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Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer 1 Mr Vikram Nair asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health given the rising incidence of cancer detection in Singapore, whether there are plans to increase the availability and uptake of screening for common types of cancer in Singapore, such as lung, liver and prostate cancer.
Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer Mr Speaker, uptake of cancer screening is a matter of health habits, which take time to evolve. Under Healthier SG, regular screening for common cancers, such as breast, cervical and colorectal cancer, is recommended and heavily subsidised, and we hope it will shape positive changes to health-seeking habits over time.
Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer As for screening for lung and liver cancer, it is only recommended for high-risk individuals. As such cancers are less common in the general population and there are limitations in the accuracy of screening tests, general population screening has lower yield compared to more targeted screening and can lead to many false positive results, requiring further investigations and causing unnecessary anxiety.
Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer In addition, to address the burden of disease of cancer, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has been promoting healthier lifestyles, for example, not smoking, limiting alcohol consumption, healthy diets and physical activity, all of which are modifiable risk factors for cancer.
Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer Mr Nair.
Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer I thank the Minister of State. I think cancer screening under Healthier SG is an excellent programme and the earlier you detect, the better. I had recommended a few specific types of cancer in my question. To follow up, the first question I have is, for those who are at higher risk, will their screenings be subsidised by the Government? Second, what is the view on multi-cancers screening tests?
Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer I thank the Member for the question. Mr Speaker, indeed, as a matter of principle, we do want to encourage screening, but when we do so for the general population, we make recommendations and these are highly subsidised. When we do this, we actually make reference to the recommendations by the Screening Test Review Committee and we take deference from that. Because this does mean that we do have to allocate resources and funding to it if we do this for the general population level. For individuals, it is something that we will need to look at and assess, because the prevalence is different and the clinical effectiveness of the tests are different. What we recommend is for patients to have that good relationship with their doctors so that they can individually recommend it accordingly.
Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer To make a scheme out of this is something we need to assess because it will require some separate resourcing.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow 2 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs whether the Ministry will coordinate with the Ministry of Transport to increase enforcement efforts against cyclists and e-bike users riding on roads without helmets, front and rear lights for night rides, or riding against the flow traffic in fairness to motorists who may face severe penalties, including imprisonment if found liable for accidents involving cyclists or e-bike riders.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow Sir, the Traffic Police (TP) and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) conduct regular enforcement at accident hotspots and locations reported by members of the public, including where unsafe road behaviour by cyclists and e-bike users are observed. TP and LTA enforce against on-road cycling offences, including riding in groups of more than five, without helmets, without front and rear lights, and going against the flow of traffic.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow Mr Tan.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for her reply. This is a long-standing riding culture issue, and I have spoken on this previously. The legal duty to keep a proper lookout almost always means that many motorists are often slapped with a minimal level of contributory negligence, whether via TP prosecution or in the civil Courts. With the recent practices of the prosecution and the Courts asking or imposing stricter sentences, including custodial sentences when a person is injured in a traffic accident, I would like to ask the authorities to consider that it would not always be as fair for a motorist to receive harsher punishment if he is involved in an accident with a cyclist who is blatantly not compliant with the law, for example, riding against traffic, beating red lights, not having lights at night or even not wearing helmets and risking more serious injury during an accident.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow I would also like to ask the Ministry of Home Affairs to take sterner actions to stop or reduce these unsafe and illegal practices to achieve better parity with the legal risks faced by motorists on the roads and work with LTA to improve the cycling culture.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow Finally, beyond patrols and spot checks, how is the Ministry leveraging on closed-circuit televisions or other methods to identify repeat offenders riding against traffic or without lights?
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow First of all, I want to thank Mr Dennis Tan for his strong support for road safety. Indeed, we need all groups of road users, whether they are motorists, riders or pedestrians, to take more care in order for us to reduce the rate of accidents, especially accidents leading to injuries and fatalities.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow As for culpability, when TP investigates cases and when assessing what kind of charges should be preferred against those who violate traffic rules, culpability will be assessed holistically. And so, I wish to assure the Member that the circumstances will be looked into, and it would not be the case where there will always be one type of road users who are blamed disproportionately. The entire situation of how the accident was caused must be looked into and I believe that is also the approach that our Courts take.
