By PN Balji
Editor, The Independent Singapore
MediShield Life is a step in the right direction offering the hope that all Singaporeans will enjoy some minimum level of health insurance to protect against financially catastrophic illnesses. When Medisave was introduced and the government hospitals corporatized in the 1980s, moving from a state-funded model to a larger share of private spending, there was too much emphasis on co-payments by patients to prevent the risk of abuse in healthcare spending. This has led to current concerns about the affordability of health care, says Dr Jeremy Lim, author of Myth or Magic: The Singapore Healthcare System. The Germans and the Swedes also impose co-payments, but these co-payments are pegged to the individual’s income rather than the pricing of services. Hence, patients feel the pinch but in proportion to their income, he adds.
Q. Are the steps that the Government announced recently enough? What else needs to be done?
A. The recent announcements are steps in the right direction. When health policy commentators discuss health systems, we speak of the balance among three critical factors; cost, quality and access. In Singapore, we have some of the world’s best doctors, nurses and hospitals. Physical access is not an issue because of our compactness, but the issue is cost or, more precisely, affordability.
MediShield Life, which is a major shift in policy thinking, offers the hope that all Singaporeans will enjoy some minimum level of health insurance to protect against financially-catastrophic illnesses.
MediShield Life will be mandatory and so all Singaporeans and Permanent Residents will be covered, but the questions still remain: What services will be covered and what out-of-pocket payments do people have to pay? For the last question, what weighs on people’s minds are not just the co-payments and deductibles but also the annual premiums. This is still rapidly evolving. Gerald Giam from the Workers’ Party asked Health Minister Gan Kim Yong about this. Minister Gan informed that MOH was still working out the details. All in, it is too early to say whether the changes will be enough.
Q. The government talked about “peace of mind” for Singaporeans when it comes to healthcare. Is that ever achievable?
A. Economist Robert Yates summed it up very nicely saying that the ambition is for “All people to receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship”. Healthcare is characterized by finite resources and infinite demand and so it is not possible to satisfy every single person. What I think the government can achieve is an agreed ‘basket of services’ that the citizen is entitled to in the event of illness without suffering financial hardship (and what this term ‘financial hardship’ means also needs to be debated) and a deeper sense of fairness in the system that personal wealth is not the major determinant of access to quality healthcare. The outcome should be that citizens feel that ‘peace of mind’ both clinically and financially whilst knowing also that the government cannot provide everything and they too have a responsibility to do their part.
Q. Is there a system in any country that has an ideal healthcare system, or as close to an ideal system?
A. In my book, I describe the ideal health system as one where the tensions between costs, quality and access are balanced in ways that the country’s citizens are politically comfortable with or at least accepting of the system . In the Singapore context, I wrote recently:
“Firstly, the need for a healthcare financing system that provides “peace of mind” but is at the same time efficient, sustainable and congruent with the dominant political philosophy which is deeply concerned with ‘moral hazard’ and abuse of the system. Secondly, healthcare financing needs to be aligned to and support how healthcare is practised and not the other way around. Hence, the financing orientation may need to move away from the false dichotomies of “inpatient versus outpatient” and “specialists versus GPs” to instead look at episodes of care, regardless of the “where” and “who”. Thirdly, how about a health system that actually promotes health rather than disease treatment and rewards quality over quantity?”
There are no ideal healthcare systems but different countries have elements that I think are worthy of emulating. For example, the Germans and Swedish impose co-payments to address moral hazards like the fear of abuse, but these co-payments are pegged to the individual’s income rather than the pricing of services. Hence, patients feel the pinch but in proportion to their income.
The English have a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) which is independent of the government and makes decisions on what treatments and services should be funded on the basis of cost-effectiveness. Whatever the mechanism, I think it is vital that all systems have a framework to limit the provision of healthcare services and the spending to what the system can avoid. One has to cut the coat according to the cloth. In healthcare; this is very difficult politically but it has to be done. The best ways are to strive to leave these ‘technical’ decisions to independent bodies which include patient and citizen voices.
Q. What does Singapore need to do to achieve this?
A. Singapore has the ingredients for a very good health system. When I speak to overseas counterparts, I describe Singapore as having the ‘least imperfect’ health system. Mr. Ngiam Tong Dow describes the Singapore model as very balanced, having co-payments, insurance and so on.
To me, the biggest issue is the balance between state and individual/ family responsibility and assumption of risk. In my book, I describe how Singapore has emphasized the primacy of the state and the almost absolute need for the government to be strong and in the driver’s seat. What this results in is the imposition of perhaps even onerous levels of co-payments and the unrealistic burden of risk placed on citizens. It is a bit of a zero-sum game. Because healthcare needs and utilization can be unpredictable, there is a very strong element of uncertainty. Someone needs to set aside monies for healthcare and someone needs to take the financial risks. If the government structures the health system to have substantial co-payments and deductibles, it means citizens have to assume the financial burden. If the government decides, as it has, that MediShield has to have annual caps and lifetime spending amounts, it means that citizens bear the financial risk of busting this cap and being on their own.
