Recently there’s been a glut of articles in the Straits Times on the subject of engineering in Singapore.
Importance of technology
The first was when ST published a few articles based on an interview with Mr Ngiam Tong Dow on 22 May, 2008. It was pretty interesting to see what are the man’s views on topics such as fighting inflation, the rapid promotion of scholars, and the tax structure. In particular, I was quite intrigued by the topic of Singapore becoming high-cost, low-tech. In his view, “Singapore must ensure its best and brightest continue to become engineers and not just bankers”. It is the only way to become a knowledge-based economy, he says.
So why are more Singaporeans shying away from science, tech and engineering? By that I mean two things:
- A higher proportion of Singaporean students are picking up other disciplines like business or arts rather than science and engineering.
- More Singaporean grads leaving/less grads taking up tech-related jobs.
That’s what anecdotal evidence seems to be telling me. I guess it boils down to money and job prospects. Even though a fresh grad would earn a pretty decent salary as an engineer (this also depends on the kind of industry), it’ll still pale in comparison to those in finance, banking, law and medicine. And the influx of foreign workers/students and exodus of jobs really paint a bleak future for engineers.
Engineering is still prized as a academic qualification even though not viewed favourably by students. In another ST interview on 26 May, 2008, Ms Lee Bee Wah notes that even though the median engineer salary trails that of the top eight earners for six professions used to compute the civil service pay, a third of the top executives were engineers by training. She adds that engineers often move out of engineering jobs and many are headhunted by banks and MNCs. Students are also increasing drawn to business and medicine.
Supply Issue
On 31 May, 2008, ST published an article about engineering in Yale and Harvard, with a snippet of text that mentions Mr Lim Hng Kiang saying local institutions are meeting domestic demand with “a steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering & technical manpower each year”.
Finally, on 1 Jun, 2008, ST has this article foreign students in local universities. It brought up the phenomena that more foreign students are enrolled in engineering and computing compared to other courses. These are the courses that are shunned by local students.
Implications
So now we have this interesting situation:
- The top brass agree that tech and engineering is important for Singapore’s development.
- The skills and training of an engineer makes him suitable for other roles like working in a bank or MNC, and this is recognized by headhunters.
- Lesser locals are studying entering tech and engineering and entering the field , while more foreigners are.
It appears likely that we are going to face a future where both the developers of technology and the people who manage them are going to be foreigners.
Links:
His worry: Is Singapore becoming high cost, low tech?
A steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering & technical manpower each year
Engineers have “role in community building”
Tags: Engineering, Foreigners, Singapore, Straits Times, Technology
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