SINGAPORE: You see a man with sunglasses enter the MRT train gripping a white cane. He has a badge that says ‘BLIND’, pinned to his shirt. He moves towards the reserved seat for the elderly, disabled, pregnant and injured, but a woman beats him to it. 

The train is packed. The man suddenly turns pale and starts swaying unsteadily. He calls out: “I’m going to faint, I need to sit down, does anyone have sugar?”

What would you do?

For most people in the train carriage where the scenario above unfolded for visually-impaired Jim Bek, the answer was to do nothing.

“I’m diabetic and I was going into hypoglycemia – lacking glucose – and blacking out; I was asking for help, and people nearby just ignored me,” said the 53-year-old.

It took a while before a couple and another passenger on the other side of the carriage noticed and rushed over to assist. “They told the lady to let me sit, and tried to get sugar for me,” said Mr Bek. “They also wanted to press the alarm to stop the train. But it was peak period. I couldn’t do that to the thousands of people.” 

So at the next stop, he was helped out in a “semi-conscious” state, and station staff took over. This was just one of many “challenging” public encounters for Mr Bek, who has about 10 per cent normal vision and describes what he sees as “a camera that’s out of focus, blur, dim, and with no colour”.  

He’s been knocked over by a dog while taking a walk. Once, his cane flew from his grasp as he was bumped around in a crowded MRT station. But most common of all – wrangling for a reserved seat. 

“I’ve had passengers either say ‘I also pay what’, or just plug in their earphones,” said Mr Bek.

For the Ministry of Education (MOE) counsellor – Singapore’s first and only visually-impaired one – this is no less than “prejudice” against persons with disabilities (PWDs).

“I used to be quite upset and disgruntled each time. It’s sad, what’s happened to our community. We are Asians, we’re supposed to look out for one another, that’s our heritage,” said Mr Bek, who is also a consultant, clinical supervisor and sought-after public speaker. 

CONQUERING EARLY TRIALS

Mr Bek was 18 months old and riding a tricycle when he tumbled down a flight of stairs one-storey high and landed in a coma for three days. Waking up, he’d lost 60 per cent of his vision – but thought the world through his eyes then “was what everybody else saw”.

His condition was only discovered in primary three when a teacher who volunteered with the blind noticed he was struggling and persuaded his parents to have him tested.

He transferred to the now-defunct Singapore School for the Blind, where he studied up to the GCE ‘A’ Levels. Mr Bek then embarked on a successful corporate career in marketing – though it was not always smooth-sailing for someone in his position.

“Local companies found it hard to accept my ‘challenges’, but foreign companies here were a bit more open to see how I’d perform,” he said.

There was the time a colleague took advantage of his visual impairment to “dupe” him into signing a resignation letter embellished with “nasty” words to the boss. Mr Bek recounted: “The boss thought I was ungrateful and was furious. He chased me out of the office and threw my things out to the corridor.” 

“He later learned it wasn’t me, but because of my pride at the time, I didn’t want to go back.”

Despite having less than half of his sight in his 20s, he was also an avid runner, swimmer and cyclist who scaled Mount Kinabalu once.

Then disaster struck in 1997. With several relatives hospitalised that year, Mr Bek spent a significant amount of time caregiving and wound up exposed to bacteria which caused a severe infection in the orbit of his eye. 

He survived a life-threatening surgery, but it further reduced his vision to 10 per cent – and cost him his job as a result.

“It was quite an eventful year. I also lost my father-in-law, mother-in-law, father, cousin, aunty,” Mr Bek said slowly. “I was trying to console people around me but not really managing myself well.” 

Unable to “function as proficiently” as he needed to, he decided to step out of the corporate world and embrace a second career – in counselling.

“KEEP GOING”

While obtaining a master’s in counselling, Mr Bek also pioneered archery and sailing for the local visually-impaired community in the early 2000s.

He joined MOE in 2007 and was posted to Pasir Ris Primary, where he recalls parents asking “How can you have a blind counsellor counselling my kid?”

