Singapore's quest for social mobility

Can education and policy keep it going?

- Ng Wei Kai Correspondent Tham Yuen-C Senior Political Correspondent

More educational reform and wealth redistribution may be on the cards as the Government focuses on closing the gap to protect social mobility.

Growing up in Singapore in the 1980s, Ms Lim Geok Keng had no doubt she would do better than her parents.

And she did. She upgraded from a three-room Housing Board flat in Toa Payoh to a landed property in Upper Thomson, and also moved up the corporate and income ladder.

Her Hokkien-speaking parents did not go beyond primary school education and one had a stall in a market while the other worked freelance jobs. But they sent her to Raffles Girls' Primary School, where she did well - later earning a degree at the National University of Singapore and starting a career in finance.

Ms Lim, 53, said: "Social mobility wasn't a concept that people spoke about then it was about meritocracy. Study hard, you get a good job, and then you get better paid."

Most of her schoolmates came from similar backgrounds.

But things are different and tougher for kids now, said the mother of four girls aged 16 to 23.

She said: "As Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said recently, education previously was a leveller whether you came from an HDB (flat) or a bungalow. These days, some are so far ahead and some are so far behind."

Ms Lim was referring to PM Wong's Sept 24 speech in Parliament where he said the Republic will broaden its meritocracy to keep social mobility alive and pledged further educational reform to do so.

Breaking down the barriers to moving up in life in Singapore has been at the centre of national discussion recently as political leadership has made a push to highlight gaps and promised to strengthen the system to protect social mobility.

PM Wong's speech followed President Tharman Shanmugaratnam's Sept 5 address, where he identified social mobility as one of the priorities of this new term of Government.