I feel MOE should implement it in 2-3yrs after they announced to let those PR who have already PV in the school have their chance. I really pity those PR who have PV.

These are great questions. I am curious to know what your answers are.

As am I.

Mr Lee: “Well, we’ve got ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians here. The settled ones have become less hard-driving and hard-striving and we’ve got recent migrants, they are hungry, they’re determined to succeed having uprooted themselves and they’re doing better.”

Q: “Is that okay? Is that fine, I mean?”

Mr Lee: “No it worries the old citizens. They say look this is fierce competition, my children won’t be getting the scholarships because they’re doing well in schools, they push their children very hard. In fact, they need no pushing. They come here from China with no English language and they know that without English, they won’t get along. So there are many cases of boys and girls aged 12, 13 who come into our secondary schools and by the time, they finish the schools, they top the class in English.”

Q: “That’s interesting, it’s like my grandparents came to New York. When they came in, they don’t speak English and they did great. They just really tried hard and made a life for themselves and I think after a number of generations, it’s very difficult to keep that kind of drive up.”

Mr Lee: “Of course, of course.”

Q: “Do you think that’s inevitable or do you think that people just get lazy or what?”

Mr Lee: “No, I think the spurs are not stuck on your hinds. They are part of the herd, why-go-faster? But when you’re lagging behind, you must go faster to catch up with the herd. I’m quite sure that there are children of the migrants who strive arduously. When they grow up in the same schools as the Singaporeans, the same playing fields, same environment and they begin to adopt Singaporean habits in the ways of living and thinking. So I’m quite sure they’d become like us. Well, because we’re shrinking in our population, our fertility ratio is about 1.29.

Q: “I actually wanted to ask you about that.”

Mr Lee: ”So it’s a worrying factor. So we’ll need a constant inflow but we’re a small population, so we get the inflow and we get the inflow from the educated end of the population, both Indians and Chinese and they’ve got surplus populations. Well, I won’t say surplus but they’ve got huge population, huge numbers.”

Q: “They have people to spare, that’s for sure.”

Mr Lee: “No and they’ve got fierce competition there, so when they come here, higher standards of living for the time being, better social environment with jobs.”

Q: “What would you say the parents of the second or third generation of Singaporeans and their children are not able to compete with the new people? How do you tell them?”

Mr Lee: “We tell them look they have got to work harder or they’ll become stupid. It’s just that they don’t see the point of it. Why race when you can canter and save your energy and do other things? Art, ballet, sports whereas these new migrants, they spend all their time slogging away in the library or at home.”

Who is Jim roger?

He is the father who rides a tricycle every morning Happily ferrying his daughter, Happy Roger, to school, and fetches her back, and sometimes the your sister would tag along

countries like.. your own? (juz a remark, no intention to be sarcastic or anything..)

it may be a political move.. you can't run away from that..

One comment on the hostility.. most are not against real talents who can contribute to the community.. but rather cheap PMET labour from pinoy land, abnn land or tiong land or the like.. who come here in hordes to compete with locals for jobs..

I doubt UK employee or Aussie employees will cost less than locals..

But pinoys, abnn & tiong more often than not will be much cheaper.. plus no NS obligations..

FT is just a general term.. the hostility is most likely not targeted at all FTs.. I doubt the number of European FTs is significant anyway.. compared to pinoy, abnn & tiong land..... to cause any distress to locals..

All along, there have been FTs from other parts of the world and there was never much resentment.. only recently the influx from pinoy, abnn & tiong than got so many complains..

Hence, no need to be bothered by those comments against FTs that you see in other forums..... I feel..

He is the father who rides a tricycle every morning Happily ferrying his daughter, Happy Roger, to school, and fetches her back, and sometimes the your sister would tag along

now why would frinedship's sister wanna tag along?