Singapore—Ismail Tahir is one devoted husband. His detailed post about the difficulties of his wife’s daily life as an early childhood educator has gone viral, and in it, he debunks a popular (mis)conception that teachers of young children don’t do enough for their students.
He sees the complete opposite first hand, daily.
Mr Ismail’s wife has been a teacher for the past six years. He calls the thinking that some parents have concerning early childhood teachers not doing enough as “absolutely crazy!”
He begins many of his paragraphs with “I’m a husband to an early childhood educator…”
And to think that parents abuse childcare/kindergarten teachers, management thinking that these early childhood teachers…
Mr Ismail’s wife started teaching in 2013. Back then she was “full of passion, full of drive, full of wanting to make a change.” Since husband and wife are both educators (he teaches at the Tertiary level) they always exchange work stories. He admits though, “I thought my job was tough, boy was I wrong!”
She thinks of her students all the time, even on date nights.
She spends for her classroom or students from her own money.
She’s thrilled whenever her students greet her out of school.
She comes home late (“nights”) often, because of the volume of work, or else her students are picked up late, sometimes to the detriment of their evening plans.
She barely has time for her midday meal and has only a little portion of it, to make sure the students have enough.
She is a class one multitasker, and he enumerates her duties: “A teacher, a cleaner, a poop and vomit cleaner, a classroom designer, a logistics/storemen, a curriculum expert, an outreach exec, a community leader in service learning, a grassroots member for MPs doing meet-the-people session, a parent informant, 24-hour nanny, a know-it-all, a PR Officer for parents, an admin executive, a crisis manager, a first aider.”
She does administrative and curriculum work even at home.
She continuously goes to external programmes for self-improvement.
She gets saddened by heavy rules, regulations, and restrictions by Management, and “unwanted comments from parents who are just plain unreasonable” from the parents of her students, who vent their anger on her.
She spends many Saturday attending meetings.
She is burdened by the sheer number of heavy bags she needs to bring daily. “Bags with files, portfolios, laptops for admin work, paper work, etc.”
Their house has become a messy “recycling centre” since his wife keeps collecting stuff for the students’ crafts that they work on.
Their storeroom is full of shock supplies, bought from his wife’s money, “because there’s always a lack of budget, and the claiming process is oh so lengthy.”
He has minimal interaction with his wife during work hours since teachers can’t have their phones with them. And yet, teachers manage to take photos of their students so parents can see their child’s developments in their portfolio
He writes, “There’s completely no work-life balance for our dear childhood educators, but yet, they are being told that they are still not doing good enough. There’s completely no awareness whatsoever the sacrifices these educators make for your children. They’re not paid so good mind you, but yet, they’re doing the work that realistically, is a work of 5 people.
So the next time if you want to drop off your kids at 7 am and pick your kids up very late from school, or your kids went home with the wrong shirt, or wrong water bottle, or have a small cut on their fingers, please think again before you go on your rampage and blaming the teachers for not doing good enough. Think of what the teacher had to go through for the day before you want to vent your anger at another teacher. Think of the sacrifices the teacher makes, just to give your children a better classroom experience, and good education.” (sic)
Mr Ismail’s post has gone viral, with so many commenters thanking the teachers for being so committed to their work.
Other teachers, especially, were so happy with the post, as they felt it really captured an early childhood educator’s experience.
Even some teachers who have changed careers or retired were moved to comment on Mr Ismail’s post, telling their story
Manila—Dr Tun Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, issued a warning to the Philippines concerning loans from China. Drawing from Malaysia’s experience of what he termed as “unfair” infrastructure initiatives backed by China.
Last year, after being re-elected in May, he canceled approximately S$30 billion worth of initiatives financed by China, awarded in the time of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who Dr Mahathir unseated in the General Election.
Mr Razak is facing multiple counts of graft and corruption due to financial scandals.
The Malaysian Prime Minister is currently in Manila, the country’s capital, for a two-day visit. He told ANC Television in an interview that the Philippines should not make the same mistakes other nations have made in receiving infrastructure investments from China, countries that are now suffering due to debts that they cannot sustain.
Dr Mahathir said, “This is something that of course China has been accused of, but it is also the country’s concern which can regulate or limit all these influences from China.
If you borrow huge sums of money from China and you cannot pay—you know when a person is a borrower he is under the control of the lender. So we have to be very careful with that.”
Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ strongman President, has expressed admiration for China, and indeed has given the world’s second-largest economy preferential treatment.
