Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Mr Speaker, Singaporean workers aspire towards making a good living and engaging in meaningful work that uplifts not only their own families, but also their communities, their nation and the world.
One inescapable reality of work is competition.
We have always had a very competitive culture in Singapore. This has served us well in many ways, from the excellent performance of our students in schools to our efforts the top global rankings and everything from corruption perceptions to business friendliness. However, competition also has a darker side.
Singaporeans are not looking to the Government to shield them from global competition. However, we detest unfair competition where people who do not play by the rules or follow local norms, still get ahead. For example, when Singaporean workers see colleagues getting hired and promoted not on the basis of their ability or hard work nut because their manager prefers working with people who share his cultural background, this creates a profound dissonance in them.
Why? Because Singaporeans have been brought up to believe that meritocracy is a guiding principle in our society. We want a Singapore which rewards workers and professionals based on their competence and hard work, not connections or tribal loyalties.
Nevertheless, while we strive to shape the Singapore that we desire, we are but a small drop in a vast ocean. We have to teach our children and students to deal with the world as it is, not how we wanted to be. They must be taught at home and in schools to speak up when they have something to contribute, not stay silent in the background. They must be encouraged to ask for what is due to them and not simply accept what others decide for them without question. And they must be willing to network with a wide spectrum of people from different cultures and nationalities and understand what motivates them.
Singapore is often viewed as a nation of excellence. In local parlance, we do things “swee swee”. Give Singaporean a task and when they say they have done it, we can trust that it has been done well. We must never let this culture of excellence slip. It is our advantage in an increasingly competitive world.
AI and robotics both have both burst into mainstream consciousness in recent years, with the launch of generative AI and self-driving cars. These technologies could provide a path to boosting Singapore’s productivity by enhancing the speed, accuracy and efficiency of various tasks and processes.
There are many studies of AI’s measurable impact on productivity. For example, a joint study by BCG and Harvard found that consultants using GPT-4 completed 12% more business tasks 25% more quickly with 40% higher quality than a control group without AI-access.
These are amazing opportunities for Singapore to take advantage of. The Government can spur a broader uptake of AI and robotics, not only for our scientists and businesses, but also for general purpose use by ordinary citizens.
In November 2023, I asked about whether the Government plan to develop indigenous capabilities in creating and deploying AI foundation models, including establishing a national Foundation Model Research Institute.
In February 2024, I proposed the creation of a national AI Healthcare Foundation Model which can be used to predict and intervene in a broad spectrum of diseases. I would like to repeat these calls here.
These are not just national initiatives but possible precursors to greater regional scientific cooperation. Singapore needs the right institutions and opportunities in order to attract and retain the best minds, including talented Singaporean students, scientists and entrepreneurs.
I am under no Illusions about the potential of these new technologies to cause job losses. This is why in January 2024, I asked the Government for its plans to proactively retrain workers who are at most risk of displacement from AI. We need interventions to steel our citizens against AI-driven job redundancy. It is better for us to be the architects of our own disruption than to allow technology to change us for the worse.
It is tempting to pull out the old playbook or pouring money into training programmes and encouraging workers to attend courses. However, this approach may not succeed in upskilling an entire workforce in disrupted new technologies.
We must also embrace tacit learning, through the hands-on use of AI and robotics. Tacit learning is learning by doing. Using AI tools or robots needs to be made as easy and as commonplace as goggling for answers on a web browser or operating a television remote control. Robots should be deployed more widely in our environment so that the public get used to seeing and using them every day.
Giving every Singaporean hands-on practice with AI and robotics will better ensure that the gains of these technologies go to everyone, manual workers and knowledge workers, civil servants and entrepreneurs, MNCs and SMEs.
SkillsFuture must also support tacit learning. In February 2024, in my Adjournment Motion on global AI leadership, I called for the subscriptions to cutting edge AI tools to be subsidised by SkillsFuture credits.
AI tools make workers more productive and we should give our people more opportunities to use them. We must strive for the whole breadth of Singapore society to have contact with the best AI models and robots. Only by trying them out as a first mover and being willing to accept and learn from failure can we gain and retain the thousand points of knowledge that no instructor can teach.
In his Budget Statement, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong rightly pointed out that we are now in an era of armed conflict, confrontation and terrorism, with major powers prioritising national security over international cooperation and that there is a diminished willingness to tackle global issues. These are stark realities. We must work within the realities of this new world order as the old order is probably not coming back anytime soon.
