Opening Address by Minister Desmond Lee at Pre-University Seminar 2024 Opening Ceremony

May 27, 2024

Distinguished guests,

Friends,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Introduction

Good morning, everyone.

I would like to thank the organisers, Dunman High School and MOE, for the invitation to participate in today’s dialogue. It is an opportunity to speak with young Singaporeans and future stewards of our nation, and to hear your perspectives on the future of our country.

The theme of this year’s Pre-University Seminar is “Forging Our Way Forward”. Let me start with a visualisation exercise for us to think about the future of Singapore and how it looks like to you.

So it is 2024 today. Fast forward 16 years. Imagine that it is now the year 2040. Singapore will be 75 years old. Most of you will be in your mid-30s, building careers, and might also be thinking about what it means to have a meaningful life. Some of you may have become parents and also taken on other responsibilities, such as caring for your parents as they grow old.

What do you envision Singapore would look like then, in year 2040? What kind of society would you aspire to live in? What careers, what future would you hope to pursue?

These are fundamental questions that matter to you and to future generations who call this place home. I wanted to take this opportunity to share some thoughts on these questions – these are my perspectives. And we are keen to hear your perspectives during the Q&A session.

The Driving Forces in 2040

Let me start by setting out the broader context and key driving forces that are likely to shape the world in the coming decades.

First, the world around us is becoming messier, riskier and more violent.

Singapore has prospered over the last 30 years in an era of relative peace and healthy competition. As a small and open economy, we embraced globalisation, we embraced free trade, and we embraced international cooperation. We maintained a high level of competitiveness, leading to good economic outcomes for our people.

While we are globally more interconnected today than ever, geopolitical tensions between countries and heightened nationalism have eroded trust, leading to rivalry and conflict. More countries are becoming more inward-looking and protectionist. This threatens the multilateral rules-based order that small states like Singapore thrive upon. In light of this, the first question is how might we continue to Strengthen Singapore’s Place in the World?

Second, we are facing a global climate emergency. It threatens Singapore’s very existence and our way of life. Sea levels are rising. The weather has become warmer and more unpredictable, with heavier rain, and longer and more frequent dry spells. Our food and water security will be under stress. So the second question is how then will we continue to Enhance Singapore’s Liveability and Sustainability?

Third, fast-paced advancements in technology, particularly in generative AI, will transform our lives and work profoundly. It can unleash an unprecedented level of productivity and innovation that empower people and society. You may already be reaping some of its benefits in your classrooms. But at the same time, there are genuine fears about its implications on humanity and whether its benefits will be shared fairly across society. So the third question is how might we Prepare for New Frontiers in STEM and Digitalisation?

Finally, our society is fast-changing. Singaporeans are better educated. Many have had the opportunity to live or work abroad, resulting in a greater diversity in our outlook and aspirations. How might we Broaden our Definitions of Success so that we can harness and celebrate our diverse talents as a nation? As a population, we are also ageing rapidly. We will have to contend with the pressures of a shrinking workforce, while tackling intractable issues such as social inequality and mental health. How might we Care for our Diverse Groups Together and Fortify our Resilience and Security?

As we list these challenges, it is easy to feel breathless. But like the generations before us, it is up to us to turn these challenges into opportunities, and chart our way forward together.

As a tiny island city-state, our forefathers were tested by very difficult situations. But they persevered, they made many sacrifices, and worked together to build all that we see around us.

Your time will soon come, sooner than you think, to step up and face your generation’s tests and challenges. It will be up to you to build on the foundation laid by predecessors, and carry this momentum, so that Singapore can continue to survive and thrive against all the odds.

The challenges that I have outlined are some of the topics that you will be discussing, over next few days of the Pre-University Seminar.

As you get into deeper conversations, think about what you can do to overcome them, turn them in opportunities and make the best out of them.

Let me give you a familiar example. Water is a scarce resource for Singapore – a critical vulnerability. But we have created a success story for Singapore called the water story, through generations of hard work:

Our forefathers started studying water reclamation technology as early as the 1970s, not long after independence.

These efforts bore fruit in the early 2000s, in the form of NEWater – which is Singapore’s own brand of ultra-clean recycled water. We are not self-sufficient, but we are certainly more resilient today than in the past.

Now, the mantle has been passed on to yet another generation of young engineers, who continue to improve the technology, so that NEWater can be produced even more sustainably.

Let me suggest how you can step forward to contribute, and lead the way in Singapore’s growth and transformation, amidst the challenges that I have just etched out.

