Budget debate: MOE should be the 'Ministry of Lifelong Learning', suggests Denise Phua

SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Education should be envisioned as the Ministry of Lifelong Learning, and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources as the Ministry of Sustainability, Ms Denise Phua (Jalan Besar GRC) told Parliament on Wednesday (Feb 26).

Having the Government and the statutory boards cast a wider vision of their roles - beyond their traditional scopes - could be one way to boost the Government's efforts to partner with the community, she said during the Budget debate.

Ms Phua was referring to the SG Together movement, which was launched by the Government last year in a push to work more closely with Singaporeans to design and implement solutions across a range of issues and policy areas.

Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced that he would set aside $250 million to support efforts to partner with the community in projects.

Out of that sum, $20 million would be used to top up the Our Singapore Fund, which has supported more than 240 ground-up projects in areas ranging from heritage to sports since 2016.

Additionally, a budget of $150 million - part of the $250 million - would be set aside to expand successful ground-up projects, said Mr Heng, who is also Finance Minister.

While SG Together is "significant and necessary", Ms Phua continued, there are many other areas where the Government and Singaporeans can work together - from dealing with the impact of the rise of the robot workforce, to feeding the poor in a dignified way.

"Enthusiastic advocates" need to have a wider understanding of their needs and how the larger system works, she said, but there are also "forces within the public service and political system that could lead to SG Together... becoming tokenistic and not very impactful".

She made two more suggestions: scrap the mindset that the best executives should remain in ministries, and have a culture that is "less ministry-centric, and less controlling".

"Can we deploy more of the best brains to the ground and develop their execution muscles?... Station them on the ground to learn, to facilitate, to forge alliances through personally experiencing the challenges on the front line, to implement the policies that are developed at the top," she said, noting that the Government should also be "bold enough" to appoint good mid-career practitioners to leadership positions in public service.

She added: "The people of Singapore have trusted the Government for so long. It is time for the Government to also learn to trust the people too - not blindly, not indiscriminately, but in a less controlling and more facilitative manner."

During Wednesday's sitting, MPs also praised people who demonstrated the spirit of SG Together by stepping up to help others amid the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak - be it residents placing hand sanitisers in lifts for their neighbours, or commercial organisations coming up with relief packages to help clients get through the difficult period.

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) added that the Government's efforts to deal with the outbreak would be even more effective when bolstered by the community.

"For example, landlords who enjoy the new 15 per cent property tax rebate should quickly pass this on to their tenants in the form of reduced rentals, or even do more," he said.

"Companies that are not adversely affected by the crisis could consider using the wage support received from Jobs Support Scheme meaningfully. For example, to invest in their employee skills upgrade and on their welfare, or flow some of it to their clients impacted by the crisis."