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Cabinet colleagues,
Chairman and Members of the Public Service Commission,
Head, Civil Service and Permanent Secretaries,
Ladies and gentlemen,

A very good afternoon to everybody. Very happy to have the whole Administrative Service in one room at long last. Because of COVID-19, PSD has been unable to hold such a physical ceremony for the last two years. I am glad that as we emerge from the pandemic, we are able once again to gather everyone here in person today.

It is a fitting occasion for us to celebrate two retired Permanent Secretaries, Ms Yong Ying-I and Mr Chee Wee Kiong. Ying-I retired after 36 years of distinguished service. She was constantly striving to transform the way we do things. As PS (Health), back when our healthcare workers were still using hardcopy patient records, she pressed to create a national electronic health records system - "One Patient, One Health Record". This was a major step which enabled us to tap on medical data more effectively to enhance patient care. At PSD, she pushed for Public Sector Transformation. And most recently as PS at MCI, her team broke new ground in our move to create a digital nation. Beyond that, Ying-I always made time for her officers, listening to their feedback and perspectives, looking out for their growth and personal development, making sure they received support to get the job done. I am glad that Ying-I will continue to share her counsel as Chairman of the CPF Board and Senior Adviser to MCI.

Next, I would like to thank Mr Chee Wee Kiong. Wee Kiong has spent 40 years in the public service. He started off in the SAF andheld many key command and staff appointments, including as Commander of the Air Defence Systems Division and Director of Joint Operations and Planning. He then served as Director SID - providing timely and strategic intelligence to support our national security and foreign policy strategy. Later, as PS (Foreign Affairs), he focussed on managing our regional and bilateral relationships, and advancing Singapore's national interests and international standing. He also oversaw several major diplomatic events, including Singapore's ASEAN Chairmanship year in 2018, the Xi-Ma and Trump-Kim Summits. Wee Kiong brought to his responsibilities his shrewd sense of the motivation and thinking of others, and the ability to look forward, plan, and provide direction for his organisation to stay ahead. Ying-I and Wee Kiong, thank you both for your dedicated service and contributions.

I would also like to congratulate the 20 newly appointed and 80 promoted Administrative Service officers. As leaders in the Public Service, you play a key role in shaping Singapore's future. I am confident that you will serve Singapore and Singaporeans to the best of your ability.

Public Service and COVID-19

We have been battling COVID-19 for over two years now. It has been the crisis of our generation. Our journey has seen many twists and turns. But at every stage, the Public Service has responded swiftly, ably, and resiliently, working closely with the political leadership, doing its best to stay on top of the situation.

I want to thank the Public Service leadership and all Public Service officers. Many of you stepped up, going above and beyond the call of duty. Some served on the frontline - working with healthcare institutions, managing quarantine facilities, organising contact tracing, running testing and vaccination operations, protecting our borders, administering Safe Management Measures. Others laboured behind the scenes - planning operations, supporting workgroups and taskforces, conveying key messages to the public, developing digital tools, rolling out fiscal and social support for businesses and Singaporeans, preparing emergency legislation or securing equipment supplies. Many more contributed in other informal ways - covering for colleagues deployed to COVID operations, delivering essential services to Singaporeans, and keeping the lights on when things seemed dark.

As one Public Service, you mustered all our agencies and resources, and mounted a collective response to COVID-19. Your hard work and sacrifices kept our people safe and our economy resilient. Your efforts demonstrated the difference that a good Government makes. One that is capable and trusted, that performs under pressure, making decisions in the face of uncertainty and confusion, that has the integrity and resolve to press on to do the right thing by Singapore and Singaporeans, that clearly and honestly communicates to the public the gravity of difficult situations and mobilises them to solve the problems.

This crisis has severely tested our Government in multiple ways. Here are some of our key takeaways.

Takeaways

One, we must be prepared to make the tough calls, especially in the midst of uncertainty and ambiguity. We have had to make many difficult and consequential choices over the past two years. Often, without an established playbook to guide us, nor the luxury to "wait and see". We had to judge what was best at that point with incomplete information, and act on that in the fog of war. Indecision, or waiting for all the facts to come in, would have been far worse. We did not get every call right. We have had our share of challenges and setbacks these past 2 years. But the key is to keep on learning and improving; and as we discover more information, to be prepared to update, revise or even reverse our decisions.