Increasing Enforcement against Cyclists and E-bike Users for Riding without Helmets, Front and Rear Lights, and Rising against Traffic Flow And as for repeat offenders, cyclists and e-bike users are treated like our cars and other kinds of motorised vehicles on the roads in the sense that we expect them to keep to our traffic rules, we expect them to observe them. The kinds of enforcement that we take are also similar.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards 3 Dr Choo Pei Ling asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health in light of global competition and rising domestic demand for healthcare manpower (a) how Singapore is strengthening long-term workforce sustainability while maintaining care standards; and (b) whether workforce planning assumptions are being reviewed to ensure resilience amid tightening regional labour markets.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Sir, ensuring an adequate healthcare workforce to meet rising healthcare demand is a foremost priority for the Ministry. We adopt a multi-pronged workforce strategy to ensure sufficient healthcare manpower while maintaining care standards and regularly update our plans as circumstances change.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Our focus continues to be to build up the local core of our healthcare workforce through diversifying training pathways, increasing local intakes for healthcare programmes and ensuring that job roles are attractive and salaries are competitive. We bring in qualified foreign healthcare workers in areas of shortfall. And to ensure resilience, we diversify the sources of foreign recruitment and secure government-to-government bilateral manpower cooperation agreements with regional countries.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards We will continue to invest in good preventive health and right-site patients to appropriate care settings to keep our healthcare system sustainable.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Dr Choo.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you to the Senior Minister of State for the response.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Beyond expanding training capacity and recruitment, how is the Ministry redesigning care models and workforce structures so that productivity gains translate into more sustainable workloads? Beyond that, how are we strengthening retention of experienced mid-career and senior healthcare professionals whose institutional knowledge is critical to long-term resilience? And finally, as demographic and disease trends evolve in the next decade, how is our workforce planning being aligned with broader healthcare transformation efforts to ensure that sustainability is present beyond immediate capacity expansion?
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Sir, I thank the Member for her three supplementary questions. As I will be giving a more holistic treatment of this subject on healthcare manpower in my Committee of Supply speeches, I will be brief on the three supplementary questions.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards For the first supplementary question on how we are redesigning care models to ensure the workloads are sustainable, I would just briefly say that we are shifting from more team-based care to a more shared care model, in which we allow more cross training among the healthcare professionals in adjacent domains, so that they can provide more shared care for patients who may need a lower acuity of care outside their area of expertise. For example, among the allied health professionals, a physiotherapist and occupational therapist may share the same patient, for which they can provide some degree of support or guidance to a patient who needs an adjacent sector of care. So, that would not require an overburdening of another fellow professional, for which they can give simple advice in their own capacity.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards We will also be doing care team transformation. So, one idea is to then change the idea of a specialist being always the principal doctor in charge of a patient to having someone else who can coordinate the care other than a specialist, so that the workload can be better distributed and care is less fragmented.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards On the second supplementary question on strengthening retention of more senior or mid-career professionals in the healthcare sector, as I said in my main reply, we looked at making sure the salary is competitive compared to other sectors so that there will be a good reason to retain them, but also making sure that they are able to practise at the top of their licence. So, through redesigning the job and making the career progression pathway a lot more seamless and more fluid, we allow these professionals to practise at the top of their licence so that they actually have satisfaction in their professional career.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards But beyond their own professional satisfaction, we also want to make sure that the work environment is one which is inclusive and supportive. So, each of our healthcare clusters have a Chief Welfare Officer that looks at the welfare initiatives to encourage and support our healthcare staff who work under reasonably stressful situations.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards And finally, we also have systems in place to prevent harassment and abuse at the workplace of our healthcare professionals and we take a zero tolerance stance. So, we also send a signal that we are protecting their workspaces and supporting them in the work that they do.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards The third supplementary question on how the workforce planning is being aligned with care transformation, I will briefly say that we are also creating new career tracks. For example, in the hospital setting, we are creating a new category of career track for doctors. We call them hospital clinicians. These are pegged similar to how a specialist would progress in the hospital and by doing so, we open up pathways for doctors even within the hospital setting to have fulfilling careers. And in the primary care sector, we have also announced that we will grow the pool of family medicine specialists, designating family medicine as a specialty itself, so that we can then grow the pool of general practitioners who are prepared to train at a higher level and deliver care at a higher level of acuity in the community, and thereby aligning that with our overall transformation to community care settings and helping patients to accept their care in the community.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Mr Cai Yinzhou.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Thank you, Speaker. Thank you, Senior Minister of State for the reply. I have a question regarding foreign domestic workers in Singapore. I understand we have 300,000 foreign domestic workers who form about one-fifth of our foreign workforce. Many of them work in the homes in the care settings at home, taking care of seniors with a range of conditions as well, some more severe than others.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards May I ask the Senior Minister of State if we are considering having a professionalised track for foreign domestic workers to specialise in the aspect of palliative or geriatric care, considering that is part of what they are already doing at home, in order to professionalise our home care setting?