In fairness though, there have been tremendous strides made. When MediShield, for example, was first implemented, the age at which Singaporeans ‘fall off the cliff’ and are no longer eligible to enroll was 65 years. It was gradually ratcheted up over the years to 90 years and PM Lee at the recent National Day Rally announced that MediShield Life would have no age restrictions. So it is a journey where Singapore has made much progress, especially in recent years.Q
Q. What roadblocks ahead do you see?
A. I think the tensions will always be with us because of the inherent nature of healthcare being about finite resources and infinite demand. The balance between state and citizen is a mental model that is constantly being calibrated in the minds of policy makers, taking into their calculus what the government’s financial health is, what the political realities are and so on. Even within government as DPM Tharman has alluded to, there is a whole diversity of views and positions along the political spectrum. How the situation plays out will depend on how the mental models held by individual leaders evolve and how the consensus amongst the Cabinet shifts.
At least, Singapore is moving from a position of strength in reforming the health system. There are substantial monies in Medisave accounts collectively (to the tune of over S$60 billion) and with the government being in a strong financial position, can do more and has articulated it wants to do more. The technical decision then is how and to what extent.
Q. Are you a pro-euthanasia or anti-euthanasia man?
A.‘Anti’. I am a firm supporter of palliative care and hope the palliative care sector will flourish and be able to provide support for all patients towards the end of life.
Q. If you were put in a time tunnel and sent back to the 1980s, what would you have done to avoid the difficulties that Singapore healthcare faces in the 21st century?
A. This is a very interesting question. I devoted many pages in the book to the political situation in the 1980s as that was when Medisave was introduced and government hospitals corporatized. Moving from a state-funded model like the NHS with little constraining mechanisms in spending to a larger share of private spending was the right thing to do but Singapore overdid it and emphasized too much on co-payments as a primary mechanism to tackle moral hazard and the risk of abuse. This has led to the current concerns about ‘peace of mind’ and the affordability of healthcare.
On the healthcare delivery side, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I think Singapore should have maintained its strengths in primary care. The thinking that primary care was ‘simple’ and amenable to market models of competition and consumer choice was unfortunate and resulted in the fragmentation and focus on minor ailments and wellness which are the most financially prudent areas private general practitioners can pay attention to. If we had maintained our strengths as a system in primary care and preventive health, the challenges we face now in aging and the ‘epidemic’ of chronic diseases would have been easier to manage.
Another related issue would be addressing the health needs of a rapidly-ageing population. Singapore decided strategically the government would concentrate on acute care and leave the so-called ‘Intermediate and Long Term Care’ (ILTC) sectors to the voluntary welfare organizations. This was a mistake that is now haunting us. What needs to be a tightly coordinated enterprise between tertiary care and ILTC is now terribly fragmented and unbalanced in scale. We have far too few ILTC resources, both in manpower and physical infrastructure.
Dr Jeremy Lim is the Principal Consultant of Insights Health Associates, a healthcare strategy advisory firm and the author of ‘Myth or Magic: The Singapore Healthcare System’ which is available at all major bookstores.
What Singapore did right — and wrong — in health care
Why the Chinese speak loudly
By Pauline D Loh
Managing editor, Sunday/Features/Food, China Daily
Crowds in China cannot be ignored. And according to some legal definitions, three people will make a crowd. Certainly, especially in confined spaces like trains, coaches and planes, a trio of excited Chinese talking all at once is enough to grab your attention, often against your will.
So why is it that we talk so loudly. I asked my young Chinese colleagues, and they came up with several very interesting suggestions.
It’s the loudspeaker mentality.
Not so long ago, being able to speak through a loudspeaker meant you were a person of authority. Only community leaders had the privilege of rousing them in the morning or at noon for the daily lessons on how to be better citizens.
It was so throughout those turbulent decades of the 60s to 80s, where strident street parades took place frequently throughout the country. Perhaps that was when the “loud and proud” culture seeped into the general consciousness.
I am tempted to subscribe to this theory, because loudspeakers still blare daily from the school next to our apartment, broadcasting the discipline master’s constant displeasure on how slow the students are gathering for assembly on the basketball courts, or how lethargic they are in doing the mandatory morning exercises.
Frankly, the loudspeakers are redundant. We hear him clearly without them, and he is intimidating enough to almost scare us into obediently going through the motions with the students.
No, no. It’s the village mentality, says another young colleague. You had to shout in order to be heard above the cacophony of chickens and ducks. And you had to hail across to the next hamlet separated by dense vegetation, hillock or stream.
I thought that was a little too farfetched, but what do I know, having been transplanted two generations ago to another mainly urban Chinese community abroad that still clung tenaciously to the Confucian tenets of gentility and the middle way, propagated in properly muted tones.
My own theory is that we Chinese are natural show-offs, no matter the nationality.
Take the young businessman sitting behind me on the high-speed train back from Tianjin recently.
He was toying with his latest iPhone 5 all the way. How do I know? Because the distinctive cricket ring tone was chirping almost non-stop throughout the half-hour journey.
I was made aware that he was going to be on his way to Urumqi on a business trip the next day to close a 400,000 yuan deal, and that he had got someone at his office to book his flight, business class.
How do I know? Well, actually half the train carriage knew as well — because he took care to raise his voice during all the necessary arrangements to proudly broadcast his elite positioning.