For instance, at the start of the pandemic, when little was known of the virus, we had to make a judgement call: whether to let the outbreak burn through our population, and hope to reach safety through herd immunity, or to tighten up and keep our cases as low as possible, until we learnt how to keep our population safe. Letting the outbreak burn through carried a high risk of the virus spreading uncontrollably and causing many deaths, as happened in quite a few countries. But aiming for a "Zero COVID" strategy in a small city state with no hinterland, unable to seal our borders completely, was both hard to do and incurred heavy economic and social costs.

We determined right from the onset that we would not pay the high price in human lives. We closed our borders, implemented strict measures, and for a time imposed a Circuit Breaker. We did everything we could to prevent Singaporeans from being ravaged by the virus, and we kept ourselves safe until we could get everyone protected through vaccines and therapeutics that were then yet to be invented. Fortunately, up to now we have managed to secure our overriding aim: to protect precious lives, and to prevent as many avoidable deaths as possible.

A year later, when the highly infectious Delta variant emerged and arrived, we had to judge when and how to pivot from this strategy. Delta's infectiousness was making "Zero-COVID" less and less tenable. We knew we had to switch strategies soon. But how? While our national vaccination programme was progressing well, a sizeable portion of our population, especially the elderly, were still not yet protected from the virus. If we opened up too quickly, they would be at great risk. We therefore decided to hold the line for a few more months until nearly everyone had been vaccinated. In the meantime, we grit our teeth and pressed hard to reach the remaining unvaccinated individuals, and prepared our systems to deal with high but hopefully not seriously ill case loads.

We also had to change public mindsets. People had grown accustomed to low daily case counts, and we had to assuage considerable public anxiety when daily cases rose after we eased up. COVID patients were also used to recovering in hospitals, and we had to urge them to recover at home. Fortunately, we executed the shift at just about the right time, and coped well with the subsequent Delta, followed by the Omicron surges. Our health care system and workers came under considerable stress, but to their great credit they held up, and enabled us to transition towards living with COVID. This was the first lesson.

The second lesson is that we must always look beyond the immediate problems, however pressing they may be, to anticipate and plan ahead. Throughout COVID we always had to think several bounds ahead, and prepare for different contingencies. At a time when we had a few dozen daily cases and were doing a few hundred PCR tests a day, we started thinking about what would happen when we had hundreds of cases and needed to do thousands of PCR tests daily. We scrambled to order test kits, stockpile medical equipment, and ramp up our healthcare capacity. Later when our hospitals were seeing hundreds of Delta cases daily, we asked ourselves: how can we cope if we have thousands of cases a day? So we simplified healthcare protocols, and built up our systems, processes, and capacity to handle a much huger scale of outbreak. These contingency plans and actions had to be made well in advance. If we had waited until cases actually surged before acting, it would have been much too late. Realistically, we can't prepare for every contingency, but we have to do the best we can. This is very hard, because we are usually already fully stretched dealing with the current fires. But being prepared and making investments early yields immense dividends, especially during a crisis.

Sometimes, we had to place bets, and buy ourselves insurance and options, even at substantial cost. Like with vaccine, we knew that vaccines would be a game changer, and that there would be a scramble for them when they became available. Long before that, we moved quickly to secure advance commitments for vaccine supplies. We took calculated risks on promising vaccine candidates, across different technologies. This cost us a tidy sum, and we accepted that not every bet would pay off. But we judged this a small price to pay to protect Singaporeans and accelerate our move to the new normal. With therapeutics too, we had to make similar judgements. I am glad that these decisions overall have turned out well for us.

As the team in charge, we need to judge: when we should count every dollar and cent, to make sure we get the best value for money, but also when it is worthwhile paying a bit more to buy insurance and options for the future, to put us in a stronger position when the crisis worsens.

The third lesson I draw is that policy is implementation. As Administrative Officers, your task is not just to come up with ideas and concepts, writing papers and pushing them through approval forums. You also have to implement and execute well: identify your priorities, and focus on the most urgent ones, break these down into specific tasks, marshal the resources, organise the responses, and get all the agencies to work closely together, to prevent any slip-up in implementation. At the same time, you must also communicate, engage the stakeholders, and get your message across to the public.