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards My second question is also for foreign domestic workers who are really good in taking care of seniors. Sometimes, after the seniors pass on, they are unable to continue taking care of another senior in another home setting. Do we have options for these foreign domestic workers to progress to also join the community care sector as a care staff, or even nurses as well?
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards Sir, the short answer to that is that we have no plans to turn foreign domestic workers into healthcare professionals in the formal sense.
Strengthening Long-term Healthcare Workforce Sustainability while Maintaining Care Standards For those who want more details, stay back for the Ministry of Health Committee of Supply taking place in the next two days.
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status 4 Mr Lee Hong Chuang asked the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance whether giving out CDC vouchers to every Singaporean household regardless of socioeconomic status results in worsening cost-of-living due to demand-pull inflation.
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status Mr Speaker, the Community Development Council (CDC) Vouchers Scheme is one of several measures introduced to help Singaporeans manage their cost of living.
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status There is no evidence that the CDC Vouchers Scheme has worsened the cost-of-living due to inflation. The Consumer Price Index (CPI)-All items inflation has moderated in recent years, from 4.8% in 2023, to 2.4% in 2024 and 0.9% in 2025, even though the quantum of CDC vouchers increased over that period.
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status Mr Lee Hong Chuang.
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status I want to thank Senior Parliamentary Secretary Shawn Huang for his reply. I just have one supplementary question. Has the Government conducted any studies to what extent the CDC vouchers have helped households manage the cost of living?
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status I thank the Member for the question. The Government regularly reviews the effectiveness of our schemes to ensure that they continue to help Singaporeans manage cost of living concerns.
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status Over the years, in response to high inflationary pressures, we have progressively reviewed and enhanced the Assurance Package (AP) with additional cash, U-Save, Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) rebates and CDC vouchers. And in total, we actually increased the support delivered via the AP from an initial $6.6 billion in 2022 to more than $10 billion in 2025. These enhancements have fully offset the expenditure increases arising from high inflation for lower-income households and substantially offset the expenditure increases for middle-income households each year from 2022 to 2025.
Impact on Inflation with CDC Vouchers Given to Singapore Households Regardless of Socio-economic Status The Government also provides substantial structural support to help Singaporeans manage major costs of living concerns, like education, healthcare, housing and retirement. And on top of this, we also provide targeted structural support for vulnerable groups, such as the Workfare Income Supplement Scheme for lower-wage workers, the Fresh Start Housing Scheme for lower-income families and the Silver Support Scheme for seniors who had low incomes in their working years. And when necessary, we will complement these structural measures with one-off additional support for households. This approach allows us to provide more responsive and targeted support while remaining fiscally prudent.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes 5 Dr Hamid Razak asked the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) whether the Ministry will review the CDC Vouchers eligibility framework to consider caregiving arrangements where related but distinct family nuclei reside at the same registered address, such as married children living with parents for caregiving purposes; and (b) whether alternative criteria may be used to recognise them as separate households.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes Mr Chairman, the Community Development Council (CDC) Vouchers Scheme is a broad-based scheme designed to help all Singaporean households with daily expenses.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes The CDC Vouchers Scheme is complemented by schemes that support the different family circumstances of Singaporean households, such as the Assurance Package Cash, Child LifeSG Credits and the Silver Support Scheme for eligible households.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes For caregivers, the Government has, over the years, increased subsidies for long-term care services and enhanced the Home Caregiving Grant and the Seniors’ Mobility and Enabling Fund to provide greater financial relief to caregivers. Caregivers can also apply for the Migrant Domestic Worker Levy Concession if they need more help to care for their loved ones.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes The Government will continue to regularly review our measures to ensure Singaporeans in need of help will receive the appropriate support.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes Dr Hamid Razak.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the reply. Earlier this month, I think, Member Yeo Wan Ling did ask about unrelated Singaporean households living in the same registered address, and the Ministry had replied that those are easily appealed through a process.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes This question is actually stemming out of some of my households in Jurong Spring and Gek Poh, where family nuclei are residing together. For example, a daughter who has moved out of a place to live in with a senior mother or grandparent, and looking after them full-time with her own family, living with her young children. And because they are related, they are unable to appeal for the CDC vouchers. So, this household actually has a fair number of individuals living in a single registered address and they have to change the address because, legally, they are required to do so since they are living permanently with someone else. So, these households have maybe about eight to nine people each. And these appeals unfortunately did not get through.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes So, I appreciate that Senior Parliamentary Secretary has said that the Ministry will continue to review the criteria. Hopefully, if the data shows that there are growing number of households with such situations, one of the ways we can do is with what fellow Members have asked for during the course of the serious debates, to perhaps look at the number of persons in the household and maybe we can have a calibrated approach to the quantum of CDC vouchers given to larger households in Singapore.
