Singaporean says he feels like a second-class citizen as his foreign classmates are advancing to uni while he serves NS

SINGAPORE: A Reddit user currently serving NS wrote of how “helpless and redundant” he feels because while his former classmates from other countries are moving forward, he is “stuck in camp listening to power-tripping sergeants.”

u/GreenLow721 wrote on r/SingaporeRaw on Wednesday (Apr 12) that he felt like a second-class citizen in JC compared to the foreign scholars.

He added that they “basically received all the same benefits and more as any Singaporean student” arguing that “there were some Singaporean students including me who were actually better than them at studies” and that the foreign students “were good but honestly not that great as you would expect.”

Nevertheless, he feels that these scholars were given more opportunities than  Singaporeans.

“Even worse, they were marked more leniently as seen by the fact that for PW, only all the scholars got an A, and not the Singaporeans. Are you telling me Singaporeans are bad at speaking English that they can’t even speak better than people from China?”

u/GreenLow721 also pointed out that some didn’t sign up for permanent residency (PR) but instead “choosing to wait out until they were older to apply (to avoid NS).”

“The fact remains that these scholars get to reap the benefits of being Singaporean and even more but when it comes to serving NS (to ‘pay’ back the benefits you received), they don’t need to but us Sinkies need,” he added.

“Today, while I’m stuck in camp listening to powertripping sergeants, I see these scholars already in Uni and going ahead with life and enjoying scholarships by Singapore. And I as a Sinkie who probably ain’t as well off as them but yet have the same academic ability as them have to waste 2 years of my life, risk my life in war, take loans to pay off uni, have less experience and connections and the govt still dares to say that they are on the side of Singaporeans.

Honesty do you think this is fair?”

/TISG

About 1,600 foreign students receive tuition grants each year: Education Minister Lawrence Wong