Sunday, December 01, 2013

Are Singaporeans Second Class Citizens in Singapore?

This is loud clamouring  in the internet.  Today, B2 is supposed to have lunch with his classmate.  We were having trouble trying to decide where to eat in People's Park.  Chinatown Point will be too expensive.  People Park hawker center is hot and dirty.  Finally, we decided on soya sauce chicken.  As we walk past the row of shophouse, one sign distracted us...84cents for Peking Duck.  We decided to check it out.  It is Spring Court, where the food is quite good.  So we decided that we will try as the minimum $84 spend is easy to achieve with the price in the menu.

B2 had to go and instead of missing the chance to eat good food, mummy offers him to ask his friend to join us instead.  This girl is from a different course.  She is in precision engineering and they met during CCA.  I do not remember her name and will refer her as Ah Girl.  Ah Girl is 19 years old and  is a Malaysian from Johore.  She is here on scholarship which mean she does not need to pay for her school fees.  On top of that, she is bonded for 5 years which means she is guaranteed a job the moment she graduates.  No interview is required for the scholarship.  She just need to submit her results. 

My neighbour's daughter tried so hard to get in medicine and was rejected.  She has to pay $200K to $300K to send to Ireland for medical school.  Many Singaporean kids have trouble getting any help from our government to study.  Meanwhile, we are paying foreign kids to study here.  The logic is we bring in smart foreign kids here to study for free and give them jobs when they graduates.  Hopefully, they will continue to stay in Singapore afterwards. 

My boys have to spend two years doing NS.  We have to pay our own way.  No job guarantees when they graduate.  This is beginning to look like real discrimination for being born in Singapore.

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