With his favourite uncle

In April in Singapore 

Public art

While the classical vs. modern debate rages on, public art is one of the sites where it plays out in practice. Public art can be quite difficult to do well - you want to appeal to as wide a constituency of people, but serious art is often specialised and becomes inaccessible. 

Singapore seems to do quite well in doing good public art. Changi Airport always has something interesting going on. Below are three other pieces that I really liked:

This brilliant piece recently installed at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. It uses just layers of wire mesh to create a likeness of the man.  The artist must have taken years to build up his competence in doing this

This clever installation at Gardens by the Bay gives the impression of figures that are hanging in the air

This quirky piece at a mall was done as part of some robotics demonstration. Screams 'Japanese aesthetic' to me

See http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/01/many-thoughts-about-art-triggered-by.html for the previous post in the 'art' thread

Fundamentals of healthcare policy

Basically copied from Prof. M. Ramesh's excellent slides on the topic :

Health Care is a “private” good which markets can provide efficiently in a technical sense. Free competition among providers and insurers would ensure that prices are as low and quality as high as possible. Households would get the services they want and can afford and society would benefit from highest quality and lowest prices

Yet there are many features that make health care an atypical private good : 

Many public goods features

Information Asymmetries  

make estimation of quality, costs and benefits difficult

allow opportunity for supplier-induced demand

Moral hazard

Adverse selection by consumers, users and providers

Those least able to afford health care have the largest demand for it. 

Possibility of “catastrophic” health care expenses

Nearly impossible to save for all health care contingencies

As a result, market allocation of health care would lead to

Higher costs and prices

Poorer quality (except for the frills that consumers can see)

Inequity (because access related to income)

Technically, government can address the above failings :

Directly provide health care with public goods features

Pay for or provide the necessary health care to those who cannot afford it

Adopt measures to limit the market participants’ ability to exploit information advantage

Eg. Require transparency in pricing and outcomes

Regulate adverse selection

Adjust provider payment and financing mechanisms to reduce moral hazard

However, there are practical limitations to govt intervention:

Limited financial resources

Incomplete information on consumer and producer behaviour and the different medical options

Lack of analytical capacity to understand needs of the sector

Lack of administrative capacity to implement policy

Lack of political capacity to deal with conflicting demands of various stake-holders (Consumers, physicians, managers, insurers, healthy, etc )

Considering the potential and limitations of both markets and governments, an effective health care system requires health policy that employs extensive role for both to offset each others disadvantages

An optimal health care market is characterized by:

Competition among providers to attract. But competition over value rather than frills. 

Limitations on providers freedom to prescribe and charge, so that they do not take advantage of patients’ ignorance

Limitations on insurers’ freedom to select risk or set premium, so as to prevent cream skimming or passing on of costs to consumers or government

Limitations on consumers, so as to minimize moral hazard

Establish risk pooling to ensure redistribution of resources from more healthy and wealthy to less healthy and wealthy. 

Reduce out of pocket health expenditure 

Costs affordable to the society as a whole, rather than the govt. Considers TOTAL (and not public) health expenditures

A good health policy is one that sets out appropriate incentives :

Incentivize providers to improve quality while containing cost

Incentivize users to moderate consumption

Co-insurance or deductible (subject to a stop-loss)

Encourage users to use primary care facilities

Incentivize insurers to get better deal from providers on behalf of their members 

Instead of passing on costs to users or the government

Such an optimal health policy requires a strong governance structure characterized by

firm government stewardship

Functioning markets, where possible

On transparency in Singapore

Singapore’s lack of transparency in governance is almost legendary. Researchers, for example, have extraordinary trouble getting data. A couple of examples from personal experience:

-In a class with a guest lecturer from the Public Utilities Board, he cautioned us against taking photographs of some of the slides (“You do not want to be arrested later for this”). 

-In talking to people about the immigration rules and systems, I find that people don’t know how or why the decisions are taken on work permits, guest passes etc. There is amazing amount of discretion and lack of transparency. 

It would be interesting to understand the historical origins of this phenomenon. In reading extensively of the writings of Lee Kuan Yew, I did not see anything about why he did not feel transparency important. 

In the ongoing project of revisioning Singapore, I am pretty sure that transparency will help Singapore in finding a way forward.  There have been memorable debates about Asian values and Singapore-style democracy. I don’t think these addressed the role of transparency and whether lack of transparency is a part of Asian culture :-)  

 Lack of transparency is simply incompatible with a modern society. You cannot have a educated, well-to-do population that is creative and free-thinking and a society that aims to be globalised and at par with the best of them, and at the same time, hide your governance behind a veil of secrecy. 

Prof Lam Chuan Leong, a retired bureaucrat whom I respect, pooh-poohed transparency in one of his classes. I wish I had taken it up with him then!  The bureaucracy will of course protest mightily that it is simply not possible to function efficiently if you have to be able to explain everything that you do. While there can be more discussion about the pros and cons, enough developed countries have implemented Freedom of Information acts and none have reconsidered its value. Even India has one, and you don’t hear anyone complaining about it.  Certainly it could make life more difficult for bureaucrats, but making bureaucrats' life easy is not the purpose of governance! In any case, the system will re-adjust and find new ”SOPs” that are compatible with the new laws. 

Singapore continues to be a restricted society with little space for questioning the government. Transparency would be one way to open up the space for questioning. Asking an innocent question cannot be grounds for harassment or taking someone to court.

