Ex Mentor Minister Lee Kuan Yew asks for Singaporeans' understanding on the need to bring in more immigrants, to the tune of about 30K a year (this is apparently a more politically acceptable figure compared to the recommended 60K). He is likely mistaken in this.
Apparently, they are ALL meant to look after aged Singaporeans. At this rate, we should soon have one caregiver per elderly Singaporean. (Hopefully, the government will be footing the bill.) Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Most of them will be employed in other sectors of the economy. It is rather disingenuous of Mr Lee to use the issue of eldercare to justify bringing in yet more foreigners into an already crowded Singapore.
Yes, we will have an aging population problem. But what would Dr Goh Keng Swee have done? We need just look at how he solved the problem of Singapore's defence. Nearly one half of each cohort, the girls, at present gets off scot free doing nothing while the other half goes off to serve two years of military service. About the hardest thing these girls may have to do at present is deciding which body part to sextext to their friends. I think their time can be put to better use. Yes, it is time for our young women to step up to the plate and do their part for National Service.
If barely educated young women from our neighbouring countries can be recruited and given a few weeks training at most and then are expected to look after our elderly either as maids or helpers at nursing homes, then our much better educated young women can surely be expected to do the same or even more and do a better job of it.
Just as NS is supposed to be a rite of passage for our boys to (hopefully) mature into young men, a similar program to train the girls in eldercare as well as childcare would do likewise and transform them into responsible young women. Their families would also benefit to have someone trained in these areas when their parents grow old or when they have children of their own.
We do not depend on legions of foreign men to beef up our armed forces and I see no reason why we need legions of foreign women to look after our elderly or young children. We already have systems in place from NS that can be repurposed to manage such a system for the girls. If the core team of permanent staff (the equivalent of regulars in the SAF) is paid equally as well (as army regulars), I'm sure there are more than enough Singaporeans happy to fill that role.
Other than paying the girls allowances at least on par with that for the boys in NS, and maybe a little more for caregiver uniforms, there are very little other costs. There is for example, no need for the girls to be housed in army like barracks and there is no need to equip them with expensive items like weapons.
This is a very doable system just waiting to be implemented. Why the minister for health/manpower has not considered this is quite puzzling. If cost is an issue, I'm sure we can kibble a fair bit from the Defence budget. The SAF can do with fewer expensive toys to basically fend off for practical purposes, make believe enemies. The problem with an aging population on the other hand, is a real enemy almost at our gates. If we were to tally up the social and political costs as well from using the aging issue as an excuse to import yet more foreigners, I'm quite sure the balance would tilt in favour of this suggestion of NS for the girls.
So, if Dr Goh Keng Swee were still in cabinet, given the choice of importing foreign labour or NS for the girls, which do you think he would choose?
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