“Counselling is about listening, not seeing,” he chuckled, adding that they eventually just needed to get “accustomed” to him.

Now at Greendale Secondary, Mr Bek helps at least four students on a typical day, with issues such as long-term absenteeism, anxiety, anger, grief, loss and more.

The latter topics are close to his heart. In 2015 he was dealt the biggest blow of his life yet when his wife of 27 years passed away – from a rare condition where the body calcifies due to a phosphorus imbalance.

“She was actually diagnosed as critical in 2013, and the doctor said she’d only have up to six months. But she held on for one year and three months – because she was more worried for me than her own condition,” said Mr Bek, who now lives alone with his two cats Putri and Tiara.

“She was my crutch, my soulmate, my everything; and one day she just wasn’t there. But every day I wake up, I’m a day closer to her.”

He spoke calmly and steadily, but there was no hiding the poignancy in his voice – even as he sought humour amidst melancholy. “It’s tough now, like when I have to change the bedsheets – I have friends coming over and telling me my bed is multi-coloured,” Mr Bek laughed.

“But she was always telling me she’ll be on the other side waiting, so don’t worry, enjoy my life, stay occupied, keep going; keep doing what I like to do best.”

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

For now, that passion lies in his counselling work, which he said he was having the “most wonderful time” doing.

But Mr Bek, who is also the president of the Singapore Association for Counselling, added: “There are members of society who still feel someone like me is best to be in places like the Disabled People’s Association, rather than taking their income or fortune or work or career.”

This is his other preoccupation – to close the perceived distance between PWDs and the public at large.

“It’s also our responsibility to help them appreciate us better,” said Mr Bek, who recently featured in a National Council of Social Service campaign titled See The True Me.

“Are PWDs aware of themselves? Have they accepted their condition?” he mulled.

“For me, this only happened recently: I was staring in the mirror one day – at least at what’s left of what I can see – and I was so angry and frustrated, thinking why can’t people understand I’m blind and need help.”

“At that moment I realised: Why am I not accepting that I’m blind? Why am I always trying to prove to the rest; to show how good I am?”

“We need to have a mindset change,” said Mr Bek. “PWDs must know their strengths rather than lean on their limitations. Going to negativity – what good does it do?”

“You know, Singapore is not that huge, we have a dense population, our literacy level is good, we can communicate,” he reflected. “So it’s really about spending a little more time to just listen and understand what’s going on.”

“There are people who still have fear; who still don’t know what PWDs can or cannot do … It’s my hope that we can all learn to embrace each other, work alongside each other, in a respectful, better way.”

(Photos: Justin Ong)

SINGAPORE: Over the past decade, there have been several notable trends and shifts in higher education in Asia. 

Three major developments in particular are reshaping the higher education sector in Asia in significant ways that look set to persist.

These include the vast growth in the number of students enrolled in post-secondary education, a focus on the liberal arts education model at several leading universities, and the changing model of research, innovation and enterprise.

For global academic institutions deciding on their strategic goals and positioning, it is essential that they read the waters well and understand how these shifts are affecting their models of education and learning.

VAST ENROLMENTS

While developed economies like South Korea and Japan have maintained high post-secondary enrolment rates for many years, the story of the past decade has been the unprecedented speed and scale of this growth in China, and, to a lesser degree, India.

The numbers are remarkable, with enrolments by 2020 estimated at more than 37 million in China and more than 27 million in India. In my view, this is generally a good thing, as it is giving many students the opportunity to develop intellectually and pursue expanded career options.

But it has also resulted in significant challenges. In South Korea, graduate unemployment among 25 to 29-year-olds rose to 8.2 per cent in November 2016, not a particularly high figure in global terms but from an East Asian perspective, a recent historic high.

There are also concerns over mismatches between the skills graduates leave university with and the needs of industry and employers, as well as questions about the quality of teaching and learning, an issue that has raised concerns in India.

In China, the rapid expansion of higher education has resulted in mismatches in the supply of and demand for graduates – major cities with large concentrations of graduates have high unemployment, whereas small and medium cities have an insufficient number of graduates to meet demand.