So we are now privy to the fact that he is an important person in the company, trusted to sign important deals, and that he is transported in style. We were in the first class train carriage.
And all in the space of 25 minutes.
In another train journey, a few months ago from Guilin to Laibin in Guangxi, a young mother sitting opposite us in a crammed carriage was gently telling her son not to speak too loudly.
She cajoled him, made sure he did not kick out under the table too often, and her husband quietly offered to help us with our bulky luggage at the end of the line. She’s from Laibin, by no means a large city, but she had the earth-anchored qualities of a diligent middle-class working wife and mother.
But her most redeeming quality, to me, was the fact that she was teaching her young child how to behave in public.
It seems that at least two to three generations of Chinese have forgotten how to teach their children manners, or they may have lost the ability to differentiate between loving indulgence and raising a public menace.
If China is to allow the world to better understand it, then perhaps she should start looking at how she is represented at home and abroad. Every Chinese who steps out of the country is a cultural ambassador, and the whole country is also judged by that one person who misbehaves when a visitor is abused in the country.
Unfortunately, opinion is dictated by chance encounters.
I really hate to think what foreign tourists at the airports thought of the recent spate of violence when irate Chinese passengers physically attacked airline staff.
And, it is only when the vast majority of Chinese going abroad manage to speak in civilized tones, learn to wait in line like the rest of the passengers and have the subtle sense to moderate their purchasing excesses that China will be presented as what it should be: A world leader in economics and culture that had had 5,000 years to perfect the art of civilization.
More awards for Ilo Ilo
Hello, hello! Ilo Ilo just bagged three more awards. The first Singapore film to win the Camera d’Or prize at the 2013 Cannes film festival, Ilo Ilo has won three major awards at the 10th Jameson CineFest Miskolc International Festival in Hungary and captured the Best Actor award at the 9th Eurasia Film Festival in Kazakhstan.
Child actor Koh Jia Ler won the Best Actor award at Eurasia while director Anthony Chen attended the film festival in Hungary, where Ilo Ilo won the Grand Jury prize, the FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) prize and the International Ecumenical Jury prize.
“The three prizes in Hungary were awarded by separate juries and they all told me how they were moved and impressed by the film,” Chen told Today. “Of course I am so proud of Jia Ler, he was selected out of thousands and worked really hard, particularly for someone who had no acting experience at all; it was nice that he was given a real pat on the shoulder.”
See also Ilo Ilo: A warm and sincere film.
Ilo Ilo: A warm and sincere film
By Zafar Anjum
In mid-June 2011 when I was attending a screenplay writing residency in Singapore, I thought I was working on a unique project. My story was about a Filipino maid in Singapore who gets fired during the financial crisis of 2007-8. How many Singapore-made films have you seen that have a Filipino maid as a protagonist?
As I was working on my screenplay, I read that a young Singaporean filmmaker, Anthony Chen, was already shooting a film about a Filipino maid. Moreover, his project was being supported by the Singapore Film Commission. For a while I was jealous. Then I thought, wow! Great minds think alike.
I kept working on my screenplay. Once in a while, I would hear about Chen’s project, Ilo Ilo. I was not sure what kind of film he was making. It sounded like one of those self-indulgent artistic films that pretentious young men like to make to win awards. For me, a film must have some entertainment value in it to work. And believe me, I find entertainment value even in Bergman and Ray’s films.
Over a year, I completed my screenplay and met some local producers in Singapore. Mine was a commercial idea, involving a maid, a gangster, a taxi driver and an Indian businessman with a child. Some producers liked the idea but nothing worked out. In my mind, I was trying to make a Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels kind of a movie with a Coen Brothers’ touch.
Over time, I learnt that the only common elements between the two stories (mine and Chen’s) were a Filipino maid and a child. The similarities ended there. Boy, was I glad!
The honour
When I heard that Chen’s film had won the Camera d’Or (Golden Camera) at this year’s Cannes, I was stunned. I really had goose-bumps, for it was for the first time that a Singapore film had won that glory. I tweeted about it. Many Singaporeans who understood the value of such an award, including the Prime Minister of Singapore, lionized Chen.
Getting a Camera d’Or at the Cannes is a motherload of an honour, especially for a first- time director, and it is undoubtedly a milestone for Singapore cinema.
With his maiden feature film, Chen joined the ranks of many talented Asian filmmakers who have won this award before him, such as Mira Nair (Salam Bombay. India, 1988), Murali Nair (Throne of Death, India, 1999), Vimukthi Jayasundara (The Forsaken Land, Sri Lanka, 2005), and Warwick Thornton (Samson & Delilah, Australia, 2009).
The man
Before the film’s release, I had an opportunity to hear him speak to the film fraternity here.
Chen’s achievement was not a freak accident: he had worked on the script for nearly two years, had scouted for talent (especially the child actor) for months and had to run from pillar to post to raise half a million dollars to produce his film. As many new filmmakers would vouch, Chen too was discouraged by those who asked: who would like to watch a film about a Filipino maid? Nobody dies, nobody gets killed in the film; who will watch this tosh?
Undeterred, Chen kept on working on his project. Funding came from the Singapore government and NTU, Chen’s alma mater, which was a unique vote of confidence in Chen’s talent.
