Disadvantaged kids need a lift, says Tharman

By Rachel Chang, The Straits Times, 4 Aug 2012

DEPUTY Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said yesterday that more must be done to level opportunities for young children in Singapore.

He acknowledged that there is no society where all children start off at the same level, which makes more urgent the need to "intervene early, intervene upstream, not downstream".

From the preschool and primary school stage, those from disadvantaged backgrounds must receive special attention, he said. The culture in schools and communities must be geared towards going "out of our way to lift the children with disadvantages".

His comments come amidst a debate on whether the Government should do more to raise the quality of preschool education, after a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit found Singapore lagging behind many other countries in preschool provision.

Speaking at a National Day celebration dinner in his Taman Jurong ward last night, Mr Tharman identified early intervention as a key step that must be taken to realise the "hopes and confidence" that Singaporean parents currently have.

Referring to a recent Straits Times survey, which found that 79 per cent of respondents believe their children's standard of living would be higher than theirs, he pointed out that this was much higher than in the US, Europe and Japan, where the share is less than 50 per cent.

But for the Singapore system to continue to engender such strong confidence, key bottlenecks to social mobility must be eased, he said.

Regardless of where young people leave the education system, he said, a ladder to success must be available for them. This requires not just the right attitude towards self-improvement and upgrading on the individual's part, but also for employers to put less emphasis on academic credentials.

He cited two young men he recently encountered who work at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. Neither made it to polytechnic or university, and both started work as waiters as young adults. But they have gone for skills training courses, and now make two or three times their starting pay.

"These are ordinary Singaporeans with an attitude that all of us can have. Keep learning, keep improving, take on responsibility, and inspire your colleagues," said Mr Tharman. "And their pay goes up. This is what every Singaporean can do. Even if you don't do well in school, there's a ladder to success."

Mr Tharman, who is also the Finance Minister, reiterated the Government's commitment to helping low-income workers own Housing Board flats by providing generous grants, as well as its intention to help boost cleaners' wages by hiring only accredited cleaning firms that pay better. He also sought to assuage worries over health-care costs, noting that for the needy elderly especially, most medical bills are subsidised. But this is not well understood by some, which he said was probably the Government's fault "for not explaining things clearly enough".

Recently, he met an elderly couple in his ward who said they were afraid of going back to the hospital after the husband's treatment for a stroke came up to thousands of dollars. Asking to examine their bill, he saw that the full charge of $6,000 was reduced to $300 after deductions from MediShield, their daughter's Medisave account, and Medifund.

What this showed was that the Government must do "a better job" of explaining to people that they do not have to worry about health-care costs, he said.