This may be a short-term phenomenon as the Chinese government is reported to be converting several colleges into vocational schools to focus on skills matching to address concerns of not just high unemployment rates but falling graduate salaries.

For a small country like Singapore, a key question is how do we ensure our graduates retain a talent edge, given the huge growth in graduates in the region?

A DEMAND FOR A LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION

A second major shift is the growing desire to improve the quality of teaching, with a trending rise in interest in liberal arts education programmes among several leading universities in Asia. This is a shift away from an education model of early deep specialisation towards one with greater academic breadth.

It is also a shift from pedagogies traditionally based on rote learning and lectures towards more interactive modes of learning, such as tutorials, symposiums and seminars. The desired educational outcome is to foster greater levels of creative and critical thinking among students.

It is with this shift in mind that the National University of Singapore (NUS) partnered with Yale University to launch the Yale-NUS College at NUS in 2013, motivated by a joint vision of developing a new model of liberal arts education which brings together the best elements from the US and the intellectual traditions, contexts and culture of Asia.

Our aspiration is to attract top students from Singapore and internationally. We want to nurture a new breed of leaders who have a deep appreciation of Asia and the world, and an ability to see the big picture and the connections between issues as well as the capability to go deep and rigorously into specific issues, and to think of different approaches and solutions.

The Yale-NUS College is starting to bear fruit and has seen consistently strong demand, receiving nearly 8,800 applications from whom 250 students from Singapore and 45 nationalities were admitted for the class of 2021. 

The first graduating class has done well with more than 90 per cent securing jobs, fellowships or graduate study positions in a wide range of sectors, within six months of graduation. A number have been awarded prestigious fellowships including a Rhodes Scholarship and a Schwartzman Scholarship.

SHIFTS IN RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND ENTERPRISE

A third notable shift in higher education in Asia has been the huge growth in investment in world class research. In terms of research and development (R&D) expenditure as a percentage of GDP, South Korea has overtaken Israel as the world’s most R&D-intensive country.

But the most impressive strides have been taken by China, which today accounts for 15 per cent of world scientific publications and has seen its share of the world’s high impact research grow massively over the last 20 years.

In tandem with the growing research strengths, there has been an increasing emphasis on research translation and innovation among universities, particularly in Asia. One important pathway is through deeper R&D collaborations between universities and industry. However, there are a number of mismatches that have traditionally impeded such projects.

Academics are inclined towards publishing papers, while the industry is largely concerned about commercial outcomes and profits. Our academic colleagues like the freedom to explore and to pursue long-term research, but industry is often about timelines, schedules and deliverables.

Even here, though, the landscape is changing. Industry players are adopting open innovation approaches and strategies, and universities are embracing enterprise and innovation as part of their core mission. In fields such as artificial intelligence, computer science and data analytics, there are marked reductions in the time and barriers to move from a high-quality basic research discovery to its high-impact application and commercialisation.

All these are occurring against the backdrop of a new age of empowerment. Technology is levelling up skills and enabling individuals to do many things not possible before. New business and funding models are empowering start-ups and small businesses to pursue ideas at a local, regional or even global scale.

The rapid growth of Asia is creating excellent conditions for universities to develop education, research and entrepreneurial programmes that ride on the new opportunities as well as help address the complex challenges associated with that growth.

THE VIEW FROM NUS

At NUS, we have spent a great deal of time and effort thinking about how we can nurture truly “future-ready” graduates, given the fundamental changes in the nature of work, the need to ensure successful lifelong employability and the requirement to maintain our human capital edge in the face of rapid growth of higher education in Asia.

We have developed programmes aimed at strengthening the essential skills our graduates need to be successful and employable across a lifetime. We have expanded experiential learning to help students build strong personal and interpersonal qualities and foster the ability to think strategically but also to go rigorously into details.

Beyond these, it is critical, in my view, to encourage our students to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, not in the narrow sense of starting a business, but in having the imagination to see new possibilities and the boldness to seize new opportunities.

