Pragmatic policies for Transactional relationships
Posted: September 3, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Education, Politics, Singapore Leave a comment »
(photo from fashion-advice.com)
I found out after reading the fine print that I do not qualify for the National Service Recognition Award (NSRA), an award announced by the Singapore Prime Minister during this year’s National Day Rally speech to “provide sustained recognition and appreciation to citizens who serve NS”. I am (still) a Singapore citizen; I have served 2 and a half years of National Service (NS); I have completed numerous In-Camp Trainings (e.g. spending 40 days of 2008 out of office to play soldier).
Alas, no. The 5th paragraph of this Cyberpioneer article reads:
Full-time National Servicemen and Operationally Ready National Servicemen must have reached the milestones on or after 29 Aug this year to be eligible for the award.
I (and mrbrown) am unfortunate enough to have completed our 2.5 years of NS way before 2010 (2.5 years and, let’s not forget, In-Camp Trainings during our lifetime). Obviously, the NSRA is not meant to reward my platoon mates and me.
The spirit of this policy reminds me of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Connect Plan. In short, this is an initiative meant to retain teachers by dangling monetary rewards. If you looked at the Connect Plan Deposits here (under para. 8), you’d notice that the deposits increase steadily until the teacher reaches her/his 15th year of service. After that, the deposits drop drastically, signalling that the MOE possibly feels that there is no longer such a compelling need to “connect” with the teacher (who would by then be arguably less ‘market-able’ in the Singapore workforce).
It appears that the Connect Plan is designed to retain younger teachers, just like how the NSRA is created to reward younger voters. Can we please everyone? No. Do MOE and MINDEF care for their staff? Well… With pragmatic policies come pragmatic citizens who sustain transactional relationships with the country/government (think, for example, of the numerous government scholars thinking about breaking their bonds). What goes around comes around.