It is surprising that the PAP, which has gone so far as to consider splitting itself in order to provide a more robust political system, has not considered the importance of transparency and implemented substantive measures in this direction. Its quite likely that 50 years of obscurity will have concealed a fair number of governance boo-boos. Whether there are more serious discrepancies between the facade and what went on behind the scenes, I do not know enough to speculate about (nor do I want to attract attention of the government by doing that!). 

Relocating to Singapore (Guest post by Banupriya)

                                               At Bin Tan Island, Indonesia, a 1 hour ferry ride from Singapore


I’ve been wanting to write this blogpost since we moved to Singapore and finally got the inclination (with a little pushing from Vijay!).

When Vijay got his scholarship at NUS, Singapore and we wanted to move as a family...that's when it all started. We started calculating our living expenses including Vibhat's school fees. Meanwhile we enquired with friends living in Singapore. They gave us a figure which scared us. Some were telling us that it would difficult to live here with only our stipend. It was really scary and I backed out and started encouraging Vijay to go by himself. Vibhat and I would join later after a year if he got a job. But he was very clear that we move to Singapore with him. Now what? We started doing our budget planning on how to live with Vijay's stipend and our savings here in the bank. Meanwhile I would try to get a job there after reaching and if I got one, the salary would help.

  Finally the big day came and Voila! I landed up with my 6 year old kid in Singapore with a lot of doubts. and not very convinced with Vijay's financial planning. Initially I was very careful in spending and kept converting every dollar spent into rupees :-). It was painful after living a comfortable life in India, to live here without so many things. But later on I got used to it and starting buying necessary things. We had our budget for every month. We stayed within that but did enjoy eating out too in Food courts and  Hawkers Centres which were pretty okay and were within our budget. So we also enjoyed tasting local delicacies.

With 4000 $ per month we are able to manage. Here is the breakup:

House rent - 1500,

Vibhat’s school fees and bus facility - 1300, 

Living expenses - 700

Travelling inside Singapore (use Public transport) & Phone recharges for me n Vijay - 200

Doc's visit and miscellaneous things -  300

We are able to live within $4000 and also enjoy sightseeing around Singapore. 

The idea behind writing this post is to encourage other students of NUS not to get scared to bring their family along and to take the big step comfortably, of course after doing the required financial planning.

Vocational Education in Singapore

I did a term paper (in two installments) on vocational education in India for my course on Social Policy Design last semester. Didn't get a great grade :-( but found it fascinating, and was considering working in that area after graduation.  The link below should show you the papers on Dropbox (let me know if it doesn't). There is a lot of dividends for the country and its people if we get vocational education right.  PM Modi is doing the right thing by placing a lot of emphasis on Skilling India.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/07mha1qkofjmy15/AADQKHcjBXg5S8BJayx7sU8ha?dl=0

In India we have a huge problem with this perception of vocational education as infra-dig so we end up churning out huge quantities of unemployable B.As and B.Scs and B.Coms, while we suffer from a dearth of good technicians, plumbers etc. As as aside,

Singapore has an excellent vocational education system, one of the best in the world. They have an institution called the ITE (Institute of Technical Education), that serves people after 10th grade. They have several polytechnics (Temasek Poly, Ngee Ann Poly, Singapore Poly) that serve people after high school. One of the things that Singapore consciously did was to combat, quite successfully, the feeling that vocational education is a 2nd class or infra-dig option. Rather, it is portrayed as an option for people with different inclinations and different talents that the traditional intellect-based classroom education. They've 'signalled' this, by, among other things, funding their vocational education institutions very well and giving them a lot of facilities.

When Chandrababu Naidu visited Singapore recently, he checked out the ITE. These from the ITE website, ite.edu.sg :



His Excellency Mr Nara Chandrababu Naidu (centre in cream shirt), Honourable Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, India, at the Precision Engineering Hub at ITE College Central, where Laser and Tooling Technology training and development for staff and students are carried out. Students gain hands-on experience by working on CNC Laser Cutting Machine, Bending Machine and Turret Punching Machine with the aid of specialised CAD/CAM software, to create a wide array of metallic products ranging from name cards, pens and serviette holders to pendants, lamp shades and wall décor




I visited the ITE too, photos below:

Visit to the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

 Vibhat and I went to the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in the north end of Singapore on an outing organised by the MPA Class Committee (thanks guys!). Gorgeous place ..

Johor Bahru of Malaysia, across the straits

 

This small snake we saw freaked Vibhat out. Need to spend time with him to educate him about animals so he can be at home with them  

 I was very happy to see mangroves for the first time..

Crocodile. I guess.

Barbecue at East Coast Park

Seun on the right is Nigerian and a natural dancer and bonded with Vibhat. He's now Vibhat's dance godfather. Zaigham from Pakistan is on the right

China, Japan and Vietnam !

The MPA group's outing to East Coast Park in Singapore for a barbecue. The MPA class has gotten distributed between lots of electives so we don't meet much as a class, so this was very good to connect with people. And Priya and Vibhat joined and got introduced to my classmates which was very nice.
Most photos by Anton Arcilla , from our class

Vibhat is going to school !!! Its called the Global Indian International School. Its about 5 km from home and Priya is currently dropping him and picking him up. He did very well on the admission test. But now he has a challenge - Hindi ! We chose that as his language, but he hasn't learnt much of it at his previous school. Neither Priya and I know much.
He was quite sad and stressed on his first day and cried three times, he told us. And the second day one time, so getting better :-). His previous school was the Earth School Montessori was very .. Montessorian (calm, quiet, teachers are very sweet) and its a bit of an adjustment for him to a mainstream school and this one in particular. Poor kiddo!