From another leaked cable:

Compounding the problem of low birth rate, a significant portion of Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs) move away from the country each year, Dr. Yap said. Each year over the past five years, between 5,000-8,000 Singapore citizens and PRs permanently left Singapore. This occurred notwithstanding Singapore’s then-robust economic growth and strong job market. With an average of only 30,000 births and 15,000 deaths each year, the impact of so many departures on Singapore’s population was significant, Dr. Yap added.

And more confirmation of the word on the street:

May Fan Rong, a mainland Chinese undergraduate studying in Singapore said that the majority of her compatriots were looking to continue their studies and careers in either the United States, Canada or Australia. She was confident that all of them would receive PR status in Singapore, but doubted any would remain here. “We’d only stay on if we cannot find opportunities abroad,” she said.

The decline in the quality of PAP MPs, much more evident in the 2011 elections, had already been noticed then:

The new group of 24 PAP MP candidates has benefited from extensive and glowing media coverage starting well before the announcement of the election date, while opposition candidates have been given cursory attention. Despite the media hype and the fact that they still outshine the opposition, the new PAP MP candidates are a mixed lot. A few of them look like they have ministerial potential, notably former Chief of Navy Lui Tuck Yew and former International Enterprises of Singapore CEO Lee Yi Shyan. Some of the others we have met look quite weak, with limited political skills or policy experience. It looks as if the PAP was trying to meet an overall profile — so many community activists, so many union officials, a few business figures, commented Conceicao.

PAP MP Chong admitted that the party had not succeeded in recruiting a number of “high-flying” business leaders to run. In fact, the party had to reach down to some of its second and third tier candidates to fill out its ticket. Those new candidates will all run in the Group Representative Constituencies (GRCs) helmed by higher profile ministers — for example, four of them will run in Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong’s uncontested district.

From a Wikileaks cable, a damning indictment:

They are like children with guns. It’s all a big game to them, and they have only avoided any serious terrorist incidents occurring here through sheer luck.

Why does this diplomat say this of the Singapore government? Firstly,

The religious counselors are all either members of MUIS, or are connected to the organization, and at least among ethnic Malays in Singapore, MUIS is tainted, and everyone sees religious counselors as government lackeys, she said… any rehabilitation program would require the government to enjoy a strong relationship with the Muslim community; yet the Government of Singapore does not even have a good understanding of ethnic Malays in the country, let alone how and why some ethnic Malay Singaporeans have turned to religious extremism, she said.

The suspicion of MUIS is backed up by an academic who interviewed Malay youths in Singapore:

Marranci said Malays distrust MUIS and avoid expressing any discontentment with the government while attending services at local mosques. It is only privately that the Malay youth express their growing disillusionment, he said. Some disaffected Malays turn to crime, while others, who travel to Malaysia and Indonesia, become radicalized after they come into contact with extremists there, he said.

Marranci also reveals other facts which, if correct, are disturbing:

Marranci expressed concerns that there is growing discontentment among Malay youth that could provide fertile ground for the recruitment of extremists in the future. Over the past year, Marranci has interviewed 250 Malay youth (aged 13-28), 240 of whom expressed a strong dissatisfaction with life in Singapore and told Marranci they would emigrate if they could. Many Malays feel marginalized in Singapore, and extremist attitudes appear to be intensifying, he said.
[…]
Marranci noted with alarm that ethnic Malays are increasingly involved in criminal activities that one does not usually associate with Muslims, such as loan sharking. Citing Singapore Police Force (SPF) sources, Marranci told Poloff that 19 out of 54 syndicate organizations found to be involved in loan sharking over the last two years were Malay. While he admitted he has no proof, Marranci believes the Malays’ involvement in loan sharking could be an indicator of a fund-raising attempt by extremists, most likely those living outside of Singapore, he said.

The most disturbing sentence in the whole cable follows:

The GOS is not concerned about the up-tick in ethnic Malay criminal activities, because the authorities view the increase as an indication of growing secularity among Malays, Marranci said.

I would be very, very worried if this is really what the government thinks.

There has been a furore over Chen Show Mao being ‘disinvited’ to a Seventh Month dinner because the Citizens’ Consultative Committee refused to let the organisers use the requested premises if they invited Chen. For background, read Chen’s two posts on Facebook: [1] [2].