A Green and Resilient Nation

First, the existential threat of climate change.

In the face of the climate onslaught, we must fight to secure Singapore’s survival and prosperity. Yet, it must be a global effort to achieve emission targets, and adapt to our changing climate.

This mean that in the years ahead, we have to make big changes to our way of life, including:

Shifting from combustion engine vehicles, towards EVs and mass transit;
Making our homes and buildings greener;
Cutting down our energy and water usage;
Transforming the jobs that we do and our way of doing business to be greener and more sustainable;
Moving away from fossil fuels towards greener sources of energy.

We must also transform our city, to make it climate-resilient:

Deepen and lengthen our drainage system, to cope with unpredictable weather;
Redesign our homes and buildings to adapt to warmer temperatures;
Invest in R&D, to develop new technologies and nature-based solutions to adapt to climate change;
Strengthen local food production and diversify our sources even further, to be more resilient to supply shocks, which will come our way;
Build coastal defences and raise the level of our land literally, to protect Singaporeans from rising sea levels;
And many more.

These are major transformations which take time, take effort and take resources to implement. We have to start now and plan carefully for the long-term. Take East Coast for example. You may not realise it today, but it is a low-lying area with high flood risk. So we are planning to reclaim a ‘Long Island’ that is around twice the size of Marina Bay to provide critical coastal protection for that part of Singapore. At the same time, this will also create a new freshwater reservoir for us and more space and optionality for future generations to live out their dreams.

In this green transition, there will be many opportunities for young Singaporeans to seize. And you can play your part in climate action.

For example, can we find new value propositions that Singapore can offer to the world in terms of the green transition? If we can do so, if we can find something of value to the rest of the world even as we solve our climate challenges, it can create good jobs for young Singaporeans, and strengthen Singapore’s place in the world.

One area, for example, that we are pursuing is that of sustainable finance. We are a global financial hub. How can we use that status in order to finance the transition towards a greener society? How can we help Singapore companies and businesses? How can we help people around the world to finance this big change?

Each of us will play an important role in our green transition.

We can already start by shifting our habits step by step; getting our family and friends to do this with us; and volunteering for causes that we believe in.

For example, I was told that students from our ITE Colleges have been using their skills to help green the community around their schools: some help lower-income households change old light fittings and bulbs into new energy-saving ones; others spruce up the community gardens into common spaces for residents to relax and enjoy. Well done!

Dynamic Jobs and a Competitive Economy

Let me now move to the second pillar: the future of jobs, and I know many of you are planning for your future careers

I attended a dialogue with some young adults recently. Some candidly shared their concerns about how jobs may look like in the future.

And whether they will pick up the necessary skills in school for them to perform at work.

Some of you here may share similar concerns as you think about the courses you wish to pursue in the next bound of your education.

To prosper as a small island nation, Singapore must continue to be relevant to the world.

We cannot out-compete others in terms of scale and resources, but we have made a living for ourselves by constantly adopting new technologies and transforming to stay ahead of the curve and stay ahead of the competition.

As technological changes accelerate, we just have to do this even better.

With the advent of generative and more human-like AI, it is a matter of time before the future of work undergoes yet another major transformation. We can expect significant upheavals at the workplace as more tasks, including cognitive and knowledge-based ones, become increasingly automated.

This is not necessarily a bad thing for Singapore. If we can do it right, a country with a small population like ours, can be even more productive and competitive in the longer term.

As a nation, Singapore has started to prepare carefully for the advent of AI.

Five years ago, we launched a National AI Strategy, outlining plans to deepen the use of AI to drive our economy. We were one of the first countries to do so. We were also an early participant in the global discourse on AI governance, and was the first country to launch a Model AI Governance Framework in 2019.

These early investments by a small nation like Singapore led to a strong foundation for our AI ecosystem. We are well-regarded, ranking among top 10 in the world by several international metrics for AI readiness and vibrancy. We are home to over 80 AI research faculties, 150 AI product teams and 1,100 AI startups. This sets a good foundation to anchor good tech jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans to grow related skillsets.

To propel ourselves as leaders in the field of AI, we refreshed the National AI Strategy last December. We refined our strategy to scale up participation in AI research and deployment, strengthen the AI ecosystem, and provide education and training to nurture an AI-ready workforce locally. There will be strong support along the way to ensure that Singaporeans can be adequately equipped to be professionally relevant.

For young Singaporeans, the curriculum in your schools is very different from the one your parents had gone through. Now, there is greater focus on familiarising students with picking up and using new technology, and a lot more emphasis on honing your ability to think critically and to think discerningly. These are to better prepare you for a future where lifelong learning will become the norm.