At NUS, we have also thought deeply about how our university can have a truly transformative impact, bringing benefits to society.

This has resulted in a number of new initiatives. For instance, for the last few years we have worked in close partnership with the Singapore Ministry of Health and many stakeholders, bringing our multidisciplinary research strengths in medicine, finance, behavioural science, engineering, computing, data analytics and others to contribute to the transformation of our healthcare delivery system.

It is through goals and initiatives like these that universities can make a truly transformative impact that benefits society, and make them key places where the future is imagined and shaped and young people are inspired and empowered to contribute to the shaping of that future.

Professor Tan Chorh Chuan is the President of National University of Singapore. This commentary is based on the Higher Education Policy Institute 2017 Lecture he delivered on Dec 7 at the Royal Society.

SINGAPORE: When a high-rise building in Singapore needs to be demolished, contractors don’t come in with a wrecking ball.

At least not now. “Last time, they used a concrete ball,” Ginlee Construction managing director Tommy Lim told Channel NewsAsia. “But of course, last time, the HDB (Housing and Development Board) blocks were 10 storeys tall.”

With demolition works for the iconic, multi-coloured Rochor Centre set to begin early next year, what exactly goes on when a building is pulled down?

Mr Lim, who founded the award-winning demolition contractor more than two decades ago, said wrecking balls take too long and make too much noise. Furthermore, buildings here are too tall and too close to each other.

That’s also why explosives are not used. And you need someone with a lot of expertise to place the explosives in a way that brings the entire building down in one fell swoop, Mr Lim said.

“The worst part is if you cannot blast it down, how? It’s a big headache.”

So in most cases, contractors in Singapore use concrete breakers and crushers. “They hoist the machines all the way up to the rooftop,” Mr Lim said. “From there, floor by floor they hack it down.”

PREPARING WELL IS ESSENTIAL

Sounds simple enough … but Mr Ng said there is plenty of preparation and planning involved before work actually begins. There are meetings to attend and presentations to conduct.

“Even if the head knows what is going on, doesn’t mean the person on site knows,” Mr Lim said. “We must make sure everybody understand their role in the project.”

When a building owner puts up a tender for demolition, Mr Lim will first make a site visit.

Several things will be on his checklist.

He needs to map out how workers will enter and exit the building and how to dispose of the demolition debris.

He will also need to estimate the project duration – how long it would take to demolish the structure.

Delays are costly – with the penalty for not meeting a deadline amounting to tens of thousands of dollars a day, Mr Lim said.

He said delays could happen if there’re many days of heavy rain while the project is being carried out or the contractor fails to meet standards set by the authorities. Mr Lim said the latter would usually lead to a pause in operations, possibly pushing back a project’s completion by months.

There are also restrictions to factor in if the demolition work is going to be carried out near residential areas – within a 150m radius of the worksite. The contractor will have to stop work by 7pm on weekdays and 5pm on Saturdays. No work is allowed on Sundays.

Those concerns will need to be balanced by the project owner’s demands.

“Nowadays, owners are very demanding. Time is actually more valuable than money,” Mr Lim said.

He added that these factors, and the value of salvageable materials in the building, will determine how much the contractor bids for the tender.

According to Mr Lim, a small demolition project – involving a building the size of a semi-detached house – will cost in the thousands, while larger projects can go up to millions of dollars.

“After we visit the site, we will come up with a plan: How do I do it, what methods I should apply,” he said. “We will submit it to the client.”

Mr Lim will conduct a kick-off meeting with everyone involved in the project after the company is awarded the contract.

“We will discuss our scope of work, access, methods and safety,” Mr Lim said. “Regardless of whether you are the boss, worker or supervisor, everybody can contribute.”

He said this meeting is crucial as only those on the ground will know the challenges that might come up. “From there, we will find better methods to use.”

Mr Lim has to wait for the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) to issue a commencement permit before he starts work.

“Sometimes, they might go through your plan and approve,” he said. “If they feel the project is a bit more complicated, they might call the consultant, owner and contractor to come in for a presentation.”

