Address by Minister Lawrence Wong at the MND EDGE Scholarship Presentation Ceremony
Jul 19, 2016
A very good morning to all of you. I am very happy to join you this morning for the annual MND Executive Development and Growth Exchange Scholarship, or EDGE Scholarship.
Today, we are happy to welcome 64 new scholarship recipients into the MND Family.
I see many parents and family members who are here to witness our scholars’ achievements, and share in their joy. To all the parents and family members who are here, congratulations as well. I thank all of you for being here, and for supporting, encouraging and inspiring our scholars every step of the way.
Some of you here are about to pursue your tertiary education. Others have already started work and are now taking on post graduate programmes to further hone your expertise. All of you bring diverse competencies and life experiences that can help shape a better Singapore for Singaporeans.
The range of work in MND is very wide. It goes from planning our city, to building HDB towns, developing our built environment industry, strengthening our food supply, and enhancing our City in a Garden.
But the common thread across these different areas of work is to make Singapore a more distinctive global city, and a more endearing home for our people.
I am very happy that we have many young students pursuing their studies in related fields to achieve these common goals.
One example is Mr Paul Chong Ren-Huan. He is very passionate about plants. His fascination with plants started when he was 7 years old, when his grandmother gave him a plant for his birthday. The plant is still going strong till today! He is certainly someone with green fingers, with an obvious talent for nurturing plants. He continues to remain passionate about plants. I understand he even dreams about plants in his sleep! I think it is a very good fit for someone like Paul to receive a scholarship from Gardens by the Bay to pursue a Bachelor in Horticulture or Plant Science overseas. I am sure that when he returns from his studies, he will apply his green fingers in the Gardens and make it even better.
Tengku Sharil bin Tengku Abdul Kadir is another example. He is an aspiring architect who believes very strongly in our multi-cultural Singaporean identity. He has seen how our HDB towns can facilitate such multiculturalism. For example, he is inspired by the development of Punggol New Town because of how it incorporates a wide variety of amenities such as waterways and park connector networks within one residential town for residents to meet and interact with one another. He has applied for the HDB scholarship so that he can be involved in developing new HDB towns that not only look good but can help foster community bonds and good neighbourliness between people of different races and religions. I am sure there are many more new towns for Sharil to design and build in the future.
We also have many outstanding staff who are pursuing further studies.
One of them is Joycelyn Yik Meirong. She is currently an Executive Planner in URA. She has been involved in many URA projects such as the relocation of the Malaysian rail station from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands, and the development of the rapid transit system link from Woodlands to Johor Bahru. More recently, Joycelyn was involved in the planning and implementation of the National Cycling Plan. She is an experienced urban planner and will be pursuing a Master of Arts in Public Policy at Claremont Graduate University.
To all our scholars, I think this is an exciting time for you. I wish you all the very best as you take the next step to pursue your studies, be it overseas or abroad.
I know all of you have worked very hard to get to where you are today. But remember that this is only the beginning.
There is so much more that you can contribute, provided you continue to work hard, have the humility to learn and continuously upgrade and improve yourself.
It is important that you apply your knowledge to what we have in Singapore and to always think about how we can always do better for Singapore. I think it is very easy, as you take the next step, for you to cruise through the next phase of your education. But what value can you contribute back to Singapore – this is something you should ask yourself.
I relate my own experience. I was in your shoes more than 20 years ago. I had a scholarship and went overseas. I was very excited. It was a wonderful opportunity. For the first 1 or 2 years, I was just cruising through the programme. I had fun. But the wakeup call for me happened when I was in class one day and we were talking about the economic experience of various countries. We were talking about Singapore and the professor asked me to share more about Singapore’s experience. That was when I realised that I had no clue what happened in Singapore. You can know Economics 101 very well, and the math behind Economics very well, but you may not know what happened in Singapore very well. You can do well in school but that does not mean you know anything about Singapore’s economy and economic experience. I have not been thinking, when I was going through my classes in school, about what are the things I can take back to apply to Singapore’s economy, what lessons I can bring back, how I can value add and contribute. So, that was a real wake-up call for me. After that, I realised that I can go through my entire university education, get a degree in Economics and do very well, but it does not matter. Can I come back to contribute something to Singapore, or am I just pursing a degree for a degree sake?
I hope you will learn from my experience. As you continue in your journey, be prepared to learn as much as possible, but also think about how the lessons you learn and knowledge you accumulate in school can be brought back, adapted and applied in Singapore – how can we do things better here and improve the lives of Singaporeans. For those of you who are going overseas, I guarantee that you will find a lot of interest in Singapore. Some of you may be going to local universities but you will certainly have interactions with students overseas. You will find a lot of interest in Singapore and in Singapore’s urban experience – much more now than 20 years ago.
Recently, we held the World Cities Summit (WCS), and we had mayors and city leaders from all over the world – more than 100 of them here in Singapore, and all of them were very interested to find out how Singapore developed, what made us successful, and the lessons they can learn and take back to their own cities.
So please don’t repeat my mistake. When somebody asks you a question, don’t say ‘I don’t know’. Learn up about Singapore before you go to university, learn something about our experience. In the area of gardening, you can learn all about how we became a Garden City. In urban planning, food supply, HDB, there is so much knowledge to learn and read up. So when you are overseas, on an exchange programme or if an international student who is here asks you, you can be a good ambassador of Singapore and represent us well. You should also learn from others. Don’t think that only Singapore has done it, and all others have not been successful. There is still a lot that we need to learn from others so remain humble. I encourage all of you to have that mind-set and spirit as you embark on your next phase of studies.
At the same time, please remember to pay it forward. All of you are receiving a scholarship because of your individual efforts, but also because the community has supported you along the way. That community includes your family members and parents, your teachers, friends and the larger community. Do think of ways in which you can give back to society, ways in which you can serve and inspire others, just as you have benefitted from others’ service to you. There are many ways you can do that. Of course, you are joining public service and that is already one example of how you are giving back. But even beyond your work, there will be many opportunities for you to contribute and give back to the community.
Finally, I must say that it is an exciting time to be joining the MND Family. We have just celebrated SG50 last year, and we have reached a milestone in our 50 years of nation-building. We are now embarking on our next phase of development for the next 50 years. There will be many major and significant plans for us to transform our urban landscape. We are not done building Singapore yet. There are still many things we can do. Don’t think that the best times have passed because 50 years ago, we built HDB flats, we brought people from squatters to HDB and that all that is done, the golden days are over and there is not much to do in the next 50 years. Please do not have that kind of thinking, because with that kind of thinking, surely, we will start to decline.
In fact, there is a lot more that we can do in the next 50 years. Much more, because we are on a higher base and we have more resources. Whether it is to make Singapore a City in a Garden, to plan our city better, to enhance our food supply or to build new HDB towns, there are many things that you can be involved in.
The good thing about working in MND is that it is a Ministry where you can see results. When you are in MND, the work is very tangible, practical and concrete. You don’t just talk about flats – you are actually building something. You will see material and physical results of your work, and that I think, is something quite meaningful and fulfilling. All of you will be involved, in some way or another, in this process of building a better Singapore for our next 50 years. I hope you remain passionate about this endeavour and relentless in your pursuit to build a home all of us can be proud of.
In closing, let me congratulate all our scholars once again in making it this far. We look forward to seeing all of you achieve great things.
Thank you very much and have a good day ahead.