The 2013 National Day Rally is very significant. More than the sum of policy improvements, it reflects an emerging new path. In addition to helping individual Singaporeans and families, this new direction will help Singapore face challenges beyond our shores — and there are many.

Old challenges persist, such as energy and resource security. Oil prices surge with each geopolitical event in the Middle East. We have diversified into liquefied natural gas (LNG), but a sustained oil shock would still impact LNG prices.

New challenges have emerged. With countries interlinked by air travel, every city is only an airline route away from the epicentre of the next pandemic infection. With interlinked financial markets and easy capital movements, the Western economies’ recent efforts pose inflation and asset bubble risks which open economies have to tackle.

Industry around the world is changing. Some speak of a coming Third Industrial Revolution. 3D printing (which the Prime Minister spoke about) is one of many disruptive technologies which can overturn established manufacturing models. A designer with a 3D printer can do what used to require an entire assembly line of factory workers — not to mention the businesses supporting that factory and its staff.

Other disruptive technologies such as cloud computing and intelligent software assistants will similarly transform knowledge-based work.

We also live in interesting times, with a more complex international environment. China is experiencing the journey from great power to superpower, but its one-child policy also presents a certain urgency: Will its population grow rich enough before growing old?

The United States remains optimistic, but lacks the same dominance it possessed immediately after the end of the Cold War. However the US-China relationship evolves — whether into competition or partnership — it will be important for both sides to understand each other well, to avoid miscalculation.

How does Singapore’s new direction help address these challenges?

EDUCATION: GRADES NOT ENOUGH

During the industrialisation phase of our development, mass literacy and academic skills were needed. These remain essential, but we should not over-optimise, which is what happened with Primary School Leaving Examination T-scores.

Over-optimisation leads to opportunity cost elsewhere: Sports, non-academic skills, community service — or even the fallow periods of time during which students learn how to exercise their imagination.

The workforce of tomorrow will not survive on paper qualifications alone. Workers must ask education providers if they are selling hope — or skills which are in demand by Singapore employers and the world.

As the world changes, citizens, families and society will need the values, resilience and imagination to adapt; to transform in response to shifting realities.

HOUSING: REPERCUSSIONS BEYOND

Buying a house near to the limit of one’s means carries hidden risks. If the debt servicing ratio is high, a rise in interest rates or change in job status can land a household in deep trouble.

When repayments take the form of large cash outlays rather than from the Central Provident Fund, there is less disposable income which could be used to upgrade skills or to save up for starting a business.

More affordable home ownership thus brings benefits beyond housing: It can help workers and families better withstand the uncertainties of the 21st-century economy.

HEALTHCARE: MORE EQUITABILITY

For some time, there has been a gap between aspiration and reality in health insurance — as pointed out by many commentators over the years.

Ideally, the insurance market would find an appropriate price for the excess risk arising from pre-existing illnesses. In practice, it was often easier for an insurance company to deny coverage.

This led to inequitable outcomes, such as a lady with a benign breast cyst being denied coverage for breast cancer.

MediShield Life will extend universal insurance coverage to all Singaporeans, regardless of age and pre-existing illnesses.

ONE PEOPLE TOGETHER

Looking beyond the policy announcements, the new direction is about a deeper, timeless truth: That everybody must pull together if we are collectively and individually to survive and thrive.

Government helping to keep the system open for good men and women to succeed regardless of background; communities sharing risks and burdens which no person should carry alone; individuals stepping up to give back to society. Only then can Singapore be best prepared for what lies beyond our tiny shores and over the horizon.

This is a special challenge in the era of globalisation, which has brought many opportunities but many pressures and many temptations too.

With mobility of labour and outsourcing, it is tempting for an employer to take the easy way out: Letting go of long-serving workers so as to hire cheap new labour, rather than training and upgrading the skills of loyal staff.

Even as the Internet brings information and opens minds, never has it been easier for people to close their eyes to their neighbours’ lives, to think only of getting ahead and getting rich, rather than of what can be done for their fellow men and women.

In Singapore, we can and must be better than that.

We must shape social norms to overcome the limitations of markets, to bend the arc of history towards a brighter outcome.

We must be a society where children make time for and look after their parents, where men and women look out for their brothers and sisters, where employers look upon their workers as partners and not as numbers. We must be a family of Singaporeans, not a hotel, not a corporation.

We must be a community. When the call comes to help our fellow citizens who are less well-off, we must answer that call — each Singaporean saying “Yes, I can”, rather than asking if he is his brother’s keeper, or saying it’s somebody else’s problem.

By building that Greater Society, we can be one united people together. It will not be easy, but what is easy may not be right. State, community and citizen — all must have the courage to do the difficult things, not for difficulty’s sake, but because a fair and just society is worth fighting for.

Amidst an uncertain world, all of us have a role as we strive to build a better Singapore: not only the tangibles of bricks and mortar, but also the intangibles of a society with values, cohesion and resilience. A future Singapore which will seem as wondrous to us today as the present day seems, compared to 1965.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tan Wu Meng is a medical doctor working in a public sector hospital.