After the film was made, it was selected for Cannes, which was an honour in itself. However, the talented young director faced a streak of bad luck during the screening. There were three blackouts due to technical glitches. Thankfully, the audience did not walk out of the theatre. The film received a standing ovation.
Even before the film won the prestigious award, which was a surprise for Chen, his film had been sold out to distributors in many countries. Chen and his crew’s hard work had begun to pay off.
According to his colleagues, Chen is not only bright and tenacious but like a master craftsman, he is meticulous about detail. Paying attention to detail is a great quality in an artist.
Besides, Chen is also a showman. Before the film’s première in Singapore, he launched a hunt in the Philippines for the maid who was the inspiration for his film. The maid was not only found but was brought over to Singapore to grace the film’s opening along with the President of Singapore.
All these qualities foretell that Chen will go a long way as a filmmaker.
The film
A week ago, I finally had the chance to watch the movie in a local multiplex. I was accompanied by two of my screenwriting mates.
Of course, we entered the theatre with great expectations. How good will the film be? Will it be as good as Satyajiy Ray’s Pather Panchali? Or will it be like Truffaut’s 400 Blows?
When we saw the film, we immediately connected to the Singaporean narrative. It was not like what I had expected it to be. There was nothing stylish about the film. It was a bare and matter-of-fact narrative. Chen was not copying anyone. He was trying to be honest to his material.
Ilo Ilo is a slice of life film. It has a very simple storyline. A young boy feels alienated from his parents because they are a working couple. The family hires a Filipino maid and the rest of the story is about the bonding between the two characters—the child and the maid. These two characters and the child’s parents, set in a HDB flat, largely make the universe of the film.
We could see how masterfully Chen had recreated an era of Singapore which was not very distant. Brimming with warmth, gentle humour and understated performances, the film moves you.
Though the film is a labour of love and passion, it does not mean that this is a perfect film. There are things in the film that you can nitpick about but that’s not the point. Also, if you are a hardcore fan of pop corn flicks, you might not find it entertaining enough. Had it not won an award at Cannes, the film’s fate might have been different.
There is a lot that is laudable in Ilo Ilo. You see that in the film only if, as Roger Ebert once suggested, you approach it with hope, not suspicion.
Zafar Anjum is a Singapore-based journalist and writer. He edits Kitaab.org and is the author of The Resurgence of Satyam and The Singapore Decalogue.
See also More awards for Ilo Ilo
Confessions of an author
By Zafar Anjum
It is said that when success comes late in life it tastes bitter. It was said about the Polish film director and screenwriter Krzysztof Kieślowski, known internationally for The Decalogue (1989), The Double Life of Véronique (1991), and The Three Colors Trilogy (1993–1994). It was only in the later stage of his life that he became internationally famous. He could never get over that negligence. Closer to home, Pakistani writer Jamil Ahmad made his debut as the 78-year-old writer of The Wandering Falcon. He started writing the book in 1971 and finished in ’73. The manuscript took 40 years to publish.
If you think this is too heartbreaking, think again. Sometimes, success could be a total bitch and evade you like a plague. I remember the example of Seepersad Naipaul, the father of Nobel laureate V S Naipaul, who always wanted to get published in London to escape poverty. He lived in Trinidad and worked as a journalist on The Trinidad Guardian. It was only through his Oxford-educated famous son that his dream was fulfilled. Decades after his death, Naipaul paid a tribute to his father by publishing his stories in the form of a book, The Adventures of Gurudev.
I did not want to die like Naipaul Sr., with my ambitions of becoming a writer dying in my eyes. It is a cautionary tale that visits me time and again like a nightmare.
When I started out with the ambition of becoming a writer, it seemed like an impossible dream. But I sought to pursue that dream because it seemed to make my spirit sing, and it seemed to make me feel alive
When I wrote my first novel, of Seminal Fluids (2001), I was steeped in a literary naivety that I now find unforgivable. I was in my early twenties then, in my second job, and fresh after marrying someone I had helplessly fallen in love with. I had read lots of novels during my university days and had developed this cockiness that I could write one too.
I had written a novella but I thought I had finished a novel. I sent the manuscript out to some of the literary heavyweights of those days, writers and critics I admired: Khushwant Singh, Meenakashi Mukherjee and Mukul Kesavan. I asked them to look at my manuscript and offer me their unadulterated opinion on its merits and demerits. One word from them and I would have abandoned the whole thing.
I never heard from them.
Restless, I sent the manuscript to Penguin Books in New Delhi, giving them only two weeks to decide if they wanted to publish it. I knew that they would reject it because in those days, only those writers were published who were either non-resident Indians with degrees from fancy universities or had studied in India’s elite schools and colleges (obviously, they were a bunch of talented writers but in my small-minded naivety I could only reduce their publishing success to their exotic address or their precious education).
A group of friends helped me bring out the book. I was now a published author. At one level, I was satisfied. However, at a deeper level, I knew that I needed to learn a lot more about writing. And I needed to read a lot more. That feeling has stayed with me ever since.