Our national vaccination programme was one such operation. It was not just about setting vaccination targets, we had to get out there to engage the public through all available communications channels: put out sound and credible medical advice, present information and facts transparently to dispel mistruths, convince the public that the vaccines were safe, get people to come forward to get jabbed. We also needed to work out the last mile logistics to actually deliver the jabs into arms, identify sites for vaccination operations, source for manpower and train them, develop SOPs and IT systems, and work through the process flow, and the different procedures for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

It was a massive operation. At the peak, 2,000 staff were running 40 vaccination centres nationwide, administering over 2 million jabs in a month. Most people will recall a smooth experience, and not realise the scale and complexity of the operations. But thanks to these efforts, we have fully vaccinated 92.0% of our total population, and achieved one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

During this pandemic, we have had to mount many other intensive operations, e.g. dealing with the dorm outbreak, securing essential supplies, ramping up contact tracing, managing testing and quarantine/SHN, implementing the home recovery programme, and so many more. Each one was a major undertaking. Collectively they stretched our resources to the limit. At times we had to call in the SAF for assistance. But each operation illustrated how critical good execution on the ground was.

As leaders in the Administrative Service, you are not just the brains of the public service. Together with other public service leaders, you have to take command responsibility, deal with the issues as Whole of Government, marshal resources across both public and private sectors, implement and improvise solutions, roll up your sleeves to make the whole system work, and get the job done.

We have made significant progress in our fight against COVID-19. We are getting closer to the finish line, but still we cannot be sure that we are almost arriving. The virus has surprised us many times and will surely do so again. But overall, we are in a much better position. We can be quietly confident of dealing with whatever may come, and continuing to progress towards the new normal.

Keeping Trust

Key to our handling of the crisis has also been trust in the Government - trust that the Government has the best interest of Singapore and Singaporeans at heart, and trust that the Government is competent and will make the right decisions on behalf of Singaporeans. Singaporeans displayed that trust when they accepted the government's advice and decisions, and they complied willingly with strict Safe Management Measures (SMMs), and when they came forward to get vaccinated.

This trust is precious. To continue to build and nurture it, we must have a top-notch Public Service, with capable and committed officers. Possessing the right ethos and values, dedicated to serving Singaporeans responsibly and honestly, to the best of their ability. We need first-class minds, able to grasp and tackle complex, inter-connected problems, and come up with creative ideas and workable solutions. But we also need a first-class team, cohesive and mission oriented, focussed single-mindedly on getting the job done. But there is one more vital ingredient of success.

For the Public Service to be able to do its job, it needs to work hand-in-glove with the political leadership. The Ministers have to get the politics right, understand the key issues and identify our priorities, exercise their political mandate, set the direction, and chart the country's strategy. But also be hands-on to ensure that policies are well designed and implemented. Then they can carry their decisions with the public, assure the population, and lead Singapore throughout this journey. Just as importantly, the political leadership has to give public servants the political support and cover that they need, so that they can focus on their tasks, and carry out their duties professionally, and not be distracted or intimidated by political theatrics or grandstanding.

On your part, as leaders in the Public Service, you must appreciate the political context, translate overall strategy into workable policies, and implement and execute the plans. The political leadership and Public Service must complement and support one another, and trust each other to play their respective roles, and this partnership is crucial. As both our political leadership and public service leadership renew themselves, we must also renew the trust that exists between the current generation of Ministers and senior public service officers, and extend it into subsequent generations. COVID-19 was a moment when this happened - the whole 4G team was involved one way or the other, working with their Permanent Secretaries and management teams. During the crisis, they strengthened their relationships, and deepened the shared understanding and trust.

This sets the foundation for the next generation of leaders - both the Ministers and the Public Service. Because when their turn comes to assume the responsibility of leading the country, the two will need to continue to work just as closely, and deliver the same results that Singaporeans expect, and have become used to.

Conclusion

COVID-19 has been a stern test for the Government. Today I spoke about key lessons from our COVID experience: be prepared to make tough judgment calls, to anticipate and plan ahead, to realise that policy is implementation, and that trust is key.

Having come through many tests and challenges during the pandemic, we must hoist in these lessons, improve the way the government organises itself and operates, and do much better next time, not only to deal with the next pandemic, which is bound to hit us sooner or later, but also to respond effectively to the many other challenges that lie ahead. At the same time, we must make the most of the changes forced on us by the crisis to improve the way we do things in the future. If we thoughtlessly revert to the status quo ante after this crisis passes, we will be throwing away valuable lessons for which we have paid dearly.

