Ang Wei Neng, MP for Jurong GRC, proposed the idea of mandatory community service field trips to rural villages in neighbouring countries in Parliament.
“I hope parents and teachers will see the value of such trips when the students return from the trip more mature and sensible. I am confident that such field trips will help our youths appreciate Singapore’s success better, reduce the sense of entitlement and inculcate the value of service to others,” Channel NewsAsia quoted him as saying.
Ang’s idea appears to be this: send Singaporean youths to rural villages in the region, where there will be no air-con and streetlights, and they will return to Singapore keeling over with gratitude for our infrastructure and the PAP for having built it!
The rebuttal to Ang’s proposal is simple: people are people, regardless of where they live and the circumstances in which they live. No one exists to be a teaching moment for anyone else. Families in rural villages do not live their lives just so we can ship Singaporean youths over to gawp wide-eyed at their plight and come back feeling a renewed sense of smugness. Full story