Finding the form of the novel too overwhelming, I turned to reading and writing short stories. I received a shot in the arm in 2002, when my story was chosen as the winning entry to the Conference of New South Asian Creative and Academic Writers at Colombo organized by the British Council, Sri Lanka. That’s when I traveled out of India for the first time on my Indian passport. This opportunity gave me a faint hope that perhaps I had some writing talent in me, that I was not totally delusional.
A few years later, I moved to Singapore. Initially, I was totally lost and except for the Singapore Writers Festival which was a biannual event, hardly anything literary seemed to exist in the city.
After I met the poet Chris Mooney-Singh, I came to know about the the Writers’ Centre, a literary group of new and old writers that met every fortnight. I happily joined the group. Members of the group critiqued each other’s work. I don’t know how the feedback process helped others but it definitely helped me in the sense that I was not shadow boxing with myself in an imaginary ring anymore. Meanwhile, another short story of mine, Waiting for the Angels, was shortlisted for the TLM New Writing Prize 2006 by The Little Magazine in India. This too boosted my confidence.
I kept on writing more short stories which made their way to some local anthologies published by Monsoon Books in Singapore. I benefitted from the excellent libraries in the city state which allowed me access to a wealth of literature. Also, the city’s two big bookstores—Borders and Kinokuniya afforded immense relief. I travelled to Hong Kong to attend the Hong Kong literary festival. I started a literary website Kitaab.org and a few years later, became associated with WritersConnect.org as fiction editor.
Before moving to Singapore, I had started work on a novel that I had left unfinished. I picked up the novel again, a much more ambitious undertaking than my first novel. At that time, I needed to move away from my family to work in solitude. I could not afford to stay in a hotel or resort so I requested a bachelor friend of mine to let me stay with him at his pad for a few days during the Christmas break. He agreed and that helped me bring the novel back on the track.
That novel has not been published yet, but it linked me to my agent, Jayapriya Vasudevan of the Jacaranda Literary Agency. At that time, hers was the only literary agency in town. Imagine meeting an Indian agent in Singapore! Jacaranda was fast emerging as a Southeast Asia-wide agency and had many well-known and emerging Singaporean writers on its list of authors. I was happy to be represented by her.
Soon after, I got lucky and received an Arts Creation Grant from the National Arts Council to work on a collection of short stories set in Singapore.
While the novel remained a work in progress, two books happened between 2011 and 2012—The Resurgence of Satyam (Random House) and The Singapore Decalogue (Red Wheelbarrow Books). Both were released at the Singapore Writers Festival last year.
In the last two years, I have also taught myself the art of screenplay-writing. I did a year-long workshop with two very talented scriptwriting teachers from UK under a joint MDA and British Council Singapore programme. As a result of the workshop, I wrote my first feature film script for which I am looking for producers or co-producers. Currently, I am writing a commissioned feature film screenplay for a producer. If it works out, it will be my first Bollywood film.
This year, I have revived Kitaab.org and also established my own publishing imprint. The first book, a work of literary translation, will be released under the Kitaab imprint in this year’s Singapore Writers Festival.
I have a long list of books that I want to write and a long list of films that I want to write and direct. I live and pray to be able to write those books and make those films.
This morning when I sat down to write this piece, I received the sad news that one of my classmates had succumbed to cancer and passed away at 39 in the US. The news was a grim reminder that life could be so fickle and whatever little luck allows us to achieve in our lifetime is a blessing.
Zafar Anjum is a Singapore-based journalist and writer. He edits Kitaab.org and is the author of The Resurgence of Satyam and The Singapore Decalogue.
Hazel Poa stepping down as NSP secretary-general
By Kumaran Pillai
Hazel Poa is stepping down as secretary general of the National Solidarity Party (NSP). She has been suffering from stress-related ailments for the last couple of months and has not been showing up for the party’s monthly meetings, NSP president Sebastian Teo told The Independent Singapore.
Poa is still a council member and her husband, Tony Tan, the organizing secretary.
She announced her resignation as secretary-general at the central executive committee (CEC) meeting attended by about 13 members last night. They accepted her resignation and thanked her for her contribution to the party.
The party will call for an election within one month to elect the next secretary-general.
When asked whether she would be contesting the next general election, Teo said it was too early to say. He hoped she would recover well enough to contest in the next round.
Poa, 43, a Public Service Commission (PSC) scholar, and her husband, also 43, a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) scholar, both graduated from Cambridge and were part of the five-member NSP team that contested the Chua Chu Kang Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in the May 2011 general election.
A former Administrative Service officer, Poa runs the SmartLab private school and chain of education centres with her husband.
She was elected NSP secretary-general in June 2011 after the resignation of Goh Meng Seng and re-elected in April this year.
Bernard Harrison interview (Part 2): When a rebel clashed with a civil servant boss
By PN Balji
Editor, The Independent Singapore
“Zoo Man” Bernard Harrison talks about why he left the Singapore Zoo and why Singapore is lacking in creativity. This is the second and final part of his interview in which he earlier talked about his life in Bali
Q. Tell us about your experiences in the Singapore Zoo?
A. I first joined in 1973 and was appointed as Curator and then promoted to Assistant Director & Curator – which is really like a General Curator.