Today, the ST has an article (gated) on the issue that severely misrepresents what Chen actually wrote in those two notes. The ST claims:

If residents insist on inviting opposition MPs, their applications for permits to hold the events would be rejected, claimed Mr Chen, citing what residents had told him.

However, if you read what Chen posted on Facebook, he does not anywhere mention the word ‘opposition’ or anything that is synonymous to it. His precise words, describing the reason for the disinvitation, were:

The organizers as in previous years had planned to hold the festivities on a hard court in the HDB estate, but this year were told by the Paya Lebar CCC (Citizens’ Consultative Committee under the People’s Association) that, as a condition for receiving CCC approval to use the venue, they may no longer invite their MP to the event.

Nowhere does he characterise it as due to the fact that their MP was an opposition MP.

By painting Chen as explicitly stating a case of excluding opposition MPs, the ST is putting an accusation in Chen’s mouth that he never made. Doubtless, many will infer from this incident that there is a specific targetting of opposition MPs going on, but the point is, Chen was careful enough with his words to never actually assert that this was an anti-opposition measure. Chen probably knows that simply by describing it as a disinvitation of ‘their MP’, without using the word ‘opposition’, that people can connect the dots and infer a certain conclusion. I don’t doubt that he’s aware that if he had actually stated what the ST claims him to have stated, that a defamation suit would have immediately ensued.

Update:
The WP has a media release now explicitly stating that they “received feedback that those who had applied to the CCC for the permits were told verbally that they could not invite the elected WP MP or they would risk their applications being turned down in subsequent years.”

What being a small country has to do with avoiding gridlock? How are bigger countries less affected by gridlock?

Not impressed by Chan Chun Sing so far. Was suspicious to begin with because he was parachuted in to be minister despite other MPs with much more experience in the civil service being available. But he showed some sign in his Facebook interactions of being open to feedback, so I waited and watched.

At least two things have happened so far that don’t bode well. First, he adopted the old PAP tactic of moral hectoring by telling people that they ought to get married for the sake of “intangible ideals”. Furthermore, and I have no idea if this was invented by the journalist or an accurate paraphrase of what he said, it is “up to the people” to believe in these ideals. The phrase “up to the people” immediately suggests that he’s shrugging off responsibility on behalf of the government. I really hope that that phrase was not an accurate paraphrase of his words. Finally, he implicitly accuses Singaporeans of demanding “perfect conditions” before marrying. Framing the problem as one of people being perfectionist automatically denies that there are any serious barriers to marriage. If you won’t even admit that there’s a problem, and you don’t make any effort to make an argument addressing specific examples of alleged problems, how do you expect those who think that there are problems to take you seriously? Asserting “there is no problem, your expectations are just wrong” is not going to convince anyone who thinks that there is a problem. Even if you genuinely think that it’s all down to overly high expectations, you should still make some minimal effort to engage people. If nothing else, this shows that Chan is a poor communicator.

The second thing that happened was more hectoring and accusations at a Young PAP ‘dialogue’ which, apparently, turned out to be more of a lecture. I should start out by saying that the term ‘Socratic-style lecture’, used in the article, is an oxymoron. The Socratic method is all about two-sided dialogues, not lectures. Socrates taught his students by asking them questions, having them answer, responding to their answers with more questions, and so on indefinitely. The very idea of a lecture in which the lecturer simply tells her students new information is antithetical to the Socratic method. In this fudged attempt to describe Chan’s lecture in a positive light, the article revealed his true weakness: he lectures, instead of engaging in true dialogue, because he does not know how to respond to real concerns. This was evident in the marriage issue, and it was evident again in the lecture. Does anyone really think that using language like ‘throw stones, cast doubt and tear down institutions’ is going to win over the people he needs to win over? The entire lecture reeks of the old-style PAP rhetoric which clearly doesn’t work anymore for the electorate, yet he’s still using the same old tricks. As with the marriage issue, even if one is sympathetic to Chan’s ideological outlook, this incident shows that he has no clue about how to preach to those outside the choir. Well, bad news, Mr Chan: the choir is shrinking.

Accidentally left these out in the previous post on him.