Post COVID-19, we are in a strong position to make progress in a troubled and uncertain world. We must continue to build up the reservoir of trust in our society. Find new opportunities, create new jobs, improve everyone's lives, and strengthen our social compact. The public service must do this to the best of your ability, and do it well. Then you can sleep at night with a clear conscience that you are doing your part to bring Singapore into a brighter future.

Thank you very much.

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PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Administrative Service Appointment and Promotion Ceremony 2022

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Cabinet colleagues, Chairman and Members of the Public Service Commission, Head, Civil Service and Permanent Secretaries, Ladies and gentlemen, A very good afternoon to everybody. Very happy to have the whole Administrative Service in one room at long last. Because of COVID-19, PSD has been unable to hold such a physical ceremony for the last two years.

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1. What are the ideas that resonated with you &/or surprised you?
2. Were there thoughts/feelings evoked that may have caused some dissonance?

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To be Mindful in the design of Meaningful interaction to initiate Mindset change

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Localisation & Integration (<--- Caption here)

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Jennifer Tan/ABC Pri (<-- Name / School)

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Jennifer Tan/ABC Pri (<-- Name / School)

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As Singapore attracts more global citizens and its population continues to grow more diverse, our culture and identity also become more fluid and contested. I have never thought that even within the different cohorts immigrants found in Singapore, they would have quite varied perceptions of themselves and of other immigrants as well.

(CLICK "+" TO ADD POST TO YOUR SCHOOL'S SECTION.)

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1. What are the ideas that resonated with you &/or surprised you?
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How can we intentionally create social anchors in the school?

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1. What are the ideas that resonated with you &/or surprised you?
2. Were there thoughts/feelings evoked that may have caused some dissonance?

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1. The place of the school to be a major social anchor for our cosmopolitan society. What else can we do to ensure the relevant social experiences for our students? Will be good to review our programmes to see how we intentionally promote social integration and mixing.
2. Using the idea of "affinity disphora", maybe it is time for us to consider how we can work on growing an alumni for the school?

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It is not easy to tackle this “problem” we are facing. How do we mould our kids’ mindsets in school? How can we work with parents to ensure we are on the same page?

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1. The idea of binary thinking amongst all of our people here - Singaporean vs Others.
2. I have started thinking about students ,whose families are recent migrants, in my classes and what their thoughts are on being Singaporean?

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I am particularly intrigued by the idea of 'affinity diaspora'. Many a times, we are quick to take sides or to conclude and make a stand when things do not go in our favour. If we look at things at a more holistic level, consider different perspectives perhaps we will be able to see a different view and derive some positivity from it. This is especially true if outcomes are intangible or does not reap an instant reward. (Yee Leen)

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The social integration programme for the new immigrant are important, to create the positive impact on them, to help them in adapting to the new environment and they will be important resources for Singapore. Goh Min Min

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1) Singaporeans might need to also assimilate with foreigners settling into Singapore.
2) The idea of how Singaporeans might wish to assimilate to accommodate others settling into Singapore is not something our students are aware of.  There might be some common cultures and values that bond them together, but our students may also require time to understand why they need to take this step towards friends who are settling into Singapore.  Therefore, we need to consider what skills are needed to equip our students with, just as how much we emphasise on helping our foreign students (ISPR) settle in comfortably in a new school environment. Both parties need to understand the importance of building this bond/ friendship and make an effort to comprehend one another.

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Danny - Schools as social anchors for immigrants

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Danny - Schools as social anchors for immigrants

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Interesting viewpoints presented by AP Elaine Ho about how educators and schools play an integral role in helping our immigrant (new/past) students and their families assimilate into their new identity and affirm their effort to contribute to their 'new society'. The nature of a settler's nation like Sg makes the future of our social construct more diverse.. bringing more opportunities and challenges.

The idea of "Affinity diasporas" and how they will continue to view SG as their 2nd/3rd home was insightful and practical.

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1) The Internationalisation Programme in schools really does help our children in understanding the people from other parts of the world. Otherwise our children may have a certain mindset when it comes to meeting these immigrants in our own homeland. Thus, such programmes do open our borders and minds to understand one another better.
2) I agree with the idea the some of these immigrants that came to Singapore with the mindset that Singapore is a Chinese country. Thus, the effort for them to learn English and to communicate with the other races can be a challenge. I have encountered this many times.

