punish me if I were to mix both English and Mandarin in the same sentence. I am also expected to complete a sentence in either pure English or pure Mandarin, while Singlish is banned at home.
. I ended up in poly and worked my way through attaining high grades to get to University. Long route? Whose fault was it? Why wasn’t flexibility given to students who had ‘talent’? – Min (#13)
I understand your anguish over education system. We dislike the education system for different reasons. I hated it for being overtly exam-focused, leaving no room for the individual to pursue his interest.
When I was 17, I enrolled for A level biology at JC despite having zero background in O level biology because I wanted to expand my understanding of the natural sciences. I went against every exam-smart logic being drilled into me because of interest.
I suffered academically for Biology through-out my 2 years at JC. I absolutely refused to drop it. The first time I passed an A level Biology paper was during the actual A Level examination itself, with a decent B. I even scored higher than some of my peers who had consistently beat me in Biology through-out my 2 years in JC.
Eddie Choo
I apologize for some generalisations which I shouldn’t have made. Conversations with the regular specialist weren’t meant to say that ALL regular specs signed on because they didn’t have any education opportunities. I know of people who signed on for the sheer dedication of the country. My conversation was an isolated one, and should be a reflection of the entire SAF as a whole.
@ Eddie Choo
What do you mean by it should be a reflect of the SAF as a whole?
Donaldson Tan
Agnes Lim has taken the topic of youth´s sense of entitlement to the next level:
http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/My%2BMoney/Story/A1Story20081028-96636.html
Dshad
@Min
‘Go check out how many “Oxfordians” and “Cambridgians” are Singaporeans recently, you’ll be amazed. Why aren’t these affluent Singaporeans enlisting themselves in local Universities instead?’
-> Why would you want someone who can qualify for education in Oxford or Cambridge to study in a local Uni? Does it not make more sense to have people who can afford to study overseas to do so, and to free up spaces in local universities. Besides, if they can get a top-rate education in Oxford or Cambridge, should we begrudge them for that opportunity?
But I do agree that funds should be given to those who need it and those who could do without. I for one am on scholarship now (given by the school, no bond) when I believe my family would be comfortable enough financially to see me through.
And I think your point on the discrepancy of the Mendaki, CDAC system is a very valid one. But rather than think that inter-racial marriages are not good, I’d rather overhaul the current system. I think we need to rethink giving assistance along racial lines anyway.
I do however disagree with your point that second-languages are to prevent Western influence. On contrary, I think the government believes that multi-linguism happens to be our comparative advantage. I can fully sympathise with your situation as I too come from an inter-ethnic background and we never spoke anything other than English at home. But I don’t necessarily think that it has condemned me to a life of mono-linguism. In addition, I am really envious of my Malay-Chinese friends as more often that not, they are able to converse in 3 languages. So I would say that it has given them an additional advantage.
But I understand that not everyone is linguistically inclined. Even my Chinese friends struggle with Chinese as they come from families who don’t speak it at home. And I know they think the policy is a crock of S***. But I disagree. I think that the language policy is an attempt to remain relevant. What I do agree with is that the policy needs adjustment to introduce flexibility into the system. For example, providing tracks alternate to languages such as a sciences or maths.
Why does TOC want to spend time on these group of people when they have zero working experience to know about the REALity of this system we live in?
They mainly spend time mugging their books , playstation , movies , MP3, and pcc. i mean play catch cockles.
Youths look 1st world in terms of makeup, dress and material thingies.
But based on my encounters with them, they were brought up to avoid Questioning all things. This is the main aspect where I feel the youths have a 4th world mentality – 3rd world democratic citizens know how to survive and question, thus inappropriate to describe youths as 3rd world, unfortunately.
I really seriously worry the youths cannot compete.