Levelling Up Our Society
Mr Speaker,
I wish to thank voters of Aljunied GRC, including those in Bedok Reservoir-Punggol division, for giving my teammates and I in the Workers’ Party an opportunity to serve them again. We know that each vote was a carefully considered decision and we do not hold that lightly. We are committed to honouring your trust by working tirelessly to earn your votes again in the coming years.
In his speech at the opening of Parliament, the President spoke of the need to resist self-perpetuating inequality. This message was echoed by the Prime Minister yesterday, who pointed out how other societies have become increasingly stratified, with privilege becoming more entrenched. I share this deep concern.
While it’s reassuring that income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is declining, the Gini coefficient does not measure wealth inequality. This refers to the unequal distribution of assets like property, stocks, bonds and savings.
If left unchecked, widening inequality can fracture our social compact and undermine the meritocratic system that has been key to our nation’s prosperity.
Meritocracy, in turn, relies on the public's confidence that it can deliver upward social mobility. A waning of that confidence could lead to distrust—both between different segments of society and with the government—making it harder to forge the consensus required to navigate systemic challenges.
Inequality is therefore a fundamental fault line in our society. Narrowing this divide demands the same level of attention, resources and effort that we have dedicated to maintaining racial and religious harmony.
Confronting inequality requires more than giving everyone the same opportunities in school, as even when public goods are equally available, private advantages remain unequally distributed.
Wealth is frequently passed down from parents to children, not only through inheritances, but a combination of social, informational and financial capital from the time they are born until deep into adulthood. This provides children of privilege the best opportunities to thrive at every stage of their lives, and a strong safety net to catch them if they fall.
These translate into a significant and enduring head start in life. They are subtle and unspoken, but they compound over time.
For a start, well-resourced parents cultivate cultural capital by providing a wide range of enriching experiences to their children. This includes frequent overseas travel and exposure to the arts, which builds an understanding of cultural norms in influential circles and provides a foundation for sophisticated conversations in social and professional settings. Etiquette lessons and public speaking from a young age equip their children with the confidence highly valued in the workplace and in leadership roles.
These parents have the resources to send their children for enrichment camps in areas like artificial intelligence, coding and robotics. They know that these courses build competence from a young age in STEM, a skillset that generally commands higher salaries in future careers. This hands-on experience, beyond what’s taught in textbooks, can spark interest and give an indirect boost to academic performance.
The Direct School Admission scheme offers an alternative route into top schools based on students’ non-academic talents. For parents with resources, hiring top coaches to provide individual training on technique and fitness gives their children a significant head start. This allows them to become high-performance athletes before their peers, giving them a distinct advantage during school trials.
Furthermore, if their child does not do well enough in local exams, their parents have the option of sending them to private schools locally or overseas. This additional safety net ensures that a pathway to higher education is always available, a luxury that less-affluent families cannot afford.
As these young adults enter the workforce, their accumulated social capital continues to open doors. Some might land prized internships at multinational corporations through their parents’ professional networks, bypassing traditional hiring procedures. Likewise, a parent might introduce their child to an influential business contact who can give them their first professional role or provide helpful career tips. These relationships create an often-hidden job market, leading to opportunities that are not publicly advertised.
This safety net extends to significant housing and financial advantages. For instance, some well-to-do parents buy property for their children when they are still young to hedge against rising prices, ensuring they won't have to struggle to afford their first home when they get married. Others hand over their successful businesses to their children after they graduate, removing the need for them to compete with their peers in the job market.
The actions of these parents are perfectly legal—they are simply doing their best to help their children in a very competitive economy. But this creates a growing chasm between those with and without these advantages. This divide will only widen as economic competition intensifies and the nature of entry-level jobs shifts due to artificial intelligence, demanding new skills that are more accessible to the privileged.
Levelling Up
Our challenge is to bridge this gap—not by suppressing the privileged, but by levelling up everyone else. To do this, we must bolster our public institutions until they rival the private sphere, ensuring every citizen has the opportunity to achieve their maximum potential. I have a few suggestions in this respect.
Junior SkillsFuture Credit
The SkillsFuture Credit scheme has empowered adults to upskill, but the race for skills and opportunities begins much earlier in life. To truly level the playing field, I propose a Junior SkillsFuture Credit scheme. This new initiative would provide a dedicated skills development credit to all Singaporean children below 18 from households in the lower 40th percentile income bracket. This credit could be used for approved enrichment courses in areas like coding, public speaking, sports and the arts. By democratising access to the same hard and soft skills that are often the privilege of the affluent, we can ensure every child has a fair chance to build their confidence and competence from a young age.