His “build, build, build” plan for the nation involves pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure for the Philippines, with many of the projects funded by China and other nations.
This has alarmed critics, who have issued warnings that the country could be ensured into “debt trap diplomacy.” China has recently had a track record of lending money to poorer nations for the purpose of infrastructure initiatives, and the countries end up giving up control of their own assets.
Mr Duterte and his policy staff have denied these allegations.
In 2018, Capital Economics, a think tank based in the United Kingdom, also warned that the account gap that the Philippines has is “already approaching unsustainable levels,” and that because of “corruption problems” connected to Chinese infrastructure, further investments from China could just make the issues that the Philippines is facing even worse.
According to Capital Economics, “The upshot is that while improvements to the country’s infrastructure are desperately needed, the pace of increase needs to be managed properly in order to avoid further balance of payments strains.”
Dr Mahathir was also asked about the flood of workers from China who have come to the Philippines, an issue that is under Senate investigation.
He said, ”Foreign direct investments should not involve bringing huge numbers of foreigners to live in the country because that might disturb the political equations in the country.
So long as they’re not going to be permanent residents, it’s not a danger to the Philippines, but if huge numbers of any of our foreigners are coming to live and stay in the country or even influence the economy of the country, then you have to do some rethinking as to whether it is good or bad or the limits that you have to impose on them.”
The Malaysian Prime Minister’s visit to the Philippines includes a forum with the business community, as well as meetings with both Senate President Vicente Sotto III, and former President and current Speaker of the House, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He will also lay a wreath at the statue of the country’s national hero, Dr Jose Rizal, a custom that all visiting heads of state follow.
Dr Mahathir had two meetings with President Duterte. One of these will be strictly between the two heads of state, and then another where they are joined by ministers and Cabinet members.
Earlier today, a video circulating on social media went viral as it featured a rather irate mother, who went to the extent of punching the glass panel on the train to prove her point.
The video that made its way round the Internet on Friday, March 8, showed a mother with a baby in a pram getting rather angry at a man who took her standing room on the train.
The baby’s mother could be seen seated on a seat usually reserved for those with children, the elderly, or the handicapped. Next to her stood a man who seemed to be rather involved with his mobile phone, with the two being separated by a glass panel.
In the video, the lady could be seen saying loudly to the man, “oh no no, you just now, I was supposed to push (the pram) here”. She gestured at the space next to the glass panel where the man was standing, and expressed that she wanted to leave her baby’s pram there while she sat on the seat reserved for those with children.
She then tapped the glass rather pointedly and said, “You crossed over my freaking daughter to stand here”.
While the man’s reply to her was inaudible, he may have asked her if she owned the space she was referring to as she then yelled, “Ya I didn’t buy (it), you know. You wanna fight?”
“You want to fight, you say!” she yelled, as she told him not to run his mouth off in Mandarin.
The woman’s next move came as a huge surprise as she punched the glass panel and proceeded to pick a fight with the man, in front of her baby and the many other commuters on the train.
The video received 66,000 views and over 1000 shares on Facebook, with many netizens saying that the lady’s behaviour was likely due to her post-natal hormones. Others also supported her and added that her rage was due to the stress she faced as a parent.
The other day, I was browsing through an inspiring magazine article about a new drift called skill swapping which has been rediscovered over the last two years.
People swap their unique skills for the services provided by like-minded people. Absolutely no money is involved — just an equivalent value of services.
And it’s this “you scratch my back” mindset which has led to some ingenious trades which have allowed people to achieve the things that they want minus the great financial expense.
How about getting a patio built in return for teaching somebody to speak French? Or getting business plans drawn up in return for showing somebody the basics of photography?
Or even showing someone how to use a mobile phone in return for being shown the art of calligraphy?
It’s possible to benefit from the skills and experiences of just about anyone, provided you’re able to offer them a skill or a talent that they want in return.
And the indications are that even when the world economy improves, skill swapping will continue to grow, with many people predicting the continued movement towards a cashless society.
So with that in mind, what can skill swapping allow us to achieve from a business point of view?
1) Skill swapping for bootstrapping
This is the art of being able to develop and grow new business with little capital.
At present, this is extremely important due to the inability of the banks to provide finance for new businesses to become established and grow.
The first step is to look at what both you and your business have to offer.
Every person and every business has a skill that’s in demand somewhere.
