[debono]

Many of our problems lie with ourselves, or rather, on how our perspectives of things are shaped by the govt. I have seen many tech people in other countries moving from industry to industry with very little barrier and very little discrimination.

In Singapore, people seem to develop a mentality that when you're trained in one specialization, you've got to remain in this area, and if you moved around then it's because you're a reject, or that you got no choice.

In my opinion, people should be trained in the technical fields, because it developed their logical thinking and then they can move on to do other things. An engineer can be transited to do business and marketing but the other way is usually not possible. But now, engineering has become a dirty word, and has become an occupation even less desirable than those of the business and marketing streams. AI and data analytics jobs that are so hot now could be easily filled by engineers, since in truth, these areas actually involved a lot less mathematics and complexity than engineering. Instead, no, employers tend to look for 'IT trained personnel', and thus restrict their choice and they had to look for overseas talents.

In order to have less dependency on foreigners, Singaporeans must first be prepared to accept the mobility of our own people across different domains. The education system cannot predict trends, and never can, because the future is unpredictable. Only by having our people develop immense curiosity and trained esp. in the core technical skills can they have more options in the job market.

Well said, and I concur......