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As Singapore becomes more cosmopolitan, we will certainly see more International Students in our schools. Hence, it is important for us to consider the social anchors that we can put in place to help the students feel more at home, both in the formal and informal curriculum. While the planning has to be intentional, the implementation certainly needs to be measured and calibrated so that the students can settle in more “naturally”. Perhaps we could start by reviewing the school’s programmes for integrating such students and consider how their parents could also be involved in the process.

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1) I like the idea on school and community space act a social anchor for the immigrants.  School especially would be the first experience the immigrants children go through.  The common language with primary school students is PLAY, so it does not matter who you are because the students will just play with each other.  However, the issue is when the immigrant student is not prepared well by the parents and thus face lots of difficulty to settle in.  Some even took almost a few years to assimilate but in the end had to leave the school even went back to home country.  Both Singaporeans and the immigrants need to put in effort to build the ties with each other.
2) I think for immigrants need to do their best to assimilate to Singapore context and Singaporeans in return will accommodate to them.

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1) AP Ho's sharing got me thinking about how we run the integration programme in our school and how we can be more deliberate in creating our social anchors to welcome ISPR students to the Singapore family
2) The idea that even children can feel/sense it when we "over-engineer" programmes got me thinking if too much of a good thing may turn out to be more harm than good

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The "Catwalk" idea gels immigrants with the local community. We can have such innovative ideas within schools as suggested by Dr Ho - Potluck anyone?

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Mindful that social anchors can change overtime as biography changes.

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I think that as an educator, it is important that we do what we can to introduce students, who have just moved to our country, the many different facets of our people and culture. However, we must take care to do so at a pace that would not overwhelm both the new student and the peers who are also getting used to a new face in their classroom (and even the teacher!). Thus, it may be inevitable that we start off finding commonalities in our classroom to accommodate the new students. Much as we would like to, there can't be that many Chinese speaking Indian or even Malay students that we can pair off with a new student who just came from China for example. Thus, a Chinese speaking Chinese buddy will still be needed to settle the previously mentioned new student till a time comes when he or she is ready to move on to the next stage of understanding others and their culture and language, which is something that the Chinese buddy could still attempt to communicate by virtue of being a Singaporean.

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Sharing the common ground with understanding and tolerance

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Sharing the common ground with understanding and tolerance

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People of the same ethnic group but different geographic locations have made them so different.
I think in school as we instil values we are also instilling appreciation and embracement of differences and respect for different cultures.
Sharing a related and interesting video for your viewing pleasure and further 'Food for Thoughts'.
~Sharon

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Singaporeans React To Comments By And About New Immigrants

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It will be good to review our current school programmes and CCAs (platforms for social anchors) and see how teachers can provide more opportunities for our students to interact with one another/ to strengthen our integration efforts - yuniza

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Integrating into any social groups requires two hands to clap. Both the new 'entrant' and the existing members need to appreciate the differences of and embrace each other's presence.
When we join into any body, we were once the new and unfamiliar face and would take time to assimilate. Good to be more understanding.
Eric

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1) Something to ponder...the current idea of social mixing may need to be relooked at.

2) Interesting to see the layers of connection different groups of migrants have to Singapore because of the policies we put in place.

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Important to intentionally create social anchors in school to foster integration. While they are young and receptive to ideas, build good social experiences to help them appreciate differences, be empathetic communicators and engage meaningfully with the wider community.
Marion

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"What makes us different is what we are, what unites us is what we do" President Halimah Yacob.
Diversity will be our strength if we are able to focus on humans, beyond colours, language and origin

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When AP Ho mentioned that school is one of the footholds, it reminded me of the role that teachers play in the classroom in fostering the social cohesion amongst students. As teachers, we should be deliberate in creating a safe space for everyone regardless of their backgrounds. We should also be professional as we teach students values that educates them on being good.

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1) To educate our children to embrace a multicultural society, to get to know friends from different background, build "ONE Singapore" together.
2) To create a home where we feel a sense of belonging.
GWPS - Yee Sun

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As we serve more and more international students and immigrants students, it may be helpful to understand better the social and emotional struggles these students face in integrating within the school and community. Also, how do we give this group of students a voice within the school community, so that they can be better understood and can contribute back to the community?
Damien

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When our students are localized and managed to assimilate themselves as they have more opportunities as compared to their migrant parents,

1. Will there be a friction/family conflict that will arise due to the different culture and belief?

2. These conflict that arises will have an impact on the student’s school work, which will lead to them not being able to focus due to the issues that they facing back home?