On ministers’ salaries:

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Modify method of pegging salaries, say some MPs
November 4, 1994
Debate on White Paper Factor in perks and pensions in formula calculations
THREE MPs yesterday suggested modifying the method of pegging ministers’ salaries to private sector pay to make the issue more acceptable to Singaporeans.
These ranged from adding further discounts to the proposed benchmarks to refining income data collected from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras).
Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah) noted that much had been said about ministers enjoying the “three Ps” -power, prestige and perks. But these were not mentioned or factored into the salaries in the White Paper.
It had recommended that ministers’ benchmark pay be discounted by one-third to represent the sacrifice of entering public life. He called for a further one-sixth discount from the benchmark to offset the three Ps.
“If you can take away one-third of the benchmark salary because a minister must sacrifice when he comes into politics, surely there must be a trade-off for power, prestige and perks,” he said.
On how he derived the one-sixth figure, he explained: “If personal sacrifice has been given an arbitrary value of one-third of the benchmark, can we make up a case for an arbitrary value for prestige, power and perks … I think I am not wrong to propose an arbitrary value.”
Under his formula, ministers’ salaries would be half the average salaries of the top four earners in the six professions, or about $ 608,500 a year.
This would be the basic salary for ministers. Grade 2 ministers would get 12 per cent more.
To make future salary adjustments of ministers more open, Dr Tan also suggested that the total annual salaries of all political appointees, including bonuses and allowances, be listed in the annual Budget. MPs can then query the Government on this.

Tan Cheng Bock also voted against the Maintenance of Parents Bill in 1994, but the ST did not describe him as making a speech about it. The arguments other MPs made for and against the bill, incidentally, were all amazingly bad.

A couple of years ago I was appalled to find out about JTC’s Scheme for Housing of Foreign Talent (SHiFT), where rental housing was offered to foreigners at rates significantly below market prices. Turns out that this originated a long time ago, in 1997, and locals were not happy about it then:

The Straits Times (Singapore)

Scheme unfair to S’poreans, say many, but some disagree

September 9, 1997

Jason Leow

JTC’s public housing scheme for foreigners

THE move by the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) to rent Housing Board flats at below market rates to foreigners has drawn the ire of most Singaporeans interviewed, who say this is giving outsiders an unfair advantage.

But several backed the move, noting that Singaporeans enjoyed the chance to own HDB flats, rather than just rent them.

This right was far more lucrative than the concession being offered to foreigners, they said.

They were responding to the move by JTC, Singapore’s largest industrial landlord, to launch an attractive public rental housing scheme for foreigners, with monthly rentals of up to 40 per cent lower than market rates.

Fourteen out of 20 Singaporeans polled by The Straits Times did not support the scheme, saying the move sent a signal that foreigners were valued more, especially since citizens could not rent or buy HDB flats legally if they were below 35 years old.

They called for fair play, stressing that Singaporeans paid taxes. The Government should thus not be seen as taking care of foreigners better by subsidising their homes.

Four interviewees, all below 30, expressed the most bitter disappointment, saying that they would have wanted to rent or buy their own homes if that was legal.

Said marketing executive W.J. Jian, 29: “Working adults like me cannot afford to buy property because we are not married and not 35 years old. Now, they are saying that if you are a foreigner, you can come in and get cheap rental housing.”

Others offered economic reasons, saying that the scheme would upset the rental market’s equilibrium.

“Some foreigners are renting a room from home-owners, who use the rental income to make ends meet. So is JTC competing with the local rental market?” noted Mr Lincoln Ng, 43, manager of a wholesale company.

JTC’s Scheme for Housing of Foreign Talents, or Shift, will begin with a stock of 1,400 HDB flats, which will be rented out with tenancy terms of up to three years.

Average monthly rentals for unfurnished flats range from $ 700 for three-room flats to $ 1,500 for executive flats.

These exclude service and conservancy charges of between $ 30 and $ 69 a month.

Of the six who backed the scheme, all noted that while Singaporeans could own their flats, foreigners had no such asset here.

Said secretary Sheila Kwa, 31: “Singaporeans are sitting on a pile of gold with their HDB flats, and they are complaining that foreigners are better taken care of?”

Added clerk Teresa Chua, 42, in Mandarin: “Rent is money that goes out and never comes back. During the property boom, Singaporeans struck gold from selling and buying their flats.”

Several said the emotional response was because this issue concerned money.

Angry Singaporeans simply saw this as a case of “us paying more and them paying less”.

They argued that for Singapore to attract foreign talent, housing had to be made affordable or coming here would be unattractive.

As full-time tutor Patrick Wong, 32, noted: “Certain things in Singapore are definitely not in the foreigners’ favour, chiefly housing and cars. So we have got to make these attractive for them to come.”

