By Peter Lim
Singaporeans need to spend at least $20,000 and study hard for 3-4 years to earn a Bachelor Degree, but some foreign talents only need $800 and 30 minutes to buy a degree from degree mills. The degree can be Bachelor, Masters or Ph.D., depending on what employees want.
Market changes easily for Singaporeans, the degree obtained from NUS/NTU might not be relevant. They also cannot afford to spend another 3-4 years studying. For foreign talents who buy their degrees, the so-called degrees can always be up-to-date as they can buy any type they like.
Male Singaporean graduates need to serve National Service (NS) every year up to the age of 40 years old. To employees, this is an unnecessary disruption to work while, for foreign talents, there is no need to serve NS.
Singaporean graduates cannot afford to have a below $2000 starting pay as there is a need to pay for the study loans and CPF contribution. But for foreign talents, there is no need to pay for study loans and contribute for Central Provident Funds (CPF) unless they are Permanent Residents (PR). Even PRs pay a very low CPF contribution for the first few years. Hence, they can accept much lesser starting pay.
Singaporeans cannot produce fake qualifications as all their information is already captured with their NRIC. Each ministry can easily obtain the information via NRIC – if they want, they can even know your full PSLE and GCE results.
But foreign talents can choose to list fake qualifications on their resume as there is no (and will not be) a central body in Singapore to check. As shown in the recent story, even if they get caught, they still can work at stats boards like IDA.
Singaporean workers do not pay kick-backs for employment as they are afraid of being caught and be doomed in Singapore with a criminal record. But for some foreign talents, they can choose to pay kickbacks to get employed. There is no fear as even if caught, everything can be started afresh back to their hometown
Singaporeans will be shamed in the media if they break their study bonds but for foreign talents, nothing happens to them.
This is the current situation when we have 5.5 million of population and Singaporeans already cannot compete fairly.
Can you handle this situation when it will be 6.9 million as stated in the Population White Papers?