Your first job is to identify the skill that you can provide. How can you add value to the lives of other people?
The second step, which will be covered at the end of the article, is to find people who not only want what you provide but who are also in a position to reciprocate by providing a skill/service that’s required by you or your business.
For example, if you’re a web designer, you could swap your skill in return for accountancy services, PR advice, business coaching or legal advice.
2) Skill swap for business development
The second option is to use skill swapping to enrich the skills of your business team.
For example, if you run an online media promotion company, you could help to promote the services of a business consultant in return for them showing you how to run your business more efficiently.
Basically, it’s a situation where both parties benefits.
Or how about providing the skills and services of your business in return for someone teaching you or your team a foreign language?
And in the field of online business and internet marketing, there are several potential avenues that you could explore.
If you need to discover more about copywriting skills, video production, blogging, podcasting, inbound marketing, programming, you’ll always be ready to find someone who is amenable to teach you in return for one of the skills possessed by your team.
The list of opportunities is almost endless.
And as an appended reward, you may find professionals to work with on future projects or someone in the same line of work with whom you can share your thoughts and concerns about your industry.
3) Skill swapping for using spare capacity
Skill swapping could also be employed to use up spare capacity within your business.
Due to the recent business slowdown, many businesses have discovered that the number of orders have dropped and that the same level of demand is no longer present within the economy.
So, they’re left having to cut business costs in order to survive. And in many cases, this means reducing the size of their workforce.
In this situation, skill swapping could help to use up the spare capacity of their business and prevent them from having to make people redundant.
So instead of having to move team members from full-time down to part-time work, you may be able to use some of their time to benefit your business in other ways.
For example, if you employ a computer programmer within your business and you don’t have enough work to keep them in full-time employment, you could in hire them out (through skill swapping) to other businesses who need their jobs with or without experience.
In return you could receive various services which will allow you to cut the underlying costs of your business, meaning that you can keep your programmer working full time and avoid interrupting the continuity of your business during these difficult times.
4) Skill swapping for building experience
One of the biggest hurdles when commencing a new business is ascertaining new buyers.
However, to draw new consumers and give them reliance on your abilities, it’s essential to be qualified to present them with the testimony of the job that you’ve conducted out for other clients.
But if you don’t have that evidence, it’s difficult to find clients that allow you to build up a portfolio of your previous work. It’s like the situation with the chicken and the egg.
But skill swapping offers the chance to break through this barrier.
Going back to our example from earlier with the web-designer and the accountant, if you offer to create a website in exchange for the accountant preparing your tax return, not only will it get the tax authorities off your back, it provides you with evidence of work that you’ve done for a client that can then be shown to other prospective clients.
Skill swapping may be the perfect way to build up an early portfolio of both your work and client testimonials with will make it easier to find more new clients.
And finally, let’s look at some of the places where you can find these skill swapping opportunities.
Swapaskill.com – The main site mentioned in the magazine article was www.swapaskill.com which now has 10,000 members and around 73,256 listings of people looking for various skills and services to swap.
Gumtree.com – The second site is www.Gumtree.com which has 2500 skill swap listings at present with around 14,000 people searching these ads every month.
And as always, there’s a broad range of sites including Craigslist and other mainstream social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter where you can look for people who have an interest in swapping their unique skills and services.
If you’re willing to contemplate this type of pattern and are preserved to get creative, skill swapping can be an extremely rewarding experience both individually and professionally.
The very thought that you need capital to get your idea out is flawed
In almost every loss-making unicorn’s pitch to prospective investors, there has to be an Amazon comparison — how long they took to become profitable and how they became the most valuable company in the world.
But how many of them are really similar to Amazon? Are we even comparing apples to apples or is it just a convenient excuse that founders use to justify their investment?
Or, is it a case of the blind leading the blind, where VCs themselves do not know how to accurately identify value generating companies or are blinded by their presumed knowledge and understanding of the market?
Is it a game of luck or pure skills in selecting the right company to back?
Many thought that they might have acquired the right company, but with the lack of data points and tangible research, there seems to be little to prove that VCs have gotten the right formula.
There are definitely tell-tale signs on what a successful company would look like, but humans are one of the most complex beings on earth.
How can one make an accurate assessment of them in such a short period of time and place such a huge bet on the story they are selling?
Being in the VC industry, it felt like a massive echo chamber where a school of thought is being advocated by a small group of highly regarded VCs, and suddenly — the whole industry is advocating for it.
