• About Us
    • Fact Checking Policy
    • Ownership & funding information
    • Volunteer
  • Subscribe
  • Letter submission
    • Submissions Policy
  • Contact Us
The Online Citizen Asia
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
The Online Citizen Asia
No Result
View All Result

Reducing income inequality in Singapore is better than imposing quotas for university entries

by onlinecitizen
07/05/2017
in Commentaries
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0

Students of Nan Hua High School, Singapore, in the school hall (Source : Wikipedia).

by Chris Kuan
If the government want to encourage the young to go into vocational institutes than to universities, here’s my suggestion – get real about reducing income inequality.
And that comes from making the tax and spend policies a lot more redistributional than today. The young and their parents cannot but see university degrees as the best insurance against bad outcomes in life when they see, amidst high living costs, the lack of state assistance and social entitlements to help mitigate unknowables such as the extent of healthcare expenses and the adequacies of retirement.
Furthermore it is easy to see degrees as giving the best chance to earn a level of income that generates a lot of advantages beyond the simple differences in wages over those who have lower level of income. The field needs to be levelled significantly to give better outcomes for the lower rungs of wage earners, therefore making the absence of a degree less onerous.

The other suggestion is to set up a long term development bank, no not DBS but like Germany’s KfW to provide long term finance and patient capital at soft terms to develop local industries.
The present short term attitude of local companies, not least encouraged by being told to “steal other people’s lunch” don’t bode well for stuff like vocational training and apprenticeship which takes time to develop and nurture. We don’t have the equivalent of the patient German Mittelstand or the myriad world beating small specialist companies in Japan.
A final suggestion – bear down hard, very hard on access to foreign labour. Restriction in university places will rightly be seen as discriminatory as I wrote yesterday if a shortfall in graduates trainees is met by foreign workers, many with less reputable or even fake degrees. Companies will not be patient to develop and nurture the 60-70% going into vocations and apprenticeship or pay good enough wages if at the simple submission of the relevant forms, they get access to cheap foreign labour.
The above stuff again suggest that the government may think it is making “hard choices” but it is still not good in mitigating the trade-offs of its propensity in pulling every kind of levers all at the same time. What I suggest maybe anathema to the government but the options are there.
In prehistoric times, when yours truly started work at a prestigious US bank, colleagues were looking at me funny because among my batch I alone had neither diploma nor degree. It seems nothing has changed as Tay Kheng Soon mentioned there is a snobbery involved in a degree.
Then in my first overseas job, other than the general manager who looked more university professor (Catholic priest, a German colleague corrected me, LOL!) than banker, none of the German expats went to university, all of them having started at the company at 16 and having undergone years of on the job training and courses. They would retire as general managers and executive directors and I bowing out with regional responsibilities. We in Singapore do not have the patience to pursue this approach, not the employers and (I must add) not the employees.

But it is well nigh impossible these days to get to these levels without a degree. From the perspective of the financial industry, perhaps a narrow one, tasks and responsibilities used to be performed by someone with GCE Os are now done by university graduates these days.
A trading assistant or a portfolio assistant in the days did not go to university, these days they are graduates. So are many of those who compiled and analyse daily risk reports, profit and loss etc. This is not because there is a glut of graduates but because these tasks have become much more complex, requiring more educated, more skilled staff.
Given what I have seen over the past 35 years, having a quota on university places seems a very bad idea indeed.
For just US$7.50 a month, sign up as a subscriber on The Online Citizen Asia (and enjoy ads-free experience on our site) to support our mission to transform TOC into an alternative mainstream press.

Related Posts

2024 Olympic torch relay to start in Marseille
AFP

2024 Olympic torch relay to start in Marseille

03/02/2023
India’s Adani shares plunge again after stock sale cancelled
AFP

India’s Adani denies rise due to Modi as shares fall again

03/02/2023
TotalEnergies says Adani exposure ‘limited’ at US$3.1 bn
AFP

TotalEnergies says Adani exposure ‘limited’ at US$3.1 bn

03/02/2023
India’s finance minister says markets ‘well regulated’ after Adani storm
AFP

India’s finance minister says markets ‘well regulated’ after Adani storm

03/02/2023
A man can be sentenced to death by a testimony of another, but CPIB finds it hard to prosecute with mountain of evidence and self-confession?
Opinion

A man can be sentenced to death by a testimony of another, but CPIB finds it hard to prosecute with mountain of evidence and self-confession?

03/02/2023
AFP

Myanmar junta imposes tough new measures on resistance strongholds

03/02/2023
Subscribe
Connect withD
Login
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
Notify of
Connect withD
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Latest posts

2024 Olympic torch relay to start in Marseille

2024 Olympic torch relay to start in Marseille

03/02/2023
India’s Adani shares plunge again after stock sale cancelled

India’s Adani denies rise due to Modi as shares fall again

03/02/2023
TotalEnergies says Adani exposure ‘limited’ at US$3.1 bn

TotalEnergies says Adani exposure ‘limited’ at US$3.1 bn

03/02/2023
India’s finance minister says markets ‘well regulated’ after Adani storm

India’s finance minister says markets ‘well regulated’ after Adani storm

03/02/2023
A man can be sentenced to death by a testimony of another, but CPIB finds it hard to prosecute with mountain of evidence and self-confession?

A man can be sentenced to death by a testimony of another, but CPIB finds it hard to prosecute with mountain of evidence and self-confession?

03/02/2023

Myanmar junta imposes tough new measures on resistance strongholds

03/02/2023
Malaysia High Court dismissed DPM Zahid’s application to get passport returned permanently

Malaysia High Court dismissed DPM Zahid’s application to get passport returned permanently

03/02/2023
Why is Gautam Adani’s Indian empire in turmoil?

Adani turmoil a key test for Modi’s India Inc

03/02/2023

Trending posts

Former Singaporean shares change of life in Australia with annual pay of S$80,000 as a plumber

Former Singaporean shares change of life in Australia with annual pay of S$80,000 as a plumber

by Yee Loon
30/01/2023
25

...

Earning only S$400 a month, delivery-rider turned hawker threw in the towel after two years of running a rojak stall

Earning only S$400 a month, delivery-rider turned hawker threw in the towel after two years of running a rojak stall

by Yee Loon
26/01/2023
24

...

They have done a fine job of confusing us about the jobs situation

They have done a fine job of confusing us about the jobs situation

by Augustine Low
01/02/2023
36

...

Two Indian nationals paid about S$330 and S$730 respectively for forged certificates submitted in their S-Pass application

MOM found issuing EPs meant for foreign PMETs to PRC waitress and general worker

by Correspondent
26/01/2023
41

...

Singapore warns slower economic growth in 2023

Less than 1 in 10 jobs created in first three quarters of 2022 went to Singaporeans?

by Leong Szehian
28/01/2023
69

...

Excessively charging for an essential need, and calling it affordable because people still can pay for it?

by Terry Xu
31/01/2023
39

...

May 2017
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Apr   Jun »

The Online Citizen is a regional online publication based in Taiwan and formerly Singapore’s longest-running independent online media platform.

Navigation

  • Editorial
  • Commentaries
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Community

Support

  • Contact Us
  • Letter submission
  • Membership subscription

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Fact Checking Policy
  • Privacy Policy

© 2022 - 2023 The Online Citizen Asia

No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Civil Society
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
  • Politics
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Subscribers login

© 2022 - 2023 The Online Citizen Asia

wpDiscuz