It’s not easy to impress Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) when it comes to economics. After all, he teaches the subject at ESSEC Business School.
But after a recent tuition session on economics with A-level students, he commented tthat some of their questions on economics had greater depthy and were more thoughtful than some of the questions he has faced in Parliament.
Associate Professor Lim said that several A-Level students did impress him with their “very piercing questions” when he spoke to them last Saturday on Singapore’s Budget.
Prof Lim said that “Incredibly, the nature of the questions that the students asked were “more in-depth and thoughtful” than the ones usually posed to him in interviews and over social media, adding, “and (I hesitate to say) even what we manage to get into in Parliament”.
He said in a Facebook post on Tuesday evening that during their online session together, the students asked “a number of very piercing questions”.
These included queries on “how to think about the expenditure share of net investment returns contribution, about the viability of wealth taxation, whether drawing on part of land sales income required constitutional amendments, and what role R&D credits would play under the BEPS framework.”
BEPS stands for “base erosion and profit shifting” which concerns the strategies that multinational companies use to dodge paying taxes, especially in developing countries because they are more reliant on corporate income taxes than taxes on individuals.
He praised the students, who had obviously prepared well for the session (as well as for their upcoming A-Levels in economics!), adding that they “clearly came prepared to dive into the nitty-gritty of fiscal matters”.
He said: “As I always share during such discussions, we do not need to come to an agreement — indeed, for many public policies, reasonable people can disagree — but I was both heartened and impressed by the willingness and ability of these teenagers to engage in debate over economic policy.”
Prof Lim added: “This bodes very well for the future of our polity.” He had been invited to address the students by Mr Eugene Toh of TuitionGenius, a company which runs classes in economics for A-level and International Baccalaureate students.
The Worker’s Party MP’s Facebook post about his session with the students may be found here. He added that anyone interested in his session with the A level students can check out the video recording here: https://youtu.be/4xlMx2sVcVs
Many netizens left appreciative comments on Assoc Prof Lim’s post.
/TISG
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