Deputy Prime Minister Wong said that we will pursue better jobs and better growth. He made a commitment to improve wages across professions. In particular, he said that the wages and career prospects of ITE graduates should not be too far behind polytechnic and university graduates. I fully support this. I hope the wages of skilled tradespersons will come much closer to par with knowledge workers, because of the value they bring to our economy and our society. I will elaborate further on this during the Committee of Supply debate on MOM’s budget.
The introduction of the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, which injects another $4,000 into Singaporean SkillsFuture credit is welcome. Deputy Prime Minister Wong said it is to be used for selected training programmes with better employability outcomes, including part-time and full-time diplomas and undergraduate programmes. In addition, workers 40 years and above will have the opportunity to pursue another full-time diploma at subsidised rates.
Can I ask the Minister, how did the Government arrive at the conclusion that these diploma and degree programmes have better employability outcomes? Is there empirical evidence to support this and if there is, are the better outcomes due to the greater skills that these graduates have acquired or because local employers continue to emphasise paper qualifications over skills and experience?
In fact, it has been recognised that one of the most effective ways to pick up employable skills is through on-the-job training (OJT) and apprenticeships. As such, I would suggest that the Government subsidise OJT and apprenticeship programmes to the same tune as diploma and degree programmes.
In his Budget Statement Deputy Prime Minister Wong mentioned briefly about how the Government will do more to support those whose jobs are made redundant, through a temporary financial support scheme for the unemployed. He said the Government will be working out the details later this year. Sir, this scheme was announced almost one year ago at the National Day Rally in August last year. How much longer will it take to flesh out?
More importantly, how fiscally sustainable will the scheme be? Will it include an insurance component, like what the Workers’ Party has proposed through its redundancy insurance scheme, to ensure that premium contributions from employers and employees during times of plenty can be drawn down during economic downturns when retrenchment levels are higher?
Mr Speaker, social inclusion must be at the heart of all our economic policies. I am glad to note that the maximum monthly fees at special education (SPED) schools will be lowered to $90, with lower fee caps at all centres. However, Singapore should move towards equalising the fees for SPED schools and mainstream schools. While I am aware that the cost of providing education at both types of schools is different, the school fees should be the same.
Sir, mainstream primary school fees are only $13 a month. Then SPED school fees should also be $13 a month not $120, which is the current average. Even lowering it to $90, while commendable, is still not equitable. This is especially so considering the higher costs that parents of special needs children incur in many other areas besides education. The additional costs of SPED schools, should be socialised in the interests of creating a more inclusive and equitable society.
School bus fares remain another significant concern for the disability community. As of 1 January 2024, the Ministry of Education has increased the price cap of school bus fares for school bus operators at mainstream schools by up to 13%. But we know that SPED school students face a higher increase in their school bus fares, due to the smaller pool of bus operators who are able to meet their more complex needs.
I am aware and appreciate that there are various school bus subsidy assistance schemes, like the MOE Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) and the Enabling Transport Subsidy (ETS). While I understand the need to keep the school bus operators sustainable, the adverse impact of the cost of living crisis has made the cost of school bus transport an added burden for many parents of students with disabilities. Many rely heavily on school bus transport to commute to and from home, school and social service agencies to attend programmes, such as the Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC), daycare centres, sheltered workshops and special student care centres.
Very often, there are additional costs involved. EIPIC, for example, is a half-day programme. So, the students also need to be ferried from their school to the programme, creating a double whammy in transport costs.
I would, therefore, like to call on the Government to increase the monthly household income limit for both the FAS and the ETS, especially for households with special needs members. In addition, more subsidies can be provided to match the inflation of school bus fares. This would ensure that more families can access and benefit from these subsidies to cover the ever-increasing cost of living.
In conclusion, Mr Speaker, as we chart our cause through the rapidly changing global and technological terrain, our policies must embody a steadfast dedication to fairness, meritocracy and innovation. By nurturing an ecosystem that champions fair competition, leverages the transformative power of AI and robotics and places the welfare and progress of every Singaporean at its heart – we can secure a robust and flourishing future.
Let us remain committed to building a society with access to opportunities, a culture of excellence and the value of each individual’s contributions shape the Singaporean journey for generations to come. Sir, I support the Motion.
Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Sir, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for speech. I would like to ask some clarifications. The Deputy Prime Minister said that AI can be our augmented intelligence and that we should think hard about how jobs will be changed with automation and AI, and he said that we need to reskill our workers to prepare for AI.
