Singaporeans went though the similar education system for about minimum of six years and maximum of ten years. Some Singapore may even spend fifteen years, if they went to Junior college and then went to University.

Throughout the whole education system, the magic formula was taught. Furthermore "reinforces" from the environment like teachers, media and parents, perfected that the magic formula is able to solve everything. Hence, Singaporeans are less flexible to solving problems and to learn other “spells”.

Government hopes that in the later stages of Singaporeans’ life, the introducing of new “incoming" will be able to destroy the magic formula. However, I disagree with the government's policy of “new incoming”.

”Incomings” will result in some impacts to the Singaporeans. Some will compete with the foreign talents, and some may depend on fate, to what will happen next. “Incomings” contained some several skills, which Singaporeans lack of, in term of physical and mental.

I believe Singaporeans should learn the “good” skills, which will benefit themselves in the future. Singaporeans should use the magic formula in merit-based education system, and be willing to explore more new paths to success, with the “good” skills from the foreign talents.

Foreign talents should be learnt from and not be treated as threats in mental world.

-_-_- Pang Shen

When we say "foreign talent", we usually refer to foreigners holding Masters or PhD degrees. However, there is a misconception within Singaporeans that most, or all, of the foreigners in Singapore are within the foreign talent catagory. It is because of this that most of the friction that result in Singaporeans thinking that 'foreign talents' are stealing our jobs are related to the foreigners holding normal degrees or those with lower education.

Surprisingly, surveys have shown that Singaporeans do not resent those foreign talent who hold PhDs or Masters to take up high-ranking or specialised positions, as they possess special abilities that are hard to find in Singapore. It is when they go to the office and see colleagues from abroad with professional visit passes doing ordinary work like they themselves are doing that they start to ask: "What foreign talent? They're no better than us!"

This stereotyping that a lot of Singaporeans do is partly due to the government's policy. This policy is mainly to attract foreigners to Singapore, and is called the foreign talent policy. However, this policy aims at attracting two basic categories of foreigners. It also covers, of course, a transient low-skilled workers like maids and construction labourers, who have to leave after a period of time.

Singaporeans are mostly ignorant on this fact, and hence, misunderstandings start to arise.

However, despite this misunderstanding, I cannot deny that foreign talents _are_ taking up some of the jobs that Singaporeans are able to take up too. This is mainly due to the low labour cost, and (probably) higher qualifications that these foreign talents possess.

These qualities attract employers to hire foreign talent rather than Singaporeans. Employers are more likely to take into consideration labour cost rather than nationality when hiring an employee, and this puts Singaporeans in a serious disadvantage.

To summarise, I feel that while foreign talent is definitely needed in Singapore due to the lack of Singaporeans with specialised skills, within the foreign talent community, there are also some people who hold positions that Singaporeans are able to as well. They are the ones that vie with Singaporeans in getting better jobs.

These Singaporeans who have failed in getting these specialised jobs, will have to search for jobs with lower positions, and even at these lower positions, they are not definitely able to get the job as there are many other people with lower qualifications who posses skills enough for the job scope and are willing to accept a pay much lower than what these more educated Singaporeans are asking for.

In conclusion, I feel that while foreign talent is a threat to some Singaporeans, they are not to a majority of them.



-Angeline

What were the REAL purposes of the government attracting foreign talents to a small island, Singapore?
Most people thought of the purpose as solving the issues in Singapore.
Some issues like low birth rate, increase Singapore's competitive in the global markets and increase the competition level among Singapore, to yield better results.

Singaporean says "The world had changed. A degree is not enough."
Why do foreigner can achieve success in their jobs, despite having the same education level?
And why can't Singaporean?

Let's compare the ways of a foreigner and a Singaporean work.
Singaporean truely believe in the magic formula in doing stuff right.
Foreigner is more flexibe to adapt and use the enviroment to achieve the same results.
From my example. I wished to show that Singaporeans must explored the "impossible" in the unkown zone, away from the comfort zone.

_-_-_ Pang Shen