PM Lee's new goals

The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Achievements need goals. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's list of priorities, listed in yesterday's National Day Rally speech, clarifies the external and domestic realities that the new Government has to deal with, and outlines the goals towards which it intends to carry all Singaporeans.

On the domestic front, building the economy expectedly remains a key requisite, but there are other pressing issues as well. Engaging the new generation, a theme which has emerged as an important concern of the new leadership, is one of them, as is the need for an education system that helps every child to achieve his potential.

And, of course, there is the urgent need to get more babies to be born in Singapore because, without them, what awaits this country is demographic attrition. "Attrition" is the last thing that would come to anyone's mind after listening to the new leader make the premier political speech of the year. Lee's vision for Singapore is that of a vibrant and stimulating country which anchors citizens not just with its high standard of living but also with its quality of life.

In his goals for Singapore, citizens believe in the future because they have benefited from the past, from priorities and policies that have transformed the ethic of survival of Singapore's nascent years into an ethic of confidence and success. In an upbeat speech, Lee based his optimism on the country's record of achievement even as he went into higher gear, pushing Singaporeans towards larger goals.

He was realistic on the economy. He underlined the crucial point that globalization makes restructuring inevitable for Singapore. As competition increases, not only among countries but even within them -- China and India not excluded -- the best way to keep pace with change is to hit the ground running. Singapore's challenge is an interesting one.

As globalization pushes up wages in developing countries and pulls them down in developed nations, Singapore has the choice of going the way of societies with uncompetitive economic policies and archaic labor laws -- or reforming itself so as to keep up wages and living standards.

The right choice is not in doubt: The issue is how to develop in citizens a mindset that embraces challenges. Lee's speech reveals his confidence that Singaporeans will not lose sight of the opportunities that await them beyond the pain. Yes, there will be costs as companies restructure, but the end result is renewed growth and the opportunities that it brings.

Will Singapore be able to embrace the opportunities? Education holds the answer. Lee's decision to deploy 1,000 more teachers in primary schools, 1,400 more in secondary schools and 550 more in junior colleges by 2010 is a policy that reveals the Government's determination to give the young the head start they need to move up the value chain in a relentlessly competitive world.

His insistence on Chinese being taught as a living language, and his call to develop a core of students with advanced knowledge and understanding of China, are further instances of his desire to align the education system to a world of new challenges and opportunities.

The goal of these and other initiatives of his is to spur on a new generation of Singaporeans who are hungry and able to take on the world, but who remember their roots in a land nurtured with the toil and sweat of their forefathers. Drawing on the best of the old and reaching out to an emerging world of possibilities, his speech was himself writ large. Now begins the work of citizens joining him and his team to translate vision into reality.