Budget 2023 debate: Christopher de Souza on hard decisions in balancing trade-offs

Hard decisions have to be made on finding a balance between various trade-offs as Singapore deliberates ways to move forward, said MP Christopher de Souza. Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday (Feb 22), he pointed out that this year's Budget involves hard questions where solutions sometimes involve competing interests. He highlighted two such issues. The first is the growing number of workplace injuries and fatalities. He stressed the need to build a strong safety culture. He pointed out that the manpower crunch is adding to the pressure to work faster and increasing the risk of hazards. He said this is a trade-off he is "not willing to pay".  Another issue is education, where he called for a "rethink" of the system and syllabus to develop students who will be able to tackle the problems of tomorrow. Mr de Souza proposed reshaping the system to focus on skills, such as critical thinking, which hopefully would lighten the actual workload. "I would even suggest perhaps that we need to consider doing away with the PSLE altogether," he said. He said results cannot be the only marker. Removing the PSLE would reduce the pressure, and students would be geared towards education, not results, he added.