14 years on, I wonder if Sheila Kwa is still happy with her ‘pile of gold’.

I searched Lexis-Nexis for past news articles mentioning Tan Cheng Bock. Ideally, I would have searched the Hansard as well, but I have no access to it. While he was involved in a wide range of issues, I do not have the time to list all of them, so here are the ones that I found more interesting. I excerpt the relevant articles below.

On NMPs:

Parliament “aye’ for Nominated MPs
Zuraidah Ibrahim
May 30, 1992
The Straits Times
PARLIAMENT yesterday voted in favour of having Nominated MPs for its current term after a spirited debate that saw dissenting voices from among both opposition and PAP ranks.
For the first time since 1979, the PAP lifted its party whip, enabling its MPs to according to their conscience.
Four of them argued against continuing the NMP scheme. But only one, Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah), raised a hand and uttered “nay” when a voice vote was called at the end of the three-hour debate that had 21 MPs speaking up.
The others, Feedback Unit chief Ow Chin Hock, Dr Arthur Beng (Bedok GRC), and Mr Leong Horn Kee (Thomson GRC) appeared to have kept silent. The four opposition MPs voted against it.
[…]
Those against the scheme went back to principles, arguing that it went against the democratic axiom that the people’s representatives must be elected, with Dr Tan leading the discussion on this.

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Govt moves to up number of NMPs to 9
June 6, 1997
Tan Hsueh Yun
NEW legislation will be introduced to increase the number of Nominated Members of Parliament from six to nine.
Leaders of key functional groups in business and industry, the professions and the labour movement will also be asked to nominate their members as Nominated MPs.
Leader of the House Wong Kan Seng announced this in Parliament yesterday when he moved a motion to resolve that there will be Nominated MPs during this term of Parliament.
The party whip was lifted and the motion was passed with two dissenting votes -from Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah) and Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang). Non-Constituency MP J. B. Jeyaretnam abstained from voting.

On Chee Soon Juan (several articles):

Dr Chee affair: SDP rapped in Parliament
April 14, 1993
House dismisses party’s claims that sacking was politically motivated PARLIAMENT yesterday rapped the Singapore Democratic Party for politicising the Chee Soon Juan affair.
It did so after a 4-1/2-hour debate that threw up new evidence against the former lecturer, who is the party’s assistant secretary- general.
It dismissed claims by the SDP that the National University of Singapore’s sacking of him was politically motivated.
This was, in effect, a turning of the tables on the opposition as the debate had begun on a motion tabled by NMP Chia Shi Teck calling for the “actual facts” about the dismissal to be made public, a move for which he was thanked by SDP chief Chiam See Tong.
But after the House heard revelation after revelation about Dr Chee’s conduct, Ayer Rajah MP Tan Cheng Bock moved to amend the original motion to one stating that Parliament “deplores the SDP’s action in politicising an internal NUS disciplinary matter and pressuring NUS to rescind its action against a dishonest staff member”.

“He was so captured by the tremendous response … he lost his sense of judgment and reality. He became a victim of his own psychological training when he started to tread on the fringe of megalomaniac behaviour.
His self-importance and delusions of greatness … made him to challenge authority, his immediate superiors, his university, his own party, his family’s attempts to stop him on embarking on his hunger strike and even has the audacity to urge the SDP to pressure the university.”
-Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah), giving his assessment of Dr Chee’s behaviour since the Marine Parade by-election.

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Implications of Chee’s sponsored ticket to Williams
November 4, 1995
DR TAN Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah) yesterday criticised Dr Chee Soon Juan for going to Williams College on a sponsored air ticket. The implication of travelling on a sponsored air ticket was that the sponsors hoped to get something in return, he said.
Referring to the ticket paid by a student association, Polis, at the college, he added that the “anti-Goh” group there had wanted Dr Chee to provide credibility and help strengthen its case.
“The person who accepts the ticket has an obligation to return something back out of gratitude,” he said, noting that at the college, Dr Chee had agreed with many things, though not all of the remarks, made by Mr Francis Seow, Dr Christopher Lingle, Mr William Safire and Dr George Crane.
He said the Singapore Democratic Party was either naive in failing to see the hidden agenda or its leadership was silly to accept the invitation. “It will discredit the SDP’s leadership because the SDP has positioned itself by allowing outsiders into the Singapore political arena, helping them interfere in our domestic politics,” he said.
He added that when MPs went abroad to attend international conferences and meetings, they often had to explain difficult issues such as detention without trial, human rights and press freedom.
“But we have never let ourselves to be used by foreigners for their own ends because this is our responsibility to the Singapore people who voted us in,” he said.