This is evident in the Valley and less oblivious in other geographical areas.
It’s common knowledge that past performance do not reflect future performance, yet these VCs are held in high regard due to their past performances.
Their ideas are widely touted by new/wannabe VCs or entrants into the industry where people are quoting or name dropping these thoughts in an effort to show how learned or connected they are in the industry.
Venture capital industry is maturing
The industry itself is maturing, with new service providers setting up shop such as venture builders, or professional fundraisers/financiers, lawyers advising on VC topics, etc.
It’s questionable if they do add any actual value to a company that would eventually make a meaningful impact on the community. Companies are setting up venture arms, professionals are adding the word venture into their corporate profile, and services are sprouting out to serve the venture community.
It’s all being built upon the idea that entrepreneurs would need to raise venture capital money to change the world. This is a severely flawed mindset that ought to be changed.
Having a couple of days off recently, I set up a full day assessment interview conducted by a venture builder in an effort to better understand the venture industry in Singapore from a different perspective and was shocked by the culture within.
Employees were obsessed with books read by VCs in Silicon Valley and were trying extremely hard to emulate the culture in the US. Was that at all necessary?
During a presentation, I was asked what I would do if there was a lack of capital for a moonshot idea that I was passionate about. The very thought that you need capital to get your idea out is flawed and it shouldn’t be the case at all.
The assumption that great ideas need VC funding isn’t going to be sustainable and only a small amount of companies or business models require it during the life of the company.
An entrepreneur should not be deterred by the lack of capital in pursuing their idea, execution and being resourceful is of utmost importance and capital is the least of all concerns.
To actually place capital as the first concern just shows how the industry has gone obsessed over Venture Capital funding.
Value investing?
The notion that VCs are creating value through the backing of revolutionary early stage companies and impacting the community is an overly emphasized story.
Isn’t the point of starting a company to generate profits for its shareholders? Yet, this isn’t happening for a decent majority of companies since the turn of the millennia.
Rather it seems like wealth is being transferred from one fool to the other, based on a well-crafted story.
New forms of valuation techniques were formed to justify the high valuation that these companies command, and it’s more like a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything else.
Isn’t that what capitalism is all about? Profit maximisation?
However, in today’s day and age, companies are going public with a huge market cap yet its PnL is on an insane amount of net loss. (E.g. Lyft, Snap, Twitter)
The whole idea of venture capital is built upon the value of networks that venture capitalists possess.
The access to “hot” deals can be seen as a status symbol and they are hyped up with an overly high valuation. This creates artificial demand for its stocks in the market, thereby generating outsized returns for these VCs, despite it being a loss-making company.
A vicious cycle ensues and uninformed money is constantly poured into the industry in the pursuit of the next unicorn — and the fear of missing out.
New to market investors try to build their networks relentlessly to gain access to those covert companies. This further reflects how interconnected VCs are.
Silicon Valley is the epicentre of the action.
Other cities are trying to replicate the SV model — for better or for worst is anybody’s guess. But, is this genuinely value creation where monies are invested into a hyped up company and exited through a public listing? Or is this a trade sale where profitable or sometimes non-profitable companies will bail them out?
The lack of data points for one to evaluate an early stage company prior to investing in them, creating so much more ambiguity.
Yet, investors are rushing to invest their LPs monies (many of whom are pension funds, banks, sovereign funds, etc) with lax due diligence and pure reliance on reputation or judgment on the founding team.
There is some truth towards investing in talent and given that a startup has little to no data points to measure about from the founding team, can talent be the major evaluating factor?
To dive deeper into the topic, the presence of talent may not be measured effectively as every individual displays their strengths differently, along with the underlying motivation towards working on a selected project differs.
Are investors’ interests genuinely aligned with the founding team? Or are certain founders merely opportunistic actors, leveraging on their perceived talent to extract value from investors?
There are various narratives on how these loss-making companies change and improve our lives, impacting us in many intangible ways. However, a strong and clear indication is that not enough people are willing to pay for such services, leading them to remain unprofitable.
If these are the criteria one measures to determine the value of the company — despite its unprofitability — should a new platform be created for all non-profit organization where they are measured against the value they provide to the community instead?
An exchange where shares/tokens are traded based on the social impact that is created, rather than its perceived future profit, would be a better measure for these companies. And, ultimately save investors from losing their monies.
