Moral growth
Lagging behind economy
Crooked lawyers, cheating doctors, more Jeckyl & Hyde housewives assaulting maids, teenage crime up 55%. Whats happening to this highly-educated citizenry? By Seah Chiang Nee.
Feb 24, 2003

DOCTORS under investigation for tax evasion, screamed a recent headline in Singapore's newspapers, reporting an extensive check on earnings of private doctors.

A private specialist had failed to declare income of more than S$3mil between 1997 and 1998, and owed S$822,000 in tax. He was jailed four weeks and fined S$2.4mil, four times the amount due.

This was soon followed by another headline: "Lawyers probed in illegal deals involving money-lenders."

Earlier, a foreign news agency had reported: "Mass cheating students put computer skills to new use."

Singapore students may have a reputation for being computer savvy, but misuse of the talent has led to the city-state's biggest case of cheating in a national exam, it said.

Some 158 students in 28 schools were caught using their basic computer skills to illicitly get answers in an office administration exam.

A coffee-shop talking point was a series of maid abuses so vicious that compelled the courts to imprison the offending employers.

One of them was a woman who holds an MBA from the University of Hull. She was jailed a year for attacking her Filipino maid over several months, leaving hundreds of scars all over the victim's body.

Then there was the infamous Everitt Road decade-long neighbourhood quarrel that made prime-time national television.

One of the scenes shows the daughter, a teacher with a doctorate in life sciences, standing next to her mother and shouting across to the neighbours: "You see, this is diamond? You can buy or not? You got money to buy?"

The list of flawed professionals can go on but readers will get the point.
An increasing number of highly educated Singaporeans are finding themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Singapore is finding out - like other advanced cities - that better education does not mean higher morals or better ethics. It should, but it doesn't.

Since 1965, when Singapore became independent, the profile of its people has changed principally because of a hell-bent pursuit of education by the government and by parents.

For some years now, some 60% of youths were coming out with a degree or diploma. This has transformed Singapore into a developed country at a pace that matched those of war-ravaged Japan and Germany.

But the speed is achieved at a social price. The republic's rapid economic progress is no way matched by its social development.

With so many instances of flawed lawyers and doctors, cheating students or soccer players indulging in illegal betting, people are beginning to ask if Singapore Inc has not missed out something important.

There's a feeling that in its economic haste, the whole society - both the government (in particular the education system) and parents - have fallen short in efforts on character building.

Singaporean parents, by and large, are serious and efficient; that's easy to see. However, they are better at work than in parenting that has, in this Internet world, long become one of the toughest tasks in the world.

Many are too involved with careers than with their children's upbringing.

Latest statistics, released last month, show some 4,000 youngsters were arrested for various crimes last year, a sharp 49% jump from the 2,500 in 2001.

Most were petty offences such as theft and shoplifting, or being members of street gangs and fighting.

To put it in perspective, the juvenile problem here is less serious than in most Western cities. Unlike in poorer cities, juvenile crimes here are not generally caused by poverty.

"In many cases, it happens because there is lack of parental supervision and the youths are bored," said a lawyer involved in juvenile cases.

He knew of a mother who was shocked to learn that her "obedient" son was a gang member with tattoos all over his back.

In most two-income families, the parents leave their children's welfare to the care of maids. Only a few of them are prepared for this responsibility.

Several days ago, the Straits Times ran a glaring headline with a powerful message - and warning. It says: "I hate you, mum; I want the maid." It is a voice of despair by kids in their early teens.

A sub-heading says: "One child sleeps with maid's T-shirt; others lie, play truant and steal because parents' absence creates emotional void."

At the same time, the Internet has introduced to youths a new world of opportunities - and dangers. Films and TV expose them to a level of violence and sex the previous generation never had.

For decades, the education system, preoccupied with a single-minded goal of producing technicians, engineers and managers for the economy, provided little solution.

Its teachers were too pressurised by tight school syllabuses and pursuit of school ranking that they paid no - or low - priority to the other objective of producing loyal, upright citizens for the nation.

Actually Singapore's schools churn out generally law-abiding, clean-living people, maybe a bit too materialistic or self-centred. And the number of crooked professionals, despite the recent headlines, is still low.

But in recent times, we have repeatedly seen rational Singaporeans, evidently educated in good schools and raised in middle-class homes, violently abusing their maids.
It's inexplicable; like Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde.

There have been cases of children throwing pets out of high buildings, scalding kittens with boiling water or teens beating up someone they accuse of "staring" at them.

We have girls who steal perfumes and scarves from department stores because they can't afford to buy them and their friends have them.

Some old-timers say: Bring back the old school system with dedicated teachers. That'll fill today's major needs. Teachers with a mission who speak of, and showed, care in part of everyday lessons.

Everyone has his or her stories. I remember mine from my old missionary school, a teacher with a rough voice who taught us that we should "Live and let (other people) live" or "Spread a bit of sunshine" or care for the needy or love of this migrant nation.

This may sound too simplistic in today's cynical, materialistic world, but the messages did a lot to mould young characters like my classmates and me.
(This article was posted in Sunday Star on Feb 23, 2003.)