Saturday January 13, 12:17 PM
Finding their feet, then fitting in here
ADVERTISEMENT
While its efforts to attract foreigners here are bearing fruit, the
Government needs to apply the same acumen to making sure they fit
in once they land on our shores.
To do so, it needs to stop viewing them in terms of purely dollars
and cents that is, offering them only economic
opportunities.
"We need to look at integration policies, which are as complex as
our immigration policies
What we have not invented are the
integration policies after they have entered the door and come in,"
said Professor Brenda Yeoh, a geography expert at the National
University of Singapore, citing her interviews with several skilled
emigrants who said gaining Singapore permanent residency or
citizenship was just a stepping stone to emigration
elsewhere.
Speaking on Thursday at an Institute of Policy Studies forum on
migration and social issues, Prof Yeoh said Singapore needs to
focus on integrating not only the expat "talents".
"The integration and support mechanisms should go beyond
to also
the students, the unskilled workers and the spouses. Each category
deserves careful consideration. For example, the foreign spouses
who come in are not getting support groups."
She added, to TODAY: "There are policies largely aimed at the
economic sphere, in terms of managing possible tensions as a result
of the competition between local and foreign.
"But what is still very much lacking are policies to do with the
other spheres of life. Education of the young is a very important
starting point in cultivating a cosmopolitan, tolerant outlook as
they interact with foreigners."
Civil society can also play a role in organising activities for
foreigners and locals to interact away from the workplace, added
Prof Yeoh, who has published books and journals on migration
issues.
Sociologist Kwok Kian Woon of the Nanyang Technological University
too felt that Singapore "needs to think beyond economics" to create
an emotional bond among the foreigners it wants to attract.
"What is so unique about Singapore and what makes it attractive and
compelling enough for people to say, 'This is the place that I can
give a good part of my life to'?" he said.
Embracing them within a Singapore identity or culture could be one
way. But the role of government must be carefully managed. For
example, he felt that the early years of the 21st century, when
society was undergoing changes and everything was being questioned,
had been an opportune time for Singapore to develop its own
culture.
But, Associate Professor Kwok, said: "In Singapore, the tension
between conservative forces and a newer set of values is almost
always managed in a neat and plain way."
When Thursday's session was opened to the floor, a member
of the audience said that the Speak Mandarin Campaign was stunting
the development of Singaporean culture by killing off the
dialects "just like the way the Stop At Two policy stunted our
birth rates".
Another participant noted that the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others
model of categorising Singaporeans and which the Government has
indicated it would be relooking was another example of a policy
that needs to be changed.
Weighing in, one Permanent Resident said he did not like being
labelled a "foreign talent".
He called for Singapore to rethink its stance against dual
citizenship which was outlawed here in 1960 if it wished to
attract foreigners as well as retain its own
talents.
Agreeing, Prof Yeoh told TODAY: "The world has changed. While some
of these issues (of nation building) are still very much part of
what nations have to cope with, people's working lives are not
going to be tied to one place." - /st