The VC industry isn’t all fluff — there are genuine cases of truly revolutionary companies formed through the support of well-planned venture capital money. Google, Facebook, Amazon, PayPal are all such companies that make a significant impact on our lives in their own ways.
But how can we identify the good from the bad?
The dotcom bust eliminated bad actors in the market for the first wave of the web revolution, do we need another correction to do so?
As more VC backed companies are choosing to stay private, would a market correction work this time around?
Research has shown that everyone has that innate tendency to believe people when startups come about to pitch an inspirational story, feel-good story, regardless of how experienced — the urge to help these well-meaning founders realize their dreams is there.
However the reality may not be as rosy as what the picture is painted out to be, it could come down to execution challenges — the disparity between the envisioned technology vs actual functionalities.
These could be seen as founder risks, company risks, market risks or merely misrepresentation of facts.
Regardless, startup investing is a complex task and as the industry narrative goes, VCs are doing their best to make an impact on the community and create life-changing companies.
Kuala Lumpur—Harith Iskander, Malaysia’s best-known comedian and winner of the 2016 Funniest Person in the World contest, has refuted the claim that former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is a silent partner in the businesses he had intended to put up.
In December, Mr Harith had filed a lawsuit against Laugh Factory, a chain of comedy clubs in the United States, as well as its founder Jamie Masada.
Laugh Factory is behind the Funniest Person in the World contest that Mr Harith won in 2016. He claims that he was promised a US$100,000 prize (S$136,000) as well as a comedy tour around the US, but he only received a little over US$30,000 from the prize money, and that the tour has yet to materialize.
Laugh Factory filed a countersuit against Mr Harith on February 27, not only claiming that the company had not committed a breach of contract against the comedian, but also suing him for stealing its trade secrets.
Jamie Masada said that contrary to Mr Harith’s claims, it was the Malaysian comic who had reached out to the company and had offered to bring its brand to Asia, saying he could start Laugh Factory clubs in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Jakarta, with former Prime Minister Najib as his silent business partner.
An agreement had been reached for a joint venture between Laugh Factory and Mr Harith for the companies Asian expansion, though it was never formalized.
According to Mr Masada, the company had been slammed by Mr Harith. His lawyer, David Martin, wrote in the lawsuit, “Iskander never intended to honor this agreement; rather, it was deceit designed to gain access to and then misappropriate Defendants’ protected, proprietary intellectual property, including trade secrets, trademarks, business operations, and other intellectual property.”
Mr Masada additionally claimed that the prize money promised Mr Harith was supposed to be given in increments of US$10,000. Each tranche was contingent on a compulsory visit to the US.
After bringing a case against Laugh Factory to pay me USD70,000 still owed to me for winning their competition … and now according to this article Laugh Factory say (sic) that I claimed Najib Razak was a ‘silent partner’ in my business – a statement that is absolutely false and I will leave it to my legal team/the professionals to handle this.
I don’t know quite how to react but it caused everyone around me to burst out in laughter. ????????
I’m just a stand-up comedian from Malaysia who’s only intention was to make my country proud by winning an international competition and I am merely asking for what was promised to me as the winner – nothing more, nothing less. (And at this point I have actually spent more than I received)
I will just stick to the facts and I can’t control others rumour mongering and spreading false accusations. We will take action against those who do.
I trust that justice will prevail.”
On his part, Mr Masada, who is highly regarded in the comedy scene not just in the United States but worldwide, said, “In 35 years, I’ve never once sued a comedian.
I’m standing up for all the comics that have had their work or intellectual property stolen in the past.
It has been very frustrating and unfair for the many honest and hard-working people of the ‘Laugh Factory,’ several websites online are targeting the Laugh Factory as the aggressor in this story. With this lawsuit, the truth will come out so we can get back to doing what we do best: providing laughs for those who need it most.”
SINGAPORE – Following the recent cancellation of the concert by Swedish black metal band Watain due to “security concerns” raised by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), MHA Minister K Shanmugam said that allowing the concert in Singapore would be against “public order interest and would affect our religious and social harmony”.
Before the cancellation the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) had allowed the concert with a rating of Restricted 18 (R18). Strict conditions were also imposed, where no offensive songs should be sung and the audience could only be limited to 200 or so, with several other conditions.
According to a statement by IMDA, the band could not even “make references to religion or use religious symbols and that no ritualistic acts were to be performed on stage.”
However, many concerns were raised over the last few days, as the band has a history of being offensive towards Christians and Jews and are supporters of violence.
