Debated in Parliament on 16 Oct 2012.
Mr Laurence Lien asked the Minister for Education how he intends to engage the more discordant voices in our society in the National Conversation and to allow genuine dialogue on differences and the challenging of existing norms.
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Over the past few weeks, I have been heartened to see so much interest and positive energy around the National Conversation. Many Singaporeans, some more vocal than others, have contributed thoughtful views about their hopes and aspirations for Singapore in the future, and what values we want to have as Singaporeans.
The Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) is first and foremost about putting Singaporeans at the heart of our concerns. It is an opportunity for us to come together as Singaporeans and have a serious conversation about serious topics: What is the Singapore we want to see in the future? What matters most? And where do we want to go as a country, as a people? It is also an opportunity for us to examine the changes that are going on around us and how these will affect our future.
To enable Singaporeans to surface their hopes, aspirations and concerns, we have kept the start of this conversation more open-ended. As the conversation progresses, my Committee will collate the diverse inputs to identify the emerging themes that matter most to Singaporeans. At a suitable time, possibly around February or March of next year, we will finalise a set of themes which we can then study in greater detail. Some of these themes may relate to our values and ideals; some may relate to our hopes and aspirations for the future; some may relate to the nature of our society. We should not prejudge what these themes might be at this point.
Once the themes emerge, we will work with Singaporeans to see how and what programmes or policies may address their aspirations and concerns; reflect on the choices and the trade-offs that we may have to make; and consider what each of us – the Government, communities, families and individuals – can do to create the Singapore that we desire.
We want this to be an inclusive exercise, and reach out to Singaporeans from all walks of life. We have thus set up various platforms for Singaporeans to join in the conversation, through e-mail, our website and Facebook page. In addition to our online platforms, we want to reach out to those who might not be so articulate, through platforms, such as our citizen dialogues.
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We will have dialogues in different formats, including in communal settings, to encourage as many people as possible to share their views. One example is the dialogue with elderly residents held in Yuhua Food Centre on 2 October, involving skits in various Chinese dialects, which the residents enjoyed. The Yuhua dialogue was facilitated by Yuhua MP Grace Fu along with OSC Committee members Lim Ru Ping and Lee Huay Leng, illustrating how our OSC Committee members play an important role in expanding the national conversation's reach to all Singaporeans.
I hope fellow Singaporeans will take the initiative to join platforms they find meaningful.
In addition to our online engagement through Facebook, email and a variety of face-to-face Citizen Dialogues, we will also conduct a national survey that will reach out to some 4,000 Singaporeans, to find out what matters most to them.
I appreciate that this organic approach, with a range of modalities, can appear unstructured and untidy to some. We have taken this course because we do want to create space and suitable platforms for all Singaporeans, even those who are usually more reticent, to give their views.
All Singaporeans are free to contribute, regardless of whether they agree with existing norms and policies. As one Overseas Singaporean who wrote in recently by e-mail put it: "Having been through different experiences, it is undeniable that we want different things in life, and have different ways in which we want to fulfil these dreams and hopes. Regardless of how we do it, I just hope that we can all do this together, responsibly, sincerely and not forgetting that we all stand by the common vision of wanting to create a better Singapore, both for ourselves and for our future generations."
Ultimately, it is my hope that we will arrive through these conversations among ourselves at a better appreciation of the different perspectives that Singaporeans hold, and that we will, as a society, find some consensus around what matters most to us. The price of entry to the National Conversation is not race or creed, political affiliation or social ideology. The price of entry is whether you belong to the "We" in "We, the citizens of Singapore …" So long as you can say those words, you belong.
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