However, given that seven in 10 people have not used their SkillsFuture credits since the scheme was started in 2015, does Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat think that it will be useful to expand the use of the SkillsFuture credits beyond core subsidies and give all students and workers more opportunities for hands-on practice with deep tech tools like AI? This could give results by helping them to boost their productivity at work, for example, summarising long documents or drafting professional emails and reports.
Mr Heng Swee Keat: I thank the Member for the question. In the first place, there are already a range of courses; and two, as I have said, when we look at the industry transformation and the workers’ needs, what is very important is to ensure that the training and the utilisation of the skills are done in tandem. It is very good that workers are taking ownership of this training to upgrade themselves, but the impact will be even greater if they work together with the companies; which is why I mentioned in my example, of how the NTUC is working with the company to do operations and technology (OpsTech) roadmapping, to do transformation and in tandem, work on the redesign of jobs and the reskilling of workforce. And it is not just in AI. It is in every domain of the technology that we want to make use of. That we want the society which is a lot more digitalised.
If you remember, even our digital payment system, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we rolled out the CDC Voucher scheme, for which the Mayors came out with the idea. Later on, we moved into digital vouchers. Huge efforts were put in by our agencies to train our hawkers to install these devices, to learn how to use it. Just last evening, I was talking to a group of my residents during the Meet-the-People Session, about what they were doing and how they were learning to use this. And everyone expressed appreciation.
So, our approach, whether it is the use of AI, the use of mRNA technology, the use of simple digitalisation tool, has been an inclusive one. That is, we look at what needs to be done and deploy the right tool for the right task, and not just AI.
Secondly, one other very important thing you must bear in mind is that AI is a very rapidly developing field and it is something which our researchers are working hard on, to look at the different techniques of AI – it is not just GenAI, but the whole range of different AI systems that are being used – and how that can be used in conjunction with our needs. So, understanding what the real needs are and what you can serve; what are the safeguards that we need to put in place to ensure its proper use and how to put this together in a way that advances not just R&D work, but also the reskilling of workers, which has to be done in an integrated way and not in bits and pieces.
Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for responding to my question, but perhaps, I was not clear enough in my question. I was not asking about more training. My point was that training has its limits and the adoption of SkillsFuture Credit is nowhere as much as what we would have hoped for. It is only three in 10 who have used their SkillsFuture credits. And so, the glass is not even half full, in that respect.
To acquire skills, workers need hands-on practice, which is why we are calling for an expansion of the use of SkillsFuture Credit to use it for, perhaps, subsidies for the use of AI tools, so that they can increase their productivity and get some hands-on experience.
Mr Heng Swee Keat: Thank you, Speaker. I remember Mr Gerald Giam’s question is whether it can be expanded for other areas in a more appropriate way. This is certainly an area which the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will be happy to consider if you have specific good suggestions about exactly how it can be used.
I have tried to sketch out, what different people are doing – from the company training committees of NTUC to what the IHLs are doing; I suggested to all Members earlier to take a look at the websites of our universities and polytechnics, and you can see the range of courses that people can undertake; and with the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, there are even more courses that they can undertake.
For workers who need help, they need support, they need encouragement, we should all do our best to encourage them.
That is why Workforce Singapore and SkillsFuture Singapore have been mounting lots of programmes to reach out to residents, not only in trying to get a job, but also my residents are asking, what are the courses they can do? I myself have participated in many of those outreach programmes and I must say that the response of many of our workers, including senior ones, is very encouraging.
You are right that training is not everything. It is one aspect of it. You need a collective effort, including by the managers and the owners of businesses, to say, “I am going to take training seriously, but more importantly, not just training for its own sake, but how training can be translated into better job performance. And therefore, we can have productivity growth and I can reward my workers better”.
Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Sir, I have some clarifications for the Deputy Prime Minister regarding the jobseeker support. I understand that it is going to be funded by taxpayers and it is not an insurance scheme like what the Workers’ Party has been proposing since 2006. So, I am a bit concerned now about the fiscal impact and the sustainability of the scheme. What is the quantum that is going to be given to the jobseekers and what is the duration of support that is going to be provided? I believe Parliament needs to know because we are being asked to approve the Budget for this year.
Mr Lawrence Wong: Sir, the scheme is not being rolled out this year. It does not impact FY2024 Budget. We will put up, provide details of the scheme, including the detailed fiscal impact and, at that time, there will be a full debate on the parameters and the fiscal requirements and whether it is sustainable.
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