“Singaporeans must therefore judge wisely whether they want such leaders who are prepared to stand side-by-side with foreigners in a foreign land, condemning the government Singaporeans voted for in the last 30 years. Is this the proper and correct behaviour of true Singaporeans ?”
-Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah).

(That last excerpt is part of a list of quotes on the Williams College invitation. Incidentally, Goh Chok Tong gave a speech at Williams College in 2010.)

On bond-breaking doctors:

The Straits Times (Singapore)
“Don’t strike off’ bond-breaking doctors
August 26, 1997
- MPs speak out strongly against proposal
SEVERAL MPs yesterday took issue with the proposal to penalise young doctors who break their five-year bonds with the Government by having them struck off the medical register.
Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah), Dr Michael Lim (Cheng San GRC), Dr Toh See Kiat (Aljunied GRC) and NCMP J. B. Jeyaretnam all spoke strongly on this point during the second reading of the Medical Registration Bill, moved by Health Minister Yeo Cheow Tong.
The new law empowers the Medical Council to strike a doctor off the register if he leaves a government hospital before his five-year bond is up.
Dr Tan, a medical doctor, argued that bond-breaking had nothing to do with a doctor’s competence, as he might just dislike working in a particular hospital.

On Philip Yeo asking Chng Hee Kok to resign over the bond-breaking issue:

The Straits Times (Singapore)
What does the issue of bond-breaking have to do with recession?
March 10, 1998
Koh Buck Song
SURPRISINGLY, the pros and cons of shaming bond-breakers drew the most fireworks in the first half of yesterday’s opening day of the Budget debate.
The MPs who raised the issue most forcefully -Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah) and Mr Chng Hee Kok (East Coast GRC) -did so mainly because they saw it as an insult and affront to them as representatives of the people.
Based on the two MPs’ account of a recent meeting between Mr Chng and Economic Development Board officials including chairman Philip Yeo, it would seem a remarkable action on Mr Yeo’s part to have asked Mr Chng to resign just because he did not agree with the “government policy” of naming scholars who break their bonds.
Dr Tan’s characteristically spirited defence of elected MPs pushed on, despite an unsuccessful intervention by Leader of the House Wong Kan Seng, asking him to stick to issues on the Budget.
The veteran MP cited three reasons for raising the issue: the need to nurture the creativity of young local talent, Mr Yeo’s unacceptable challenge to political leadership by asking for MPs’ resignations, and the right of MPs to hold alternative views.
Dr Tan drew laughter with his seemingly perfunctory effort to make his speech more relevant, by making just a passing reference to the Budget in a one-sentence compliment on Nominated MP Lee Tsao Yuan’s analysis. But even if he himself did not realise it, his “outburst”, to use Non-Constituency MP J. B. Jeyaretnam’s term, was not on a peripheral matter.

“Many of us in this House have spoken strongly against … government policies. And we were reprimanded by the ministers … taken to task even by the Prime Minister … Despite our differences in views, we were never asked by the Prime Minister to resign.”
-Dr Tan Cheng Bock (right) on Mr Yeo calling on Mr Chng to resign.

