The National Day Rally Speech 2006
On 20th August 2006, all Singaporeans sat on their couches with their eyes glued to their television sets as our Prime Ministry Lee Hsien Loong gave his 3rd National Day Rally Speech. It was definitely was one of the best speeches that I had ever heard so far. I'm proud to say that we have a PM with modern ideas and hey, I'm not writing this to curry favour with PAP. I do mean it!! I'm sure it must have been a very proud moment for all the people that he had paid tribute to on national TV. :-)
Of all the key messages that he had delivered, I like the part where he mentioned that he would like to get Singapore fully connected to the digital age. I'm sure that all the computer Geeks out there must be smiling from ear to ear when they heard this. I can suddenly foresee the prices of PDAs, handhelds, laptops and 3G phones dropping. :-))) $$$$. Who knows, perhaps the subscription fee for the internet may drop too. Well, I'm just building castles in the air....dream, dream, dream... but who knows where the latest technology will take us too in this era. Even the bad guys use the internet for their advantage. Will the good guys be able to outsmart the bad guys in potential high-tech crimes?
As for the part about helping the older and less-skilled workers get back to work, I believe that this is going to be a major challenge. How would one prevent employers from being bias towards these people? For all you know, some companies might just come up with some excuse like they prefer freshies, fast learners etc etc. What about the older people themselves. There are those who are afraid to even go near a computer...
I do feel that some organisations are very bias towards graduates who are not from NTU or NUS. There are SIM graduates who can't seem to be able to get jobs with the civil service so easily even if they would like to serve the govt sector very much. Arrghh...ok, ok, I was talking about myself. I had once called up a government department's HR department and I was told that they do not recognise my degree because I wasn't from a top university and let alone, it was done through SIM . I felt so sad. I had saved up hard to study and graduate for a better future. At that time, Poly grads did not get into the local university as easily as now... Well, I had lost out a lot. Those days you need to score good results in the second language to be able to get into NUS and NTU. Like I said, I had lost out a lot and my parents could not afford to send me overseas for a good degree. If only all these policies about second language and creating more places for poly grads to the local university existed during my era, I would definitely not be struggling like this right now. I do hope that employers would give graduates like myself a chance because the paper qualifications are just an entry point and ultimately what they should look at is the talent, experience and skills. Ok, ok...I seemed to have strayed away from my main topic. I guess I got so carried away when the topic of the employment market came up. I hope that the government could do something to help graduates like myself who are floating in limbo land.
Ok back to the speech, I also like the part about encouraging the young to know the Singapore Story better. How about bringing back the National Exhibtion? I recalled that when I was in Primary School, we went on an excursion to the National Exhibition in 1984 at the old World Trade Centre. I was too young to appreciate some of the exhibits back then. Well, if the country could bring that exhibtion back, I swear I would bring a camera and a notepad to take some notes!!!!
Do I sound like a bore already? Guess it's time out for now huh?