The job of a Curator is to manage the animal collection. The Curator works closely with the keepers to ensure that the animals’ welfare is taken care of — basics like adequate shelter, food, water, freedom from discomfort, injury and distress — and the animals are allowed to exhibit normal behavior and have companionship and breed. You try and replicate, be it symbolically at times, the ecological niche that the particular species comes from. You also are in charge of animal transactions — bringing in new ones and sending some away – and the more gruesome stuff like euthanasia. The Curator has the best job in the zoo…far better than Director…but it pays less…..so you have to move up to make ends meet.
When we first opened Singapore Zoological Gardens in 1973, there was a spate of animal escapes. A hippopotamus, named Congo, got out into the reservoir for 48 days and made almost daily news in the media. This was followed by a panther and eland which both escaped into the surrounding forested catchment and then a tiger climbed up the fence of its exhibit and walked around the top, so she was physically free.
They were exciting times for a young man like me and very trying times for an older man…my Chairman. Dr Ong Swee Law received a letter from the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew when the eland escaped (it was the culmination of escapes) which said something to the effect that this is the largest and fastest antelope on earth and he was a loss as to how we were going to recapture it. Dr Ong wanted to resign! Well, two weeks later it came home! It simply waked up to the back gate of the Zoo and right back to its enclosure. Not that much to eat in a rain forest for a grazer of the African plains, I guess!
We were young, inexperienced and new to the game. I bet there are still the odd escapes at the Zoo now, but they recapture them more quickly!
In the Singapore Zoo I really liked developing the Primate Kingdom. It’s simple, tranquil and displays a range of beautiful and social monkeys set in a forest setting with a moat full of arapaima – a huge fish from the Amazon which come and feed from the keepers’ hands with a sucking noise that scares the pants off most visitors!
And of course the Night Safari was a project we worked on from scratch, conceiving it with our consultant Lyn de Alwis (who designed the Singapore Zoo) in 1987 and opening it in 1994. That is probably the single biggest project of which I am proud…and damn it – it’s doing very well for itself!
Wildlife Reserves Singapore now operates the four parks — Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Safari and Jurong Bird Park — and is ranked as one of the top 10 zoos in the world!
Q. When did you leave? Why did you leave? Any regrets?
A. I left in 2002. The chairman at the time, Dr Kwa Soon Bee, and I didn’t see eye to eye on a number of different issues, I being a bit of a rebel at heart and he from the old civil service. It was a mismatch – chalk and cheese – and something had to give…which was me.
I miss the staff. We had the dream team there. You cannot begin to imagine what a dream team is in the Singapore context. But it was.
Before the merger of the Zoo and Night Safari with the Bird Park to form Wildlife Reserves Singapore, we had created a bunch of staff who basically got along with each other and because there was very little in-house politics, were all pulling in the same direction.
Unusual if not unique in Singapore!
Without this kind of camaraderie there is absolutely no way we could have managed an annually award-inning tourist attraction, developed a major new animal attraction on a yearly basis at the Zoo and also developed the Night Safari simultaneously. I take my hat off to that team from 1985 to 2000!
Q. What do you do now?
A. I am a consultant and run my own, very specialized zoo design company: Bernard Harrison and Friends.
We offer a range of services for the conceptualization, planning, design and initial management of animal based attractions and eco-tourism projects. However, having said that, we are most efficiently used as conceptualizers of new projects and master planners. I think this is our strength as we are a team of very experienced zoo designers and managers who can offer a fresh and very lateral look at a new zoo, ensuring at the same time that it will really work.
One meets a lot of people in our business who claim to be zoo designers but who have never built a zoo that actually operates. That’s the scary part… it’s all a bit like smoke and mirrors and sleight of hands.
A new zoo recently opened in Rabat, capital of Morocco. We developed the concept and master plan for it. If you are ever there, go see it. It’s great!
The difference with consultancy is that we normally work on the initial development of a zoo and do not get involved in the later design and implementation. Thus one loses the intimacy of the final product. That’s why I cherish the projects at the Singapore Zoo in which I was involved (with that dream team of staff) from start to finish.
Q. You are very passionate about creativity. Do you think Singapore can ever become a creative nation in the true sense of the word?
A. That’s a whole article in itself!
Let’s just say that there is a real difference between creativity and innovation. We do a great job of innovation but fall far short of being creative.
The present-day Singaporeans are not particularly creative because we beat the creativity out of them from the time they start at kindergarten. Creativity requires lateral thinking which is nurtured by the encouragement to question your parents, teachers and the system.
Our education and much of our basic social structure is based on Confucianism and Greek logic. The pillars of Confucianism are personal morality and conduct, family loyalty, respect and obedience for parents and superiors, a strong examination system and a highly competent civil service. Thus Confucianism discourages inquiry, questioning and especially argument with teachers and parents.
Greek logic or dialectics was formulated by Socrates and is behind most Western thinking methods. It is typified by the search for knowledge and truth through logic, encourages dichotomies to force a choice. Edward de Bono calls it “adversarial thinking which completely lacks a constructive, creative or design element. It was intended only to discover the ‘truth’, not to build anything”. Adversarial thinking discourages parallel thinking, which is the cornerstone for creative thinking and the development of lateral ideas.