The Straits Times (Singapore)
EDB chief rapped for asking MP to quit over bond-breaking issue
March 10, 1998
Sandra Davie
In January, [Chng Hee Kok] said, he was invited to meet senior EDB and NCB officials and “the most senior gentleman at this meeting” accused him of sharing the bond-breakers’ values and told him he should resign from public office.
Mr Chng did not identify the official, but Ayer Rajah MP Tan Cheng Bock had no such scruples. Can Mr Chng confirm, he asked, that this man was the EDB chairman and that the latter then stormed out of the meeting? Mr Chng
did. Dr Tan spoke of his own “shock and disbelief” on learning of this from Mr Chng outside the House. He asked for more details.
Mr Chng said, among other things, that the EDB chief threatened to include Mr Chng’s name in its statement, and to say that the MP backed the three scholars.
The EDB chairman, he said, even suggested that the MP ought to have sent him that October speech for vetting beforehand.
The MP observed that in all his years in Parliament no minister or government official had ever asked to vet his speech, and he told Mr Yeo so, he said.
When he sat down, the Leader of the House, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng got up to say Members of the House should confine their debate to the Budget statement.
But the Speaker allowed Dr Tan to continue as two other MPs had already touched on the same issue of naming bond-breakers. Dr Tan said he could not allow this episode to pass without expressing his concern. MPs who spoke strongly against government policies had been taken to task before, he said.
“But we are still not embarrassed because we have spoken out honestly and frankly what we believe in, and also to let the Government know how the people at the ground feel. Despite our differences in views, we were never asked by the Prime Minister to resign.”
Holding up a copy of an article from the magazine Pioneers of Computing, Dr Tan said that in an interview there, Mr Yeo had spoken against the government policy of upgrading HDB flats.
Said Dr Tan: “In other words, he disagreed with this major government policy. No one asked him to resign. Yet he wants Chng Hee Kok to resign and other MPs to also resign!”
In another part of the article, he said, the EDB chairman spoke of the lack of creativity in Singapore leaders. Dr Tan accused Mr Yeo of paying “lip service” to creativity.
He said: “All that is well said, but you ask yourself how to be creative where the leader of the company has no room for differing views?”
This, he said, was a serious matter.
“I see this action as an affront to the office of the elected Members of this House, by a member of the Administrative Service.”
The EDB chief, he said, had even tried to summon MPs who opposed the EDB’s move to meet him to discuss the issue further.
“Has he the right to summon MPs for a meeting to answer to him why they disagree? Is he getting too big for his shoes?” asked Dr Tan.

This old newspaper report on Chen Show Mao topping the A levels in 1980 was interesting to me not for what it said about Chen but because I found out from it that in 1980 you could be a ‘top student’ just by taking 4 A level subjects, General Paper, and Chinese.

In the days when I was in JC (long after Chen’s time), to be a labelled ‘top student’, you had to take 4 A level subjects, General Paper, and 3 S papers. The people who were labelled ‘top students’ were those who scored As/distinctions in all those things.

My JC had very stringent restrictions on the number of S papers you could take—so much so that in my year only two students were allowed to take 3 S papers, and this is one of the so-called top JCs. These restrictions were based on your exam results in your first year in JC. Decisions about whether you would be allowed to take 4 A level subjects or just 3 were also made based on your exam results in JC1.

I have always thought that students should be allowed to take as many subjects as they want to. I believed then, and I still believe, that many students who could have done well if they had been allowed to take 3 S papers were unreasonably restricted to taking 2 or less. Similarly, many who could have passed all 4 A level subjects were unreasonably restricted to taking 3. The restrictions worked against people who may have not performed optimally in JC1 for reasons besides a lack of academic capability. The article on Chen shows that this group of people may include people like Chen.

The sole reason for the JC to impose such restrictions is that high rates of substandard results for any subject look bad for the JC. This reason has nothing to do with what is ‘good’ for the student and everything to do with the JC’s reputation. Such restrictions were widespread in many (most?) other JCs and just one of many manifestations of the school ranking system’s distortion of incentives for schools to actually educate students.

But back to the Chen article. I suspect that in 1980, it was actually fairly common for JC students to take the number of subjects he took, that is, 4 A levels, GP and a second language. So there would have been a large number of people who had a shot at being top student. Fast forward to my time in JC, and there would have been possibly 20 or so students in the entire country who were allowed to take 3 S papers and thus had any mathematical chance of being top student. So the pool of people whom Singapore chooses to anoint as their ‘very best’ was much narrower in my time than in his, and this narrowing was done on the basis of students’ JC1 results. For the reasons I mention above, this way of narrowing your pool of potential high achievers artificially limits the possibilities of achievement for many talented students who for various reasons (late blooming, involvement in other educational activities) did not satisfy the extremely stringent standards set by those who decide who can take 3 S papers.

My suspicion is that this narrowing of the pool of talent has become more acute over the years. The introduction of streaming (after Chen’s time) is another instance of this narrowing that has been much discussed. I would not be surprised if the same change that I’ve noted here with respect to the possible top students for A levels has also been going on with the O levels—that is, schools allowing progressively fewer and fewer students to take the large number of subjects that would let them have a shot at being top students. After all, the same incentives are at work there—an easy way to raise your school’s performance on a particular subject is to be more stringent about which students are allowed to take that subject.

I am not familiar with the system that replaced the S papers and with the selection processes currently used, so I will not comment on the current situation. Take this post as a comparison of the situation circa 5-10 years ago with that in 1980.