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Relooking into our school activities how can we better assimilate these students and better promote intercultural knowledge in our students in a more organic manner.

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After the sharing, it made me think of the TIE fund and some of the programmes we had for the international/foreign students within the school; whether I have ensured that these students feel that sense of emotional security after assigning buddies to help them ease into the class culture.

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Totally agreed with AP Ho on the different sentiments of the immigrants which depend on the time in which they are asked, I find that, in school, we have done a good job in settling and welcoming the children of the immigrants into our education system. We are sensitive in dealing with the different feelings and quick to use teachable moments to teach the right values in class especially in discussing about the different ethnic groups. Adrienne

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I think the children of these immigrants are really mixing and adapting well into our schools and the society.
-Brandon

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Working amongst the differences to bring about a common identity is definitely not easy. However, with the youngest batch of "immigrants" in our educational landscape does spark a sense of opportunity for us to work and bind our identity as one.
Wai Mei

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School is an important social anchor/ footholds to connect immigrants of diverse identities and create a sense of emotional security. It is crucial to welcome and create a sense of belonging for immigrants when they first arrive in Singapore.

We can do so through buddy system, having shared interest groups, e.g. CCAs, to better understand each other and to find common identities among our differences. Immigrants want to feel that they are contributing to the society as well!

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A new insight I have gained from the sharing is to consider the period when the immigrants came to Singapore. We should also remember that for the immigrants to integrate successfully into our society, it takes effort from both parties, as we tend to neglect the feelings of immigrants trying to integrate into our society and only expect them to do all the work to change to fit how we live. It is to both parties' benefit that we can live harmoniously together.

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It may be necessary to create a "foothold" for the parents of the international students, not just the students as building a culture is not only of the child but that of the whole family.

Leverage on existing platforms for the family to share their area of expertise e.g. International friendship day to enable our locals to see, understand and appreciate what these international families can do in our nation building efforts.

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Being a cosmopolitan country and a migration hub, the born and bred Singaporeans  must see the need of welcoming the new Singaporeans/immigrants/SPR and treat them as equals. While we say some of them can leave Singapore anytime, have we done enough to make them stay in Singapore?

In schools, as part of the schools' processes, we would have helped the students assimilate and make them feel at home. However, based on the example given earlier in the sharing, when in the working society, things seem to change and the new immigrants/new Singaporeans tend to stay in their own group. Makes me wonder if we have done enough to bring them into our Singapore identity.

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I think it's important to create social anchors in schools to make new immigrants feel at home and integrate them into our community. As teachers, we should try to create a safe and caring environment in class, and encourage our students to be caring and be more sensitive to others' feelings. This will in turn help new immigrants feel a sense of belonging.

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Our history, our common interest, our Singlish unite us. Education, NS, staying in HDB flats bonds us. This does not happen overnight ... we embrace diversity and we celebrate differences. It is important that these are shared and practiced with the migrants so that they can also assimilate easily in Singapore

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I am thinking of what are the platforms / activities / programmes that we can provide as a social anchor in the school. I feel that it is important to have all these social anchor for which it would truly benefit all the students.
Shermin

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1) It is important to understand the difference between the 'old-new' chinese immigrants and the 'new-new' chinese immigrants as it sets the cultural and social context as well as the mindsets that they have in order for us to better integrate and accept differences. We can also educate our students on migration so that tensions over national identity and belonging will not surface in the long run.
2) In order for better integration, there needs to be open communication and give-and-take culture on both parties.

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It was interesting that the sense of belonging to Singapore may vary from the period on when the migration has occurred. I agree that having common experiences is important to bond people together eg: hobbies. Hence, it is important for teachers to model what it means to be inclusive and to show empathy so that students too will be able to be an empathic citizen.

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A point of musing that arose from the sharing is how we havee started off as a migrant Nation and have come so far to to establish a National identity as a population comprising of different races.

So it seems that we have come a full circle as we welcome a new generation of migrants (xin xinyimin) who seems to be the same but different as they have distinguished themselves from their predecessors. With the learning gleaned from the tumultous early years of Nation building, how might we tackle the new challenges that comes with the new generation migrant to evolve our current programmes to strengthen schools as social anchors which potentially have far reaching effects that can possibly mitigate the barrier between local Singaporeans and migrants to facilitate their assimilation process while at the same time building a more cohesive and inclusive future.