Based on this combination of teaching methods our system is already disadvantaged for the development of creativity. Add to this the extremely boring teaching methods now in place and a firm adherence, at all costs, to the syllabus. Then add strict homogenization of students through a dazzling array of uniformed groups such as the Boys Brigade and National Police Cadet Corp. National service completes the homogenization process for the boys and returning scholars are uniformed in white shirts, blue trousers and gold rimmed glasses — the uniform of the civil service!
If you want to read more on what I have written on creativity, go to my website www.bernardharrisonandfriends at media releases and download Can Singapore Become a Create society? And Guns Germs Steel and Creativity
Q. What does Singapore lack in this area?
A. Creative people question authority, push the boundaries and do not conform to rules and regulations. You need this for lateral thinking.
For Singapore, this is the downside of creativity. For the government gets very jittery with people like this around, despite their being apolitical… more likely bohemian and gay.
Innovation is incremental improvements on a product (in the broadest sense of the word). It is what the Japanese are famous for with quality control circles (which were invented by an American!).
Singaporeans are good at innovation and we have the government infrastructure and discipline to develop products and market them. However, we don’t have the creativity to dream up new ones. We should import creative talent when we need it, but focus on innovations and selling the results, which we are extremely good at. So really we should identify our strengths and stick to them.
We will only be another Silicon Valley if we populate our science parks with NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) and Europeans and Americans drawn by the bigger bucks they can earn here.
Q. Are you happy?
A. Absolutely.
See also the first part of the interview: Bali hi! ‘Zoo Man’ Bernard Harrison in paradise
Can there be another Pillay, another Sim Kee Boon?
Can Singapore produce another JY Pillay, Sim Kee Boon or Philip Yeo? Civil servants who can create or nurture world-class institutions?
Pillay will be remembered as the visionary chairman of Singapore Airlines who turned it into a top-flight carrier, Sim as the man who helped create Changi airport, Yeo as the chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB) encouraging foreigners to invest here and as chairman of A*STAR promoting biomedical research.
How can they be emulated? Can there be another Changi airport, another Singapore Airlines, another EDB or A*STAR?
Is it fair to expect civil servants to create or nurture world-class institutions? Isn’t that what you expect of an ambitious entrepreneur like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?
Civil servants start as faceless Renaissance men, moving up the ranks of the civil service while working behind the scenes, drafting and implementing policies. In an arcane world of growing specialization, they are expected to be gifted generalists, able to handle, say, finance and urban planning with equal aplomb.
But he did not have to do what Pillay or Sim Kee Boon did. One may say the pioneers are impossible to emulate because Singapore is now a mature economy. There is not going to be another Singapore Airlines or Changi airport. But look at all the changes taking place. Old institutions have merged into new entities such as the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and the Media Development Authority. There is a whole new airline – Tiger Airways.
The civil service has to change with Singapore. Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman Eddie Teo warns against elitism. This is his second open letter – and it marks a change from his first.
In his first open letter , in 2009, he wrote about how to prepare for the PSC scholarship interview.
This time, he stresses the need for greater diversity in the civil service to avoid “groupthink” and “appreciate the needs of a more diverse population” because of the new immigrants and more Singaporeans marrying foreigners. PSC scholarships are being offered to students from more schools, he says.
Things have changed since the 2011 election. Sustainable growth, greater productivity and reduced dependence on foreign workers are the new desiderata.
The government plays a bigger role in Singapore than in many countries. It was not the US government which created Silicon Valley. That was largely done by private enterprise. In Singapore, it is the government that decides which industries to promote. Helping make the decisions and carrying them out is the civil service. So Singapore is really run by the mandarins.
“The most meritocratic civil service in the world today is not found in any Western country but Singapore. The elite civil service ranks are filled by Administrative Service Officers (AOs). To get the best to serve as AOs, the Singapore government tries to pay the most senior AOs as much as the private sector… It’s a small price to pay if a country wants to progress and succeed in a far more competitive environment.”
In light of the transformation under way, the discarded old policies and the new thinking, one may – taking a leaf from Mahbubani – ask: Has the civil service been delivering the bang for the buck? Changing times call for not only new ideas but the vision to anticipate the future. The move for greater diversity in the civil service shows a quest for new perspectives, fresh pairs of eyes.
Elections not enough? We also need referendums
By Vignesh Louis Naidu
A couple of weeks ago, Zurich opened its first drive-through sex boxes. These were built by the state to provide prostitutes a clean and safe environment to work from and to move prostitution out of the main streets of Zurich. The project cost the state $2.1 million to install and $749,000 to run annually. The residents of Zurich are generally supportive of the government’s decision, which was based on a referendum.
A referendum is an interesting tool that democracies can choose to utilize. In a referendum, the electorate can support or oppose a policy proposal. When democracy first flourished in classical Athens, it was a system of direct democracy where all eligible citizens were allowed to directly participate in policy crafting. As countries got larger, more diverse and complex, democracy adapted to its most common present form, a representative democracy. In a representative democracy the electorate chooses its leaders and representatives in regular elections.
In the mid-800s the Swiss added the ability to hold referendums into their state and federal constitutions.
Many countries have since used referendums to decide on critical national issues. Even Singapore held a referendum regarding the decision to join the Malayan Federation. The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) did a study on the use of referendums in Asia. The study covered 35 countries in Asia including Australia and New Zealand. Singapore was classified as “a country that is quite unfriendly to initiatives and referenda”. This put Singapore together with countries such as China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and North Korea.