“Demolition work plans must be prepared and submitted by an appropriately qualified person … before a demolition permit will be issued,” BCA said in a circular.

These plans should include an impact assessment report on neighbouring structures, design calculations and environmental protection measures, it added.

These environmental measures, Mr Lim said, include reducing dust by using a mist machine and minimising noise pollution by covering up the worksite.

PRE-DEMOLITION

With the green light given, workers will bring in generators to power the machines as the electrical supply to the building would have been cut. Metal cables will be salvaged and sold. Copper is particularly valuable and can be sold for S$10 a kilogramme.

Likewise, loose items like glass and window panels will be removed. Then, noise and vibration sensors are set up. Demolition works cannot exceed 75 decibels in the day and 65 decibels at night.

A vacuum cleaner is about 75 decibels, while sounds above 85 decibels are generally considered harmful.

The data provided by these sensors, which authorities have direct access to, will determine if noise complaints lodged by the public are valid, Mr Lim said.

Next, external scaffolding is erected to shroud the entire building. “This covers up the working area and prevents loose particles from flying out,” he noted. “The canvas also reduces noise.”

The building’s floors must also be supported so they can carry the extra weight of the machines, which might weigh more than 1,000kg each. The limit for one floor is usually two breakers and one excavator.

“When you break something, a lot of debris will fall on the slab (below),” Mr Lim added. “Directly, this creates extra loading on the structure.”

MACHINES AND SAFETY

When it comes to the machines, Mr Lim prefers to use a specific type that runs on electricity and is remotely-controlled. Workers operate the machine from a distance using a console strapped to their body.

This machine, called the ‘Brokk’, is much safer to use compared to conventional types because an operator is not sitting on the machine, Mr Lim said, citing fatal accidents involving machines at demolition sites.

According to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the most recent demolition-related death was in 2013 at 275 Thomson Road.

A worker was clearing debris using an excavator when he entered a “weakened demolition zone, where demolition work had already progressed down to the first storey”, an MOM spokesperson said.

“As a result, the underlying concrete slab that it was on gave way and collapsed to the basement level,” the spokesperson added. “The excavator overturned onto its side, trapping the operator within the cabin against the beam of the collapsed concrete slabs.”

MOM investigations revealed that the red-and-white safety tapes used to demarcate the area was ineffective as the tapes could be removed, damaged or displaced. In addition, no prominent warning signs or temporary barricades were placed in the weakened demolition zone.

In April 2014, the contractor, Hwa Aik Engineering, was convicted and fined S$60,000 under the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Act for that fatal accident.

The WSH Council said risks incurred during demolition work include overloading and improper removal of bracing members, which can cause instability to structural members.

Because the Brokk weighs 30 per cent less than the average hydraulic breaker, Mr Lim said, it is easier to control and puts less stress on the structure.

However, the versatile machine – which comes in different sizes and can be configured as a breaker or crusher – has an eye-watering price tag of S$300,000 for the 2.6-tonne variant.

“I always tell people I classify it as a Mercedes S-Class,” Mr Lim mused. “But in terms of human life, I think it is worth it.”

“You can say that demolition is quite dangerous,” he said. “But if you do it properly, everything will be fine.”

For safety, Mr Lim covers up gaps and building edges where workers could fall off and marks out a consistent, well-lit emergency escape route.

DEMOLITION IN PROGRESS

Once everything is in place, work can begin, starting from the highest floor.

Work starts on the floor slab first, followed by the beam and then the column or wall, Mr Lim said. This is because of how they support each other. And for obvious reasons, the stairs are the last to go down.

A breaker is used on thicker structures because it is more powerful. A crusher, because it generates less vibration, is used when there is a need to minimise damage to surrounding structures. The excavator is used to remove debris.

This debris is pushed to the ground through the lift shafts because they can take the impact and contain the noise. Loose concrete must be cleared often to prevent excessive stress on the structure, Mr Lim said.

As for manpower, a worker and an assistant operate one machine, while at least three others help out with general tasks, like operating the mist machine which damps down the dust, and removing the scaffolding when the floor comes down.