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Students need to know that collaboration (with peers) in their areas of interest will position themselves well for future challenges. Regardless of origin see opportunities

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Internalisation programmes help to integrate new immigrant students - are there such efforts in the working world especially in the private sectors?

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Agreed that it is critical to reach out to the new immigrants at the early stage than at a later stage. With the fusion of culture of immigrants with local communities, it may influence the next generation's 'local' culture.

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The idea of creating social anchor within school resonates with me.  Education plays a vital role in creating the Singapore identity and gel the students.  It is also important for us to hear voices of our students to understand them better.

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Assimilating into one's culture is not easy. Important for both parties (immigrants + Singaporeans) to be empathetic towards one another - it's a two-way process. In schools, we can share the stories and the difficulties faced by the migrants; and how we can show kindness and acceptance towards our migrants.

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While schools has social anchors that help students from different backgrounds to integrate better into the community, how might we help the family through schools integrate into the community too as family unit plays a crucial role in shaping the children's characters and thoughts as well.

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1. I am surprised that discrimination and differentiation also happens within the immigrants community. I thought they would support each other. I agree that the school is indeed a major social anchor where students get to interact and understand each other better.
2. I am thinking how can we assimilate these students and get them to share their culture and traditions with the rest of the students so that we can better understand each other.  I am also thinking how can we leverage on the programmes that we already have in our school to make this happen.
3. Being a cosmopolitan country means that our local Singaporean students will have many competitors. How do we get them to be motivated and competitive yet being able to live harmoniously with other immigrants.

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1. Schools are definitely a place that can serve as a major social anchors as we work with these 3 groups students, staff and parents via PSG.
2. It got me rethink of how we can be more inclusive in this aspect to better understand our migrants and how we can influence our students to accept and embrace diversity

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I think it is important for students who are new immigrants are made comfortable and it definitely takes some time to settle in and adapt to the environment. Friends in schools can play a key role and programmes in school can intentionally provide guidance to teach students to show empathy, understand other cultures and how they can help the immigrants to ease into the environment.

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It is inevitable that we will witness an increasing number of international students, especially with the reopening of borders. Hence, I concur with the notion that there is a need to let all students feel a national identity.

I wonder if there can be roles that students can assume with regards to this. Roles such as Social Support Leaders? For such roles to be viable, clear descriptors of suitable Social Support Leaders must be provided.

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1. Conscious effort to help new immigrants to assimilate into our society is required. The research mentioned about Chinese Immigrants, but I believed this conscious effort should be for all other new immigrants as well.

2. All other points mentioned are salient points which act as reminders to us of what we can do.

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Striving for that balance. Assimilation yet retaining distinctiveness. Intentional but not tokenism. Inclusiveness while showing awareness of differences. - Lee KP

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1. Yes, immigrants who have remigrated help to pave economic opportunities for Singapore abroad and bridging cultural differences. In order to have good effective integration policies, there should be a good collaboration by the government and partners in society.
2. At times how we educate them in schools with regards to have an inclusive society may not coincide with what they are taught at home.

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Beyond IFD and NE events, I think we need to rethink how we can hear more of our student voices. Maybe we can have student FGDs with our IS students and find out from them on how they are coping after having being assimilated into the school environment in Singapore. Find out what kind of other support they need. Simultaneously, we should also strengthen the peer support structures, where we can get the Peer Support Leaders (PSLs), to look out for these peers. The PSLs can then support the buddies who are assigned to the IS students.

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The school needs to be a welcoming and supportive community to help new migrants to be assimilated into our culture and social norms. Classroom learning should also allow more opportunities for students to work collaboratively and to learn from one another. - Miss Poh

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I think it is important to intentionally create social anchors in school to foster integration. We should teach our students to be more sensitive to others feeling, also provide more opportunities for our students to interact with one another.

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A good reminder on the usage of social anchors to help students who do not feel belonged to integrate better. We should look for creative yet natural ways to ensure embedding takes place. Being aware that different spatial contexts have varying amount of embeddedness, we must identify the ones that we can harvest the best outcomes.

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A good reminder on the usage of social anchors to help students who do not feel belonged to integrate better. We should look for creative yet natural ways to ensure embedding takes place. Being aware that different spatial contexts have varying amount of embeddedness, we must identify the ones that we can harvest the best outcomes.

