The reply from Press Secretary to Minister for Transport

WHO BEARS THE COST OF CONCESSIONARY FARES?
11:56 AM February 20, 2009
Letter from Soffy Hariyanti Abdul Rahim
Press Secretary to Minister for Transport

WE REFER to the letter by Mr Chen Khin Wee, “There’s an equal need” (Feb 18), on the need for equal concessions for polytechnic and junior college (JC) students.

We would like to clarify the context of Transport Minister Raymond Lim’s remark in Parliament that “some polytechnic students are better off than others”.

It was in response to suggestions that the Government fund concessions.

The minister had sought to clarify that the general approach of the Government has been to provide targeted assistance to those who need the most help, as had been done for GST credits and CCC ComCare Fund.

This approach ensures that those who are really in need of assistance will receive it and also makes the best use of public funds.

However, what Mr Chen, and many others who have written about this issue, is referring to, is the decision by the public transport operators on which groups of commuters to give concessionary travel to and how much more to provide.

If the operators wish to provide more concessions to a large and diverse group such as polytechnic students, they would have to carefully consider the cost implications as inevitably, this means that some other commuter groups will have to cross-subsidise this concessionary travel.

We thank Mr Chen for the opportunity to clarify.

In addition the Press Secretary's reply attracted two comments which I reproduce here:



Kaibin
Yes I agree we should be to the reasons why students from the same age group needs to be classified in such a manner. I guess the main reason we need to know what is the difference between Poly students and JC students? That got US poly students to be pay more than our JC counterparts ?

Huzie Jane
I believe the above do not answer the queries set by the writer, Mr Chen Khin Wee. Maybe the MOT need to be more transparent why there would be a cross-subsidise.

OK, enough excitement for now. Not my nature to stir up the hornet nest like this.

My letter in the TODAY newspaper

THERE’S AN EQUAL NEED
MANY POLYTECHNIC STUDENTS COULD USE REDUCED RATES

11:57 AM February 18, 2009
Letter from Chen Khin Wee
Academic Associate, Republic Polytechnic

I FOUND Transport Minister Raymond Lim’s remark in “Households spend less in 2008” (Feb 13), that “some polytechnic students are better off than others”, rather mystifying. Does this fact not apply to junior college (JC) students as well? Is he saying that all polytechnic students are well off and all JC students needy and therefore need the student concession more than their polytechnic counterparts?

I teach at a polytechnic and I can say for sure that my students are not rolling in money. I estimate that at least half of the students in my classes have to work part-time after school and during weekends to make ends meet. When I join them for meals I can see how carefully some of them choose the food they buy to conserve their limited pocket money.

While I am very proud of their self- reliance and financial independence, I am sure this extra-curricular activity also affects their school work.

There are about 20 JCs in Singapore but only five polytechnics. Unlike JC students, who have a greater chance of enrolling in a school near their home, the average polytechnic student has to travel some distance to attend classes.

Some of my students travel an average of three hours a day, often taking a complex “combination” of bus, MRT, and walking — students proudly refer to this as their B-M-W — just to get to school and home. This adds up to considerable travelling time and expenses.

Before writing this, I checked with some of my students to see how many benefited from the “targeted assistance” that the minister referred to. They looked back at me blankly and asked “What’s that?”

If the minister’s argument holds, then concession for JC students should be removed as well, and the real needy ones identified and given assistance.


http://voices.todayonline.com/letter/EDC090218-0000001/there_s_an_equal_need.html#

S.W.O.T

“You are intelligent, and are able to judge people critically. As a result you draw danger to yourself.” (Lao Tzu to Confucius, paraphrased)

Of the many things discussed in today’s lesson Klinghammer’s Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threat (SWOT) struck me as the freshest and most relevant point of learning. I observe that we are generally well trained to evaluate things for their Strengths and Weaknesses. However, the dimensions of Opportunity and Threat are something often neglected. A lot of intelligent people with brilliant ideas do not succeed in getting their projects off the ground because of this very real problem.