Known for its Satanist views, the band’s previous performances were controversial as they involved animal carcasses and pig’s blood being thrown on its audience. Not only that, the band also adopts and supports anti-Christian views, while advocating Satanism through their songs.
On Wednesday, MHA advised IMDA about the possible detrimental social effects. Resultantly, IMDA proceeded to cancel the event.
Mr Shanmugam added that the general approach the Government takes with a music event involves questioning if what the band represented or did would be offensive in Singapore.
“I think to some extent you can look at what they’ve done elsewhere. It’s got to be viewed case-by-case,” he said.
Earlier this week, an online petition was lodged calling for a ban on Watain, as well as another Swedish metal group Soilwork. It has garnered more than 16,000 signatures so far.
Netizens’ responses to Shanmugam’s statement were not very positive.
Photo: Facebook screengrab/ Lee Hsien Loong, Desmond Lee
Singapore—In Parliament on March 5, Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee talked about how inequality is a complex issue that needs to be addressed on several fronts, saying that it must be tackled “practically, rather than ideologically.”
The following day, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong posted an article from The Straits Times about Mr Lee’s take on inequality, and echoed his sentiments, highlighting the efforts of several ministries working together to upgrade existing projects aimed at giving aid to those in need of help.
Desmond Lee’s speech in Parliament
The Minister for Social and Family Development said on Tuesday, during his speech for the Committee of Supply, “There are many causes of income inequality. Because there are multiple causes, our solutions must be multi-faceted. We must tackle inequality practically, rather than ideologically.”
He said that the investment parents can make in their children’s lives varies. He also mentioned that some parents have difficulties in life that hinder them, and others may have a hard time getting the support they need.
In order for help to be more accessible to people, Mr Lee talked about an initiative called Community Link (ComLink), which is a plan that will be placed in four estates with rental blocks from 2019 to 2021 and will act as an “accessible focal point” for residents who need help.
The areas chosen for the ComLink scheme are Jalan Kukoh, Marsiling, Kembangan-Chai Chee and Boon Lay. Around one thousand families are expected get aid through this endeavor.
The Minister also said that each estate would be given tailor-fit programmes and services.
Meanwhile, in Boon Lay and the broader Jurong West, the Ministry will start a Localised Community Network pilot programme to stage interventions to aid youth and their families in complicated family situations.
The ministry will work hand in hand with the Education Ministry’s new Uplift Programme Office for this endeavor. “By facilitating fuller data sharing between the relevant government agencies, we hope to gain a better understanding of the challenges they face at home, in school or elsewhere. In doing so, we hope to help them resolve, or cope with the issues they are facing.”
Mr Lee expressed concern for these youth. “Without proactive early support and intervention, some of these students may underperform or start to skip school. Yet, these are young people with potential and promise; and we want to ensure they have the best chance in life.”
PM Lee weighs in on the matter
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong weighed in on the matter on March 6, focusing on income inequality and social mobility as “key issues of our time,” as he posted a link to the Minister for Social and Family Development’s speech the day before.
He urged, “We must tackle them effectively, to keep our society open, egalitarian, and united.”
The Prime Minister mentioned how the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of National Development and Ministry for Social and Family Development are all working together “to provide multi-layered support for disadvantaged students, low-wage workers, families living in rental homes, and vulnerable Singaporeans.”
He called on ordinary Singaporeans to help in these efforts as well. “Citizens need to get involved too. We all need to be open, neighbourly, and inclusive, regardless of income or status, to push back on social stratification. Every Singaporean, regardless of background, deserves the chance to succeed, to improve their lives and the lives of their loved ones.”
Why does a country with one of the highest rates of working women in the developed world have trouble keeping them in the regular paid workforce?
The World Economic Forum (WEF) reported that Japan ranked lowest among the G7 developed countries in terms of the Global Gender Pay Gap Index. Japan was at 110 out of 149. India, reported by Reuters to be “the world’s most dangerous place for a woman,” ranked higher than Japan holding the 108th place. The WEF measures how countries “leverage their female talent pool” following economic, educational, political, as well as health indicators.
A 2018 report from the Japanese Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said that 56 percent of working women held non-regular, part-time, and contractual jobs. These jobs often paid less, provided no career growth, and lacked the benefits of regular track jobs.
The Japanese economy is struggling with a shrinking workforce, an old population, and declining birth rates. There are millions of educated women who could enter the regular paid workforce and enter the shoes of the typical “salaryman,” but why don’t they?
