"In A*STAR, 70 percent of our scholars are HDB kids, these kids are the ones we're spending a lot of money on. If they don't have a sense of value, Singapore has no future. If people don't have a sense of value, they're worse than mercenaries.

"My generation has a value system. We hope the present generation does too. People who don't have that, we better forget them and hire more hungry non-Singaporeans to come here and add to our value system. If you have no value system, there is no future.

"I'm known to be very tough because I believe we must have a value system. Maybe I'm old fashioned." - P. Yeo, Mar 07

From 6 to 18 years old, the average Singapore kid spends approximately 8 hours in a government school. That's about 1/3 of their formative years. If the youth is a male, he will then spend the next 2 years in National Service. If Mr. Yeo believes they do not possess a value system, then it can (should?) also be inferred that the government lacks the ability to inculcate one. At least, one that he deems worthy.

Mr. Yeo is no stranger to sweeping statements (bachelor grads as test tube washers, whiny post-NS males) but this latest salvo hints at what many perceive to be the growing divide between state and citizen. It is easy to talk of value systems and not define it. It is easy to qualify that the older generation had it, easy to slyly insinuate that younger generation is clueless about it. It is easy to employ buzzwords in bombastic rhetoric, when your target audience is too engrossed with the challenges of daily life to decipher the barbs.

The government should hire all the foreign expertise it wants, to punch over its weight and to compensate for this alleged lack in value systems. However, it should also remember that a government ultimately works with its people, not around them. Forget that, and the government will have no future.

As an aside, some people are 'tough' because of the values they hold. Others are perceived to be tough because of their histrionics. Yet others are labeled 'tough' because the true adjective is too rude to be uttered in public. One is never too old-fashioned to know the difference.