SDP's Chee Soon Juan pounced on Minister Shanmugam's speech to claim credit for themselves

SDP's Chee Soon Juan pounced on Minister Shanmugam's speech to claim credit for themselves and in the process, proved that character is permanent.

Before SDP came up with the policy paper, the major shift to focus on education at all levels was announced by PM Lee at the 2011 NDR.

Many initiatives followed to realize that aim.

At the 6th S Rajaratnam Lecture in 2013, Minister Tharman reiterated the government's focus on intervening earlier in children's lives.

"We are intervening upstream, earlier in children’s lives, to reduce the gaps in the starting points between children from poorer and better off backgrounds. We are investing in better quality pre-schooling, at affordable rates, and in detecting those with learning difficulties early. We have to find every way of reducing these gaps, these early gaps between kids of different social backgrounds, through both government and community initiatives." - Tharman

https://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/overseasmission/cairo/press_statements_speeches/embassy-news-and-press-releases/2013/201312/press_20131202.html

SDP IS HOW A DELUDED OPPOSITION LOOKS LIKE.

SDP again shamelessly tried to claim credit for PAP's initiatives.

Too bad. They are a few years late.

Back in 2011, PM Lee had already declared the Government's intention to make the upward paths wide open to all in education.

2012: MOE under Heng Swee Keat introduced guidelines on curriculum framework for pre-school education and also studied the interface between pre-school and early primary education.

In his speeches, Minister Tharman talked about intervening upstream in children's lives (e.g speech at S Rajaratnam Lecture 2013) to reduce the gaps in the starting points between children from poorer and better-off backgrounds.

2013: MOE pilot kindergartens started with the aim of providing quality and affordable pre-school education for children from lower income families. Fees are as low as just a few dollars from the lowest income group.

The Government hasn't done with all that they are going to do to bridge inequality through education.

KidSTART was piloted in 2016 to help vulnerable children to provide them a good start in life. Since then, it has been progressively rolled out and will be expanded.

More will continue to be done as the Government has already announced that spending on early education will be doubled with better teachers and quality education.

Chee Soon Juan lies about billions in surpluses

Debunking the lies propagated by Chee Soon Juan and SDP. 

SDP claimed that the Government collects billions in budget surpluses. This is not true. (See:http://bit.ly/2BpE4GD) 

When someone throws a number of assertions at you, you should ask them for the source of their assertions, the references to back up their assertions and you should do your own independent research to verify the truth of those assertions.

Don't be taken in for a ride.

LIES ARE A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY.

Stand up for democracy and fight against lies.

Chee Soon Juan lies about CPF

Making you angry so that he can win your vote. That's what Chee Soon Juan is doing. But lies must be exposed.

That said, think about this. CPF Life will save you from having to pay more in taxes to fund social policies to support people who will otherwise squander away their CPF savings. 

Do the mathematics, folks, and calculate how much it will cost taxpayers to support one person, who has squandered away his retirement savings, for the rest of his life at a monthly public assistance of $500.

Today, 1 in 7 Singaporeans are aged 65 and older. That's approximately 500,000. This will increase to 900,000 by 2030. Let's say only 10% will squander his retirement savings away.
Do the maths. (500 x 10% of 500,000 x 12 x no. of years he lives)

The Government's responsibility to take care of these people is also taxpayers' burden. THIS is the reality.

Exposing the lies of Chee Soon Juan and SDP one by one.

Up to 50% of net investment returns from our past reserves managed by GIC and Temasek Holdings is treated as Budget revenue. 

In fact for Budget 2017, 20% of the revenue for budget spending comes from GIC and Temasek. 

This means to say that every $1 out of $5 that the government spends come from GIC and Temasek.

Some say, why not increase their contribution to more than 50%. That will not be prudent because the government also has to ringfence our past reserves against inflation and against any fluctuations in currency which can drastically reduce the size of our reserves in bad times.

A notable quote from George Yeo:

“For as long as Singaporeans think that the government is rich, they will say look, c’mon, pass some over. But in fact, we have nothing. We are only a small island. We have no natural endowments. And what we have – I don’t know how many hundred billion dollars we have, even if you double it, what is that, compared to what others have, in the ground, in land, underwater?

And in a crisis, if we have nothing, how do you sustain a diaspora? So yes, there must be a sense that the ordinary needs of a Singaporean has got to be looked after, and a proper balance between spending of the generation today and saving for the future generation. That balance is a political balance. The government now is re-tweaking the balance, re-calibrating it, fearing it will go too far, because that will consume itself, but knowing that if it does not proceed enough, then there is no deal in the first place.

NOTE: Typo on photo. Net Investment Returns* and not Net Investment Income*

Tean Lim is a politician. PM Lee is a leader.

Tean Lim couldn't wait to deride PM Lee for "assuming the mantle of Chief Doctor" to speak about diabetes.

Why is the prime minister talking about diabetes instead of addressing rising unemployment, stagnating wages, cost of living, ultra-low productivity, he wailed.

He thinks the prime minister should only concern himself with the health of the economy and not the health of his people.

Obviously he has not heard that "health is wealth" or that "prevention is better than cure".

In all likelihood, he also does not realise that the economic health of a country is linked to the health of its population.

Health is a direct source of human welfare.

Health is also an instrument in raising income levels.

Poor health affects a worker's productivity.

Poor health affects a child's education.

Diabetes is a silent killer. It does not kill you straightaway. It damages your heart, your eyes, your nerves, your kidneys. It causes coronary heart diseases and strokes. It can cause you to lose your limbs through amputation. Wounds including surgical wounds from an operation either take a longer time to heal or get worse faster.

Diabetes robs you of the quality of your life.

You may not have heard of diabetes as a top killer but many common causes of death like heart diseases, strokes and kidney failures can be traced back to diabetes.

Knowledge is power, so it is well worth to spend time to talk about it, to raise awareness about it, to learn more about it so that we may have our own action plans to keep ourselves healthy.

Good health is, after all, a firm foundation. Build your life, your career and the economy on a firm foundation.

'PAP copied our ideas on education' is how Chee Soon Juan responded to PM Lee's NDR speech

These days, SDP has taken over from WP to do the crowing. From helping workers to early childhood education, PAP is following SDP's ideas, CSJ claimed!

And so CSJ claimed that PM Lee copied his ideas on early childhood education.

Unfortunately for Chee Soon Juan and SDP, their ideas came two years late.

Before SDP put out their ideas in 2015, then Education Minister Heng Swee Keat had already announced in MARCH 2013 a review of the education system and in particular, the launch of MOE pilot kindergartens to set the curriculum, and the quality and standard for pre-school education across Singapore.

1st APRIL 2013:

The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) was officially launched to oversee the whole pre-school sector, to bring together all ministries involved with playschool (MOE, MSF etc) and to work with operators to make sure everything works well.

KiFAS was launched which subsidises kindergarten fees up to 99% depending on the financial background of the family.

In addition to KiFAS there is also a SUG (Start up grant) which provides additional assistance to needy families to pay for items such as registration fee, insurance, deposit, uniforms, material fees, supplementary fees, etc.

Things did not happen overnight. So much had been done by the time Chee Soon Juan put up his paper in 2015 which, incidentally, contained many bad ideas.