Japan, being one of the world’s strictest patriarchal nations, has delegated housework solely be the task of women. Women are expected to not only do all the house chores but also spend much time and effort being the best homemaker.
Even if the woman has full-time paid work, she is still expected to do the majority of the housework. It is reported that women spend an average of 263 minutes per week on household chores while men only do so for 46 minutes.
Unfortunately, Japanese taxation laws and policies are biased against encouraging, let alone keeping women in the workforce.
One such law states that the head of the household, who is usually the father, can receive tax deductions amounting to ¥380,000 (S$4640) if he had a documented dependant who made less than ¥1.5 million (S$18,260) a year. If the dependant surpassed that income level, the tax deduction is reduced and is completely revoked once annual income hits ¥2.01mil.
Additionally, a large percentage of Japanese companies give out a “dependant allowance” that aims to encourage wives to stay at home and maintain the house while husbands work.
Another law states that household dependants – usually wives – who work and earn more than the prescribed tax deduction cap will need to pay into the national pension system. These women may likely earn better pension benefits as dependants than as non-regular labourers.
With these policies, it is no wonder women leave the workforce early in their career to focus on becoming homemakers instead. Even the perspective that maintaining the household is “lesser” work than a full time office job is very much sexist.
Addressing Japan’s gender wage gap and labour practices requires not only a revision of such discriminatory policies but a cultural shift towards a more progressive and equitable gender role perspective.
Facebook is not making any headway in doing business with China.
This was according to a Facebook senior official, who chose to be unidentified, in a recent report. Earlier, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited the American social media network will soon be developing a new ‘privacy-focused’ communications tool.
Since 2009, Mr Zuckerberg’s team and Facebook have exerted all their efforts to convince Chinese officials to remove the country’s ban in letting the social network penetrate the most populous country in the world.
With a population of 1.4 billion people, China remains a big heartbreak for Facebook as it is still unable to penetrate this Asian superpower.
Globally, this social media giant takes pride in its 2.7 billion users. Facebook provides various services such as Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and its famous network. Currently, it is steadily reaching its saturation point in most nations in different corners of the world.
When asked by investors how the company is setting a new vision for its growth in the future, Facebook is remaining mum about getting China in as a partner.
The source, who shared his insights and has no plans to divulge his identity in public, noted while Facebook is very eager to establish cross-border ventures, there are no visible signs of entering China or at least attaining a simple deal on any operational infrastructure in the country.
In one of Mr Zuckerberg’s recent notes, he stressed, “As we build our infrastructure around the world, we’ve chosen not to build data centers in countries that have a track record of violating human rights like privacy or freedom of expression.”
“If we build data centers and store sensitive data in these countries, rather than just caching non-sensitive data, it could make it easier for those governments to take people’s information.”
No comment has been made by a Facebook source regarding Mr Zuckerberg’s remarks.
Failed attempts
Getting into China has long been a dream for Facebook. Several attempts were held in the previous years to try the team’s luck to be part of China’s history.
Based on a New York Times’ report in 2016, Facebook tried to employ a special censorship platform that sought to suppress posts, a plan of action while rubbing shoulders with the China government that does not cater to free expression.
Mr Zuckerberg made an effort to learn Mandarin, participated in Tsinghua University’s business school’s advisory board, and did everything to meet President Xi Jinping to discuss his proposal.
Last year, Facebook got approval to provide a subsidiary in the eastern province of Zhejiang. But this was not enough to get China’s full trust on what Facebook can offer.
In another Zuckerberg note, he cited, “upholding this principle” where the company identifies its data servers prevents Facebook’s services from being used in some nations or being blocked in other territories.
Reportedly, Russia is on the verge of passing a law that limits data sharing with internet companies among Russian citizens in storing data on local servers within its borders.
“That’s the tradeoff we’re willing to make,” the Facebook CEO said.
“We do not believe storing people’s data in some countries is a secure enough foundation to build such important internet infrastructure on,” he added.
Mr Zuckerberg’s recent post on the company’s vision remains unclear. He hits on the issue of making a significant shift from its previous “open and connected” tools towards building people’s privacy. This is the area that the company has failed to accomplish.
The source made it crystal clear that Facebook has no plans or opportunities at the moment to enter China. Despite Mr. Zuckerberg painstaking efforts, it will not happen in the “the foreseeable future.”