A Society that we all call Home

Finally, how do we ensure that we progress together as a society, as our society changes rapidly? Economic and social strategies in Singapore have always gone hand in hand in writing the Singapore Story. Our economic success is only meaningful if it brings broad-based social upliftment for Singaporeans.

The context in which we will build our future society is quite different from the past.

Our economy has matured, our island is a lot more developed, and our population is rapidly ageing.

As a society, we will have to work harder to sustain social mobility and avoid social stratification; provide inclusive, affordable and accessible public housing; and help our seniors lead active and meaningful lives as they age.

As our society evolves, our policies need to be even more responsive to the needs of Singaporeans. You would have heard of Forward SG, started by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. This was a nationwide exercise where Singaporeans came together to refresh our social compact, and we engaged some 200,000 Singaporeans over the last year and a half. A broad consensus that emerged from this national conversation was the need for us to have a greater sense of collective responsibility, all of us having a part to play – so that no one gets left behind.

To do so, we are in the midst of transforming our social safety net, and taking a uniquely Singapore approach to tackling social stratification and social inequality. There is a lot to talk about if we want to cover this in detail – such as our efforts in preschool, jobs and skills, and so on. But one of the key initiatives is ComLink+.

In other parts of the world, some countries rely on a welfare state system. The governments collect very high taxes to fund expenditure on healthcare, pensions and unemployment benefits. There is significant social transfer, but over time it can create a different spirit and expectation in society, such as over-dependence on state handouts. High taxes also heavily burden the broad middle-class.

ComLink+ presents a very different way of doing things for a group of Singaporeans at the lower end of the social economic strata who face complex challenges and difficulties that prevent them from breaking out. We are certainly doing more, by putting in more resources, but we also want to focus on doing better. The latter part is tough to do.

So in Comlink+, we put families who are struggling with complex problems at the centre, and coordinate support across society – from government departments, community partners, civic and religious organisations, and the private sector – to help families in need achieve stability in their lives, grow their self-reliance and ultimately become more socially mobile.

Under this programme, frontliners, social workers, educators, school counsellors and volunteers partner with the families and work with them to develop highly customised solutions based on each family’s’ specific context, their strengths and their needs. There is greater solidarity, and the people within society come together and help one another. This is a much harder approach to take than just giving more resources and handouts as we take a targeted and systematic approach, and galvanise whole of society. This is much harder to do, but it is beginning to yield results.

These efforts are always a work-in-progress, just as Singapore is always a work-in-progress. We must and will always strive to do better.

Beyond what has been done at a policy level for Singapore to progress together, it is also important to reflect what we as citizens can do and care more for one another. In this regard, I am very encouraged by how many young Singaporeans care deeply for social issues and actively contribute towards making a difference to uplift the less well-off.

Let me give you an example. Some months back, I went with ‘The Lighthouse Singapore’ for a night walk in Jurong West. ‘Lighthouse’ is a befriending organisation started by young Singaporeans to befriend and support people who are homeless and rough sleeping.

The co-founder, Zhe Feng, started ‘Lighthouse’ when he was an NTU student. I met him, and he asked what he could do to contribute. I brought him for a walk and he met other groups who were doing similar work. He went back and eventually started a group with his friends. He wanted to do something for homeless rough sleepers because it was a side of Singapore that he had not been exposed to. At the onset, he was not too sure to do. But, he stepped forward and acted. He rallied his friends from school and started conducting late-night walks around Jurong to befriend rough sleepers, talk to them, and understand what they need. He also had mentors and other organisations, like MSF and other groups, who he can ask for help.

Over the years, more people learned about ‘Lighthouse’ and joined their cause. Today, the group conducts regular night walks around the wider Jurong West area. They also distribute food, festive gifts and celebrate birthdays with rough sleepers that they have befriended over time. They built a relationship and built trust. The group even helped some of them move into their new rental homes because with the trust they built, they were able to act as an intermediary between the people they were serving and the Government agencies who were trying to help them with the schemes available. But without that relationship of trust, it would not have been easy to connect.

There are other many examples of ‘Zhe Fengs’ and ‘Lighthouses’ in Singapore, projects spearheaded by young people, partnering each other to do what they can to care for and support the less privileged. This spirit of looking out for one another is critical in ensuring Singapore stays together as a cohesive society.

