Minister slams youth for being arrogant

During general education programmes top students sneak out when they can.

"They are not aware that they come across as arrogant," said Minister without Portfolio Lim Boon Heng, referring to the A-level students.

He added: "I am told that our students overseas, while they regularly out-perform the students of those countries, are not interested in doing something in the way of community service. The over-riding focus is on getting good grades. Whatever happened to values such as altruism, leadership through service?"

These examples of the young showed a need for society, including the government, to do some soul-searching on the values that Singapore should have.

"We have a lot of soul-searching to do. Not just you and I, but Singapore as a whole has to do a lot of soul-searching. What has gone wrong in our society?"

He raised this when he referred to the recent debate in parliament on scholars who break their bonds. He was at a fund-raising event at Mandarin hotel yesterday.

The central issue, he said, was values. "It would be pointless for us to continue with our efforts in building up a sense of shared values -- integrity, honour, right and wrong, duty and responsibility, commitment, caring and sharing -- if we do not forge a consensus on the values we uphold, and how we interpret these values."

He was referring to the Shared Values which were spelt out seven years ago to help Singaporeans develop a national identity and counter over-Westernisation.

These five values are: nation before community and society above self; family as the basic unit of society; community support and respect for the individual; consensus, not conflict; racial and religious harmony.

"Perhaps it is time for us to re-define our values, and how we should interpret them," he said.

Published in the Straits Times. March 13, 1998