Reviewing CDC Vouchers Eligibility in View of Distinct Family Nuclei Residing in Same Address for Caregiving Purposes I thank the Member, Dr Hamid Razak, for providing that feedback and we will most certainly take it back to consider.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears 6 Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) whether the percentage of households with utility bill arrears has increased over the past five years; and (b) how will the Ministry ensure that lower-income households with utility arrears are well supported so that their electricity and water supplies are not disrupted.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears Minister for Sustainability and the Environment): Sir, over the past five years, the percentage of households with utility bills in arrears for six months or more have decreased from about 0.5% to 0.2%.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears The Government provides targeted support to those who may require assistance with their utility bills. Eligible lower- and middle-income Housing and Development Board households enjoy U-Save rebates to help offset utility expenses. Resident households that require additional financial assistance can tap on various community and social assistance schemes.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears For households with more severe arrears, water supply will not be shut off. Instead, flow restrictors are installed to reduce the rate of flow of water to these premises and normal flow of water will be restored once the arrears are paid off. These households will also be offered the Pay-As-You-Use scheme for their electricity supply until outstanding arrears are settled.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears Mr Abdul Muhaimin.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears The current U-Save rebate framework is tiered by flat type, not by household need or circumstance. Is the Ministry aware that low-income families caring for sick or disabled members at home, such as those requiring home oxygen or concentrators, electric suction machines, motorised wheelchairs on charge or frequent bathing due to incontinence, face structurally higher utility consumption that is not of their choosing? Will the Ministry consider recognising caregiving needs as a distinct basis for enhanced utility support?
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears I thank the Member for his supplementary question. We all recognise that different households beyond room types may have different needs depending on the composition of their household.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears Currently, as the Member mentioned, the U-Save rebates are organised based on room types. If we are required to look at further circumstances of the household, this will then necessitate further gradation of that classification. So, it will require further study.
Percentage of Households with Utility Bill Arrears But I do want to point out that beyond U-Save rebates, there are other forms of assistance that recognise these different caregiving needs, as explained by the responses in the earlier Parliamentary Questions related to caregiving, as well as other form of community assistance provided by, for example, the Community Development Councils.
10.30 am 7 Ms Valerie Lee asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry has studied ways to encourage a shift towards more outcome-based work arrangements, rather than structured time-based models, where appropriate; and (b) what measures are in place to support employers and employees in adopting such practices while safeguarding productivity and employee well-being.
10.30 am Both employers and employees may benefit from outcome-based work arrangements, where the nature of the job allows. However, such a model may not be suitable for jobs that would require shift work or a physical presence. Many professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) already work on the basis of delivering successful outcomes with limited tracking of work hours. As our workforce profile and the nature of jobs continues to evolve, we may expect more employers and employees to adopt such flexible work arrangements.
10.30 am The Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests sets out the process for workers to formally request for flexible work arrangements and for employers to consider these requests on reasonable business grounds. As part of implementation, employers and workers should mutually agree on the outcomes and how to track them.
10.30 am The Government also supports employers in adopting technology and redesigning jobs through enterprise and workforce transformation initiatives so that work can be done more efficiently. This enables workers to deliver higher value in less time, improving productivity and enabling outcome-based approaches to work.
10.30 am Even as some work arrangements move towards outcome rather than time-based management, we recognise the need for employees to have healthy work-life boundaries. The Tripartite Advisory on Mental Health and Well-being at Workplaces sets out good practices for employers that support the well-being of their workers, including setting reasonable expectations of after-hours work communications and communicating them to employees. Such practices could include not requiring employees to respond to non-urgent work-related messages and emails until the following working day.
10.30 am Ms Lee.
10.30 am Thank you, Speaker, and thank you to the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. I have two supplementary questions.
10.30 am Has the Ministry studied the correlation between flexible results-oriented work models with productivity?
10.30 am And second, this question honestly was inspired by one of my residents who work for the Ministry. Has the Government, for public servants, demonstrated a work performance management system that weighs heavily on outcomes rather than time spent at work, meaning a Government-led work performance management system?
10.30 am I thank the Member for the two supplementary questions. For the first supplementary question, there is no specific particular study that will measure specific outcomes between flexible work arrangements and key performance. That is from the Ministry side.
10.30 am But our survey results, from the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and also from our workers, show that flexible work arrangements are ranked number one in terms of preferred requirements, compared to other leave and even financial contributions. They appreciate such arrangements because they will have flexibility in taking care of their children, they have flexibility in providing caregiving needs as required.