In the last decade the Singapore government has had to make many critical decisions that have in some instances contradicted earlier policy stances. A prime example would be the decision to allow casinos. When the idea of opening a casino had been previously mooted, the government took a very strong stance against it. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew famously said that there would only be a casino in Singapore over his dead body.
The government had highly charged debates regarding the decision. Many PAP members spoke against casinos. Religious leaders united to petition the government to reconsider the decision. Many economists, on the other hand, spoke about the economic benefits of casinos. The issue was debated online and offline, in coffeshops and swanky bars. The decision to allow casinos was seen as a wholehearted embrace of capitalism and the final nail in the coffin of our socialist past.
Did the government ever consider holding a referendum on this matter? After all the debates in parliament and the media, could the government have not called on the citizens to make the final decision? Today many people accuse the government of having disregarded public opinion and taken a unilateral decision to allow casinos. A referendum would have ensured the outcome reflected the views of the majority.
The government has in recent months talked about the “silent majority”. The decision to embark on “Our Singapore Conversation” was meant to capture their voice. What better way to make them heard than through a referendum?
If the government does decide to seriously consider using referendums to give Singaporeans a greater say, we have to be cautious. We cannot resort to a referendum every time a controversial or politically challenging decision needs to be made. We should only conduct a referendum on issues that affect the threads that bind the fabric of our city-state. The government should allow the citizenry the ability to initiate a referendum but should ensure that requirements are sufficient but not excessively onerous. Many countries that hold referendums cloak their options in political and technical jargon making the average citizen feel that there is only one feasible choice. Singapore should ensure that referendums do not become tools that political parties can capture. The citizens should be presented with a simple choice; Yes or No.
A current issue that could be decided through a referendum would be, whether Section 377(A) of the penal code should be repealed. This is an issue that is very personal and important to various groups in society. There are the LGBT activists who want it repealed and more conservative groups who believe that we as a society are not ready to decriminalize homosexuality. The two major political parties have not taken a very strong stand on the issue. It is not a very political issue but has to do with our social values. It would be great if the people were allowed to make an informed decision. At the end of the day the argument made against any possible repeal is that the majority of Singaporeans are not that accepting of homosexuality.
So let’s find out!
Vignesh Louis Naidu is a young and passionate Singaporean who recently completed the Master of Public Policy course at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Government needs to change its mindset about education
By S. Bala
In a recent comment, Senior Minister of State for Education, Indranee Rajah said that the parents need to change their mindset about tuition and education, and not to pile students with unnecessary tuition. Perhaps, it is the government that needs to change its mindset:
Education assessment is not just about ranking students but is a process that melds 3 important elements: how students learn, the tasks or situations that allow testing the knowledge acquired by the students and interpretation of data of the students’ performance. Unfortunately, we had been compromising learning, leading to ambiguous knowledge testing and extremely limited interpretations of what students know. Here is the rub: One size does not fit all. When we try to design an all-purpose assessment for different learners, we will not be able to sufficiently meet any purpose.
An effective assessment should allow valid and fair inferences about student achievement. A single formal assessment is not valid nor does it allow making fair inferences of students’ achievement. The Primary School Leaving Examination is one such summative assessment. A conventional pen and paper test, such as PSLE, limits the potential of an effective assessment which otherwise could have been a gauge to assess a broad repertoire of cognitive skills and knowledge of various kinds of learners.
Knowledge acquired by students is contextualized and influenced by the environment in which it is acquired. It takes a high level of cognitive processing to apply this knowledge to different contexts. In essence, it does not mean that when a concept of percentage is taught, every student is capable to apply and transfer the knowledge especially to solve problem sums which requires manipulation of numbers procedurally. There also seems to be an apparent disregard of the student’s language ability to comprehend the word problems which may retard the arithmetic skills .The task becomes even more arduous as the student is not just expected to apply the knowledge in a new context but do this within the constraints of time.
The assessment on student learning should not be determined by a single, conventional pen and paper test but a series of assessments that incorporates different modes such as the use of computers. Electronic test can also be customized to the individual student’s learning style, context or purpose.
Test scoring and reporting of results is often conveyed as a testimony to the student’s subject competency especially in a high-stake examination. Robust statistical tools ensure a fair and valid reporting of the results. Currently, T-scores are used to report the student’s performance relative to his peers. It does make sense to use standardized scores as students taking various combinations of standard and foundation subjects can be assessed as a cohort. There is no fault here.
The problem lies in the first two legs of assessment: understanding how students learn and testing that learning through diverse modes of assessment. We do use sophiscated statistical techniques but it has no bearing if the cognitive tasks of the students are restricted. The pertinent question is : Is the Singapore education system fair in assessing the students’ competence?
Policy makers need to recognize the limitations of the current system. They need to accept that there is a misalignment of high stakes accountability examinations and the instructional practices in school which are geared towards critical and creative thinking. This will require a departure from the current beliefs that important decisions cannot be made on a single score, definitely not for a placement examination. We need to understand that assessment is not a “snapshot but a movie”. We want to know how a student progresses over time, not where they stand in a given time.