What is education for? Is education for the sake of education? Or is education about equipping the student to participate fully in life, in the economy, simply about getting a job to earn some money to provide for himself and his family should he decide to have one? For the elite and the gentry class, the royalties and aristocracies, education is just for education, to learn to read and write. The need to get a job or the need for an education to equip the student to be gainfully employed is not necessary in the lives of such privilege classes of people. Contrast this to those who need to work for a living, an education is seen primarily as a means to a job. Of course one does not need an education to get a job. A fisherman, a butcher, a boxer or a golfer or a tennis player, they don’t need an education to earn a living.
Putting aside those that don’t need to work, and those jobs that don’t need an education, education is the acquisition of a piece of certificate, diploma or degree or the acquiring of a passpost to a job. Several of our wise leaders have spoken many times to encourage the young to get a good education and advocating how important education is to a good job and a good life. Education is the leveller for all to compete on equal grounds to material success. And the Govt spent hundreds of millions annually to provide an excellent and world class education system for the population. And the universities and colleges all strived to be the best, to produce the best students for society and the economy.
Then out of the blue we heard two ministers in a matter of days said these. Khaw Boon Wan: “You own a degree, but so what? You can’t eat it. If that cannot give you a good life, a good job, it is meaningless”. He later went on to encourage people to become crane drivers when there is a great demand for it and the pay is good. Then Heng Swee Keat followed up a few days later by saying that ‘beyond providing students with a good education, he wasn’t sure or neither would he be responsible if these students could not find good jobs after graduating.’
Could you believe it, that two ministers in the same breath told the people that our world class education could not guarantee them a good job and maybe they should consider becoming crane drivers or take on other jobs that don’t require a good formal education? What the hell the Govt set up all the good schools, colleges and universities for? The students in these institutions are mostly from the working class that need to work for a living. They are not children of royalties or aristocrats or the super rich when working is an unnecessary chore, and if they choose to work, it is to kill their boredom. Why encourage the parents to send their children through the system, invested time and resources when it can be all for nothing?
Does anyone think that this is strange? Would the NTUC, the super advocates of training and the organisation that has been sending hundreds of thousands of workers for training, tell the workers that the training would not guarantee them a job? Then why waste their time and money?
The sick part of this conversation is that the country can provide a few hundred thousand jobs to foreigners who came from less prestigious or even doubtful institutions of learning with great jobs and good paying jobs. And we are telling our children that despite the fact that they have gone through one of the best education system, they may not get a good job here.
I think this must be the joke of the century. Now who started this joke and set the whole world laughing? Education, and expensive education, stressful education, is not ‘main main’ ya. Who in his right mind would tell the parents that this gonna be the case, that their children with good grades from this expensive and world class education system may not find a good job while the questionable students with questionable grades from questionable education institutions could be in a better position to get good jobs? Is there someone suffering from bipolar sickness but is not detected? Did someone say bird talk?
And there is the acting Minister of Manpower, Tan Chuan Jin, scurrying around like a bull arse fly shouting discrimination by employers, both locals and foreigners, against Singaporeans in employment. Now, what is that all about? Maybe have to wait for people to clean the hawker centre first before they have time to explain what is going on.
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at mysingaporenews.blogspot.com