In fact, I have heard that you have also embarked on projects to make a positive change. For example, I was told that Participant Team Number 11 is working on creating a comprehensive online platform for SG75 to better support caregivers of people with special needs with resources. Other teams are also working on innovative ideas in other aspects. When you turn your ideas into reality, they will be the seeds for our continued success as a society and a nation.

At the same time, we will continue to engage and listen to our young Singaporeans and other Singaporeans, understand your aspirations, and finetune the way we do things, to better meet our society’s evolving needs.

For instance, during the Forward SG Conversations, we heard feedback from young Singaporeans that they wanted more flexibility to configure the spaces in their homes based on different needs at different life stages. We took it back, and worked with our architects and engineers to see what we could do to respond to this.

Today, I am glad to share that starting from the October BTO exercise, we will pilot a new typology of HDB flats, which we call “White Flats”. These are flats, where homeowners can opt for a contiguous living and bedroom space that will be beamless and not pre-partitioned into rooms by walls, as we do currently. We will be starting with a BTO project in Kallang-Whampoa area, where we will be launching over 300 units of such 3- and 4-room flats, with this option available for a group of homebuyers.

This typology of flat may appeal to couples who wish to have an open-concept space in the beginning for young children to run around and play, without having to remove walls. At a later life stage, when the kids become older, the couple can then choose to re-configure the flat based on their new needs, such as creating bedrooms or re-designing their living spaces.

You are still young. And at some stage, you would buy your first home. We will support your home ownership journey by keeping our BTO flats affordable and accessible, just as we have done for past generations since independence.

To keep the supply of flats affordable in a land-scarce city-state, we will ensure a good supply of public housing and support Singaporeans with generous public housing grants and subsidies, especially for those of you who may be starting off with less financial means at the beginning.

In 2023, more than eight in 10 first-timer families who bought new or resale HDB flats had a mortgage servicing ratio of 25% or less when they collected their keys. In plain terms, this means that they can service their monthly HDB loan instalments using their savings from their Central Provident Fund (CPF) with little to no cash outlay.

If you decide to buy a flat early, shortly after you start work, after you finish your higher studies or finish your National Service, you will also benefit from the Staggered Downpayment Scheme, which will be enhanced starting from the upcoming BTO launch in June.

At the same time, we will continue to ensure that there is a good social mix in all our towns and that the public housing system is fair and accessible to all Singaporeans. That is why we are injecting HDB projects in very attractive locations within Singapore, in areas like the Greater Southern Waterfront, Bukit Timah Turf City and our city centre, places that most people associate with private housing today. We are going to inject public housing in these places too. At the same time, we give priority to those who have specific needs such as living near or with their parents so that they can take care of each other; those with three or more children; and first-timers over second-timers.

When you are eventually ready to embark on your home ownership journey, please check out the HDB website to familiarise yourself with the details. For many people, the BTO flat is their first major purchase and commitment in life. Choose wisely, plan your finances, and be prudent.

Looking ahead, we are now on the cusp of the next phase of the Singapore housing story. Our earliest HDB towns were developed in the 60s and 70s, when we rapidly built hundreds of thousands of homes to house a nation. These towns are growing older, and we will need to redevelop and rejuvenate them.

This gives us the opportunity to re-imagine what we want the future of public housing to look like, and how they can serve our future generations well.

The government does not have all the answers, and we will harness the collective wisdom of our society by partnering Singaporeans, including young Singaporeans like yourselves, in this journey of re-imagining the future and making it come alive.

If any of the aspects that I have talked about today interests you, start thinking about how you can step forward and contribute. You can also feel free to reach out to my colleagues who are present today, or join us at MND’s and URA’s upcoming engagements and exhibitions for the Draft Master Plan 2025. The Master Plan is the backbone of our developmental plans for Singapore over the next 10 to 15 years, and these are detailed and disciplined planning processes that we undertake so that we can fit all our dreams into our island. We want to hear your views and ideas to make Singapore a more liveable, more inclusive, more exciting and more endearing.

Conclusion

As a nation, Singapore has achieved a lot. Our predecessors built a united multi-racial society, developed our economy, created jobs, made home ownership, education and healthcare affordable and accessible to all, and weathered through many crises and storms. They have also created brighter prospects and wider opportunities for us.

I have every confidence that when the baton is passed to younger Singaporeans like yourselves, you will continue to remain united, work together and play our part in stewarding a better Singapore, and forge the way forward for future generations.

These four days are an opportunity for you to tap on each other’s minds and hearts, talk to people, visit organisations and make new friends to build new perspectives.

Thank you.