Opportunity: No matter how viable a project is, without a thorough exploration of the opportunities it presents, one will likely miss ways in which the project could be fully exploited for maximum productivity. Application is always a problem in risk-adverse Singapore. In my experience it is rather annoying, if not demoralising, that whenever I propose a new idea, the first thing that comes out from majority of Singaporeans I speak to is “it can’t be done” or “that’s idealistic.” So much for the entrepreneurial spirit that the government is now desperately trying to instil and encourage.


Threats: Often when one has a brilliant idea one can fall into the trap of assuming that everyone else will see the logic behind the idea. One can be blinded by political, social and cultural biases that may see the proposal as a threat to their status quo and plenty of people may not want to see the project successful. Even Confucius, being as brilliant as he was, failed to understand how his ideas could have been rejected by his countrymen again and again until his death. Lao Tze, when uttering the quotation above, displayed deeper insight into the nature of men than Confucius in this sense.

Applying my observations to the political situation in Perak [everyone is offering their two sen's worth, so I might as well jump in the bandwagon for posterity's sake] this lesson appears to be something the BN government has learned well—to study a situation and seize the Opportunity. And the Pakatan Rakyat has yet to learn to evaluate seriously the Threats instead of naively resting on its laurel. [To be fair, hindsight is always 20-20.]

It's Chap Goh Mei, and the Lion Dancers are banging away on their drums downstairs. It made me think: how like the BN to open the Chinese New Year so "Ox"-piciously by "steer"-ing the coup-d'tat, "bull"-dozing it's way and "cow"ing the Perakians into submission. Not to mention the cock-and-"bull" stories the four frogs gave. Negaraku: what a sad state of affairs you are in. Sigh!

How old are you?

"We Asians look young until we hit 50, then we look like we are 500 years old." Dat Phan, Vietnamese-American comedian.

The topic of age is not something Asians shy away from unlike our friends from the West. Recently, my English friend showed me a picture of her parents and her sister. Innocently, I asked if the sister is younger than she is. She rather quickly pointed out that my remark was less than tactful. This led to an interesting conversation about the different attitudes people from the East and West have towards aging. Rita then shared that in England women avoid admitting their age—until they hit 70, that is. Then it becomes a competition who is older! My teacher, the late Dr J.D. Douglas, used to remind us that there are several things you never ask a Scotsman, the most important being how old he is, and secondly, what he wears under his kilt.

Why are we Chinese so curious about people's age? I suspect we are trained from a young age to suss out the age of people we meet so that we can quickly determine what is our position relative to him or her according to society's seniority pecking order.If the other person is older,we know we need to show some measure of deference and respect. And if he or she is younger, hmmm...possibilities!

At the UK Boarding House Association Conference I attended some years ago, Director of Training, Tim Holgate, gave a case study of how an Asian boy got into trouble. He had become very good friends with a younger boy. But despite their closeness, one day the younger boy reported to his house master that he was being bullied by the older boy. The older boy was devastated by this allegation. When an investigation was launched they discovered that the older boy had been treating his younger buddy just as he would his younger brother. And operating within his hierarchical framework the Asian boy viewed it as the duty of an "older brother" to protect and guide the younger boy and in return it was perfectly reasonable to expect the younger boy to run errands and do stuff for him. However, the younger boy felt he was being imposed upon. A classic case of a clash of cultural expectations.

Extending this line of reasoning, I am guessing it is probably for the same reason that we address an older man who is unrelated to us as “Uncle” and a woman as “Aunty”. Stories are plentiful about Asians studying in the States who inadvertently annoy their American hosts by addressing them as Uncle or Aunty. One friend even reported a stiff rebuke he received: “I’m not your Uncle!”

The Uncle-Aunty practice probably reflects two things: one is the belief that we all have our place within a social order which we should accept, and secondly, I like to believe it is a recognition of the close bond we have with each other even if we are not related by blood. This is the idea of the brotherhood of man where everyone is everyone else’s brother, sister, father, mother, uncle, aunty and grandma and grandpa. The whole community and society is one big family.

This practice does not seem to be limited to the Chinese. As far as I know, this at the very least, applies also to the Indonesians and Malays. For the latter, an elderly man is addressed as “Bapak” (meaning ‘father’) or just “Pak” for short, and an older woman as “Ibu”, often shortened to “Bu”. Similarly, for the Malays it is "Pakcik" or "Makcik" (Uncle or Aunty).