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Daniel

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Social integration with new citizens has its challenges.  Even among locals there are differences and certain things can exaggerate them.

Integrating locals and newcomers in our society is an ongoing journey and is part of our evolution as a young nation.

Just having programmes alone will not be enough. It has to be sustained integration efforts in different prongs - education, workplace, national initiatives till the 2 entities will not co-exist parallelly, but integrated seamlessly.

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It is vital to be mindful of the social and emotional struggles that international and even local students face. Since schools are important places and communities to the children, programmes in schools can be designed in a way to create stronger awareness to educate students to think from the perspective of others, to build empathy and resilience. Social anchors will help to support students as they learn about the collective identity of the community.

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Education is key to social cohesion. After five decades of independence, Singapore has come a long way from the tense political climate and social tensions of the 1960s. Today, despite differences in ethnicity, religion and culture, we live together as one people, with a harmony that is remarkable among nations.
As we speak about Singapore present and future, and Wee Meng sharing about learning about learning, I believe we need to share with the younger ones that they are the new navigators and the future depends on how they are able to picture Singapore and the world to be a consistently good place to be in and the communications we would like to have with another human being.
Because of knowledge, one move from one country to another to look for a 'better life', natives who are always looking to survive in the native land faced difficulty and challenges, but is not able to given opportunities. Societal values are different, POV are different, how then can we lead sense making for students so that Native-Migrant Tensions are no longer a topic but native-migrant harmony becomes a topic?

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We play an important role in educating our students to be less judgmental and be more sensitive in their interaction with others. There is a need to embrace diversity and differences.

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Creating social anchors in schools that are intentional, authentic yet warmly welcoming will help immigrants feel part of our social fabric. I remember being a first generation immigrant many years ago and how my workplace colleagues made me feel part of a bigger family. There is no distinction of local vs foreign, or 'accents' differentiation.

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Social integration involves accepting, adapting and behaving according to the social values and norms in the new country. Are the new migrants ready to adapt to the new environment? And are we ready to accept the new immigrants? As educators, not only do we need to help the young immigrants in our school to close the learning gaps but we would also need to create a safe learning environment and promoting cohesion within this environment in order to help the young immigrants to adapt to the new norms and culture.
Su Ann

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The projected shift in the economic centre of gravity towards Asia will present many opportunities and/or challenges for our students. With the wave of immigrants that might come together with the shift, it is essential that we have footholds that help to hold our society together. Schools should continue to be social anchors, not just between new immigrants and Singaporeans but between any groups that we identify as.

The concept of affinity diaspora is also something that I am happy to learn about.

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Indeed a intriguing keynote presentation by AP Elaine Ho. One of the ideas that resonate with me is affinity diaspora. It is heartening to hear the other perspective that immigrants who re-migrate to other countries can also bring benefits to Singapore too. It is definitely important to have intentional anchors in school to bring about the assimilation and integration of immigrants in Singapore and how we can strike a balance to make it natural among our students remain a thought to ponder on. - QF

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From the insightful sharing, I learnt more about the diversity of the immigrants. As a school through our concerted efforts, we can continue to build the social anchors to integrate the ISPR students through shared interests and activities so as to foster inter-cultural integration.

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I am mindful of the fact that schools act as one of major social anchors to help integrate immigrant students. We can think about how we can support this group of students and check how they are coping after having being assimilated in the school and into our society. Another thought I have is how we can help Singapore to move closer towards the ideals of being a cosmopolitan society and encourage our students (citizens) to have binary thinking (Singaporean vs Others) and be more open to multiculturalism beyond existing ethnic groups.

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It is troubling to hear about discrimination in existence within the racial groups in Singapore. We should continue to educate our students the importance of a cohesive society, and to embrace the different cultures in existence.

These are some things that schools can do to help nurture our students to be more open and inclusive:

- create opportunities for students to learn about the diverse cultures. This would help us appreciate their cultures and they can learn more about the Singapore culture as well. We can also find commonalities within our diverse experiences & backgrounds to bring us closer together as a community.

- Having open discussions and raising awareness about the journey undertaken by our pioneers & tracing our roots will ultimately create a deeper understanding and appreciation of our melting pot. Singaporeans came from all walks of life and it is crucial to ensure that our students learn our history. Furthermore, it would help them gain a better appreciation that learning to work together is better than avoiding or alienating one another.