Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean
SINGAPORE : Youths in Singapore engaged Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean in a dialogue on Saturday afternoon.
The focus was on embracing new citizens in the country.
The Young Sikh Association said close to 400 people attended the dialogue.
This is the
third ministerial dialogue that the association has organised. The event received strong attendance from various groups including tertiary institutions, grassroots organisations and foreigners — most of whom wanted to give their take on the widely—discussed topic of foreign talent.
The participants raised their concerns about the foreign talent who compete with them for jobs.
DPM Teo, who is also Defence Minister, said: "Some work here and go back. They make a contribution to Singapore and they earn a decent living for themselves.
"Others come here to work for longer periods of time, and finally others, they come here and they finally decide to sink roots. And they hope over time to become like you and me."
Some foreigners, who made up around 20 per cent of the audience, explained what was holding them back from becoming Singaporeans.
One of them said: "We would like to have jobs in Singapore, but we have noticed there is a kind of discomfort between both sides."
22—year—old Huang Bin, a scholar from China who is studying at the National University of Singapore, shared those sentiments.
He said: "There are people like us, we do normal jobs, we get paid, we live here. There are also those workers who come here for a couple of years, they probably do not speak perfect English. But these are the people who get criticised the most. And they give the entire new Chinese immigrants a somewhat negative image. I am not blaming them, but I do feel this is an issue we should keep in mind and need to address."
Some university students were worried about the
growing number of overseas scholars overtaking the local intake.
One student said that some locals, despite scoring well, were unable to get into their desired course of study.
DPM Teo said: "Even if you create more places in medical school or law school, there will be more applicants who want to get there than there will be places.
"That is just something that students will have to live with. If you double the number of places, are we going to have enough places to satisfy everybody who thinks he ought to be in medical school? It is not possible. But do we have places for those who can go to university? The answer is yes."
The dialogue was a post—National Day Rally discussion for youths from all races and backgrounds. — CNA/ms
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