10.30 am In fact, this conversation should be between workers and employers as well – having a good conversation on what are the performance work outcomes required, and what are the tools and redesigning of the workplaces required to achieve productivity increases.
10.30 am In terms of performance, we leave it to the market and also the employers to determine what is the best performance and what is value for money.
10.30 am For the second one, within Ministries in terms of requiring work performance, I think, there is always a balance. Also, because within the Government, there is a myriad of roles. Some require presence and time, especially for security personnel, and some are mainly pure outcomes. And so, we work in very different ways and based on that tiering, we leave it to the supervisors to manage the staff and how they deliver those outcomes.
10.30 am Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.
10.30 am If I may build very quickly on the second supplementary question by Member Valerie Lee. I am wondering the extent to which the Government actually monitors and ensures that Government-affiliated institutions, such as our autonomous universities, also respect these kinds of flexible work arrangements.
10.30 am I ask because of news reports that speak to how academics at the National University of Singapore, where outcomes are certainly the main way that we measure academic performance and are nevertheless forced to spend a significant amount of time in the office even though outcomes ultimately are the way that their performance is measured.
10.30 am I thank Member Assoc Prof Jamus Lim for that particular question. In fact, flexible work arrangements are considered pretty nascent. I think the entire job market is also learning. Employers and employees are learning how to make those requests and employers are learning different ways in terms of flexi load – whether it is flexi place, flexi time as well – on how they deliver flexible work arrangements.
10.30 am On that note, in terms of the autonomous universities, it is an autonomous university. We leave it to the universities to decide how they determine outcomes and performance, and we encourage them to have deeper conversations with their employees and staff on their flexible work arrangements. And if they need any help, they can always approach Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices; if not, the Institute for Human Resource Professionals; if not, then NTUC. There are many toolkits and resources made available online and we are happy to help with that conversation.
10.30 am Order. End of Question Time. The Clerk will now proceed to read the Order of the Day.
10.30 am [Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]
Estimates of Expenditure for the Financial Year 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 - Committee of Supply – Paper Cmd 4 of 2026 [(proc text) Order read for consideration in Committee of Supply [4th Allotted Day]. (proc text)]
Estimates of Expenditure for the Financial Year 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 - Committee of Supply – Paper Cmd 4 of 2026 [Mr Speaker in the Chair]
1.45 pm [(proc text) Head K (cont) – (proc text)]
1.45 pm [(proc text) Resumption of Debate on Question [2 March 2026], (proc text)]
1.45 pm [(proc text) "That the total sum to be allocated for Head K of the Estimates be reduced by $100." – [Mr Darryl David]. (proc text)]
1.45 pm [(proc text) Question again proposed. (proc text)]
1.45 pm Minister Desmond Lee.
1.45 pm Mr Chairman, as a small nation without natural resources or hinterland, Singapore's success has always depended on our people. Education has been a core engine that equips Singaporeans with what they need to take on new challenges.
1.45 pm In the post-Independence years when survival was priority, we focused on basic education. In the 1970s, we shifted away from a one-size-fits-all approach and improved educational outcomes through streaming and differentiated pathways. From the late 1990s, we broadened our definition of success by recognising diverse strengths and abilities.
1.45 pm Since the 2010s, we have increased emphasis on students' holistic development and strengthened lifelong learning. During the Budget and Committee of Supply (COS) debates, Members spoke about the uncertainty and challenges brought about by the geopolitical paradigm shift, artificial intelligence (AI) and the existential threat of climate change, and proposed many ways to better prepare Singaporeans, through education, for the future.
1.45 pm I thank Members for your suggestions, which we will study carefully.
1.45 pm In our next bound of education reform, we want to support every Singaporean to learn and reach their full potential, regardless of their starting point, and to seize opportunities in a fast-changing world. In line with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's call for a "we first" society, we will "Learn For Life, Together".
1.45 pm Today, I will speak about how we will refresh our education system in three ways.
1.45 pm First, we will learn together. Students of different strengths and needs will be developed to their full potential. We will also uplift disadvantaged students and support those with Special Educational Needs (SEN).
1.45 pm Second, we will grow together. To prepare students for the future, we will further strengthen our focus on holistic development, where students develop core values and critical life skills, and learn to interact and build bridges across differences, instead of just chasing after academic grades.
1.45 pm We will also encourage and equip our students to be innovative and enterprising, to pursue deep learning in an AI-transformed world and support them in their journey towards lifelong learning.
1.45 pm Lastly, let us work together, educators, parents as well as industry and community partners, to build a stronger education ecosystem.