For the Rochor Centre project, Mr Lim estimates that at least 10 workers will be assigned to each block.

Once everything is brought down, workers have to dig into the ground to break the foundation of the building. At the same time, they have to ensure the soil does not collapse.

In the case of Rochor Centre, Mr Lim said, its foundation must be removed to free up underground space for tunnelling works on the North-South Corridor.

POST-DEMOLITION

When everything has been taken down, what’s left is debris disposal.

Clean concrete, which is reinforced concrete free of bricks, tar and other types of debris, can be sent to construction companies for recycling. “Our roadside drains, footpaths and road kerbs can be built with recycled concrete,” Mr Lim said.

Dirty concrete, which includes debris like floor tiles and timber, are discarded. They cost S$70 a tonne at the incinerator or S$250 per tipper truckload for transportation to the landfill, Mr Lim added.

“It’s not good to dump everything together,” he noted. “Even soil can’t be mixed with concrete. If so, the disposal company will charge more.”

After this is done, the ground must be levelled up if there are no immediate construction works planned for the site. This involves putting on the topsoil and watering it for two to three months to ensure grass grows.

This entire process can take from a month to more than a year, depending on the size of the area or building that needs to be demolished.

In the case of Rochor Centre, he estimates that it will take five to six months for the job to be done.

“When the owner takes over, then your job is done,” Mr Lim declared.

SINGAPORE: Whether you’re looking for a beach party, a night out at a carnival or a night in on the sofa, it would seem that Singapore has no shortage of countdown events to ring in 2018. Here are five picks:

1) MARINA BAY SINGAPORE COUNTDOWN 2018

Billed as “Singapore’s largest countdown celebration”, the Marina Bay and Civic District will be transformed with light projection shows and firework displays. These include projections on The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, Merlion and ArtScience Museum, punctuated by fireworks.

Twice hourly from 8pm until midnight, the buildings around the bay will also be lit up in a sychnronised display of purple, blue and white. Meanwhile, an outdoor bazaar will be held at The Float @ Marina Bay, where you can shop, picnic or just watch the fireworks.

In the Civic District, exhibition galleries at National Gallery Singapore will open till 2am, while the Asian Civilisations Museum will be open till midnight.

More details here.

2) PRUDENTIAL MARINA BAY CARNIVAL

Also on the bay is the Marina Bay Carnival, which will be open from 3pm to 2am at The Promontory and Bayfront Event Space.

In addition to more than 40 rides and games, there will be New Year’s Eve performances by six Singapore rappers, electronic pop and R&B artists including TheLionCityBoy, Jasmine Sokko and Myrne.

More details here.

3) SILOSO BEACH PARTY

Thrill-seekers can literally take the plunge into the New Year from Singapore’s only bungee tower AJ Hackett, which overlooks the Siloso Beach Party at Sentosa.

Brave souls can try their hand at a variety of bungee jumps while getting a bird’s eye view of the beach party from the top of the 15-storey-high tower.

The annual beach party is headlined by Dutch electronic music DJ duo Bassjackers.

More details here.

4) COUNTDOWN BY THE QUAY: A WANDER SOIREE

You can hit any number of clubs at Clarke Quay to party into the New Year, or simply stay outside – the area itself is also holding its own countdown event.

Stay entertained with DJs from 987FM and performances from local band Shirlyn & The UnXpected, as well as street drummers and LED twirlers. Also look out for a giant rainbow dream catcher, decked with crystals and intricate weaves.

More details here.

5) NIGHT IN

And if you’d prefer not to squeeze with the crowds, why not have a night in surrounded by your loved ones? Mediacorp Channel 5 will be broadcasting Celebrate 2018: Party with the Stars from 11pm with performances from local and regional artistes Taufik Batisah, The Sam Willows, Aisyah Aziz, Tabitha Nauser and Sezairi at Mediacorp Campus at Stars Avenue.

And at the stroke of midnight, you’ll get your own VIP seat to watch the fireworks light up the sky at Marina Bay.