I have noted Minister of State Jasmin Lau’s response earlier today to Mr David Hoe, who made a similar proposal in his parliamentary question—I’m glad we are on the same wavelength here. I acknowledge that schools have many in-school and out-of-school extracurricular opportunities for students, including those from low income families. These should certainly continue. What I am asking for is a separate credit that gives parents and children the agency to choose enrichment programmes that are not available in their schools. In today’s economy, we cannot precisely predict the skills that will be in demand, or the specific passions and interests that will ignite in our young people. Therefore, by giving parents and children the autonomy and agency to choose enrichment courses, we are empowering them to explore a diverse range of opportunities and build skills in emerging areas, just as well-resourced families can.
Building Cultural and Social Capital
The SG Culture Pass, which provides credits for citizens to attend arts and heritage events, is a commendable initiative. However, I am concerned that its take-up rate may be low among households from the lower-income brackets. To ensure that all citizens can benefit, the National Arts Council would need to strengthen its outreach efforts to publicise the pass across all segments of society, and address the unique challenges faced by these lower-income families, such as competing financial priorities, time constraints and the hidden costs of attendance.
We should establish a Global Horizons Fund to provide financial support for international student exchanges, internships, and volunteer trips, democratising the global exposure that is a key component of cultural capital. The Singapore International Foundation (SIF) would be a natural partner to manage this fund, as its mission already aligns with connecting Singaporeans with global communities. Through SIF, donations for the fund could be sought from philanthropic foundations, corporate sponsors, and individuals who have benefited from such international exposure.
Levelling Up: Educational Pathways
To match the college preparation provided to higher-income students, education and career guidance services in schools could be enhanced and personalised. These services could offer comprehensive support to guide students from less-privileged backgrounds through the complex application process for local and foreign universities. Critically, this service would make them aware of the importance of building up a competitive portfolio early and would help them strategically utilise financial support programmes designed to help them do so.
At the same time, our local universities should continue to monitor their admissions processes to ensure that donations do not impact how students are admitted—a problem which has occurred in other countries.
Expanding Professional Networks and Career Mentorship
Existing professional mentorship schemes could be expanded into a National Career Mentorship Programme for all young Singaporean professionals, tradespersons and workers seeking career guidance and professional networks. Crucially, this programme must conduct proactive and targeted outreach to individuals from less-privileged backgrounds who may lack the social and informational capital to access these opportunities.
To attract and retain truly committed mentors, the programme could offer public recognition and award continuing professional development hours. These incentives would not only reward their time but also formalise their commitment to guiding young people from all backgrounds, thus helping to build a more equitable professional landscape.
Levelling Up: Business Ownership
To level up on the advantage of wealthy parents providing seed capital or passing on their businesses to their children, Enterprise Singapore should adjust the Startup SG Founder (SSGF) programme. The programme’s recent shift to a 1-to-1 co-matching ratio presents a financial barrier for first-time entrepreneurs who lack personal savings or family wealth. It makes funding less accessible and favours those who are already financially well-off. I urge ESG to revert to the previous 1-to-4 co-matching ratio. This would make crucial seed funding more accessible, ensuring that promising ideas are judged on their merit alone, without a founder’s financial means becoming an obstacle.
Levelling Up: Publicity
All these programmes can only make a national impact if they are able to reach and assist a wide section of society. The various agencies running these programmes should redouble efforts to publicise their programmes on social media and traditional advertising platforms, and partner with schools, interest groups, grassroots organisations—including those linked to opposition—to encourage participation from Singaporeans from less privileged backgrounds.
Summary
While our journey as a nation has been a remarkable one, the true measure of our success lies not in our peaks of wealth, but in the enduring opportunities we provide all our citizens.
The proposals I have outlined today are not designed to penalise success, but to strengthen our meritocratic system, ensuring that every citizen, regardless of their family's background, has a fair shot at success.
By giving every Singaporean access to the exclusive advantages that provide a head start in life, we can create a powerful equalising force, offering a clear pathway to upward mobility and a robust safety net for all.
This is how we can build a society where a child’s destiny is not dictated by their birth, but by their grit and hard work.
This is how we assure those who are growing up in difficult circumstances that our society is empowering them every step of the way.
This is how we inspire the next generation to give their all for their families and the progress of our nation.
Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.
