An education he didn't have : Mr Toh Phee Seng and family

We always have to offer hope of a better future in Singapore, an economy that creates opportunities for our people, a society which nurtures our people to the fullest potential and a people who look to the future, and not just back to the past, a nation where our children will live better lives than us, as we did our parents We've done it in this generation, for this generation, with this generation. And it was brought home vividly to me recently in one MPS session when Mr Toh Phee Seng came to see me. He's a Teck Ghee resident. He works in the construction industry. He came to see me for some help because he needed a recertification for the construction safety orientation course. But he had a problem because he is illiterate. He can't read English. He can't read Chinese. He knows the safety rules. He can pass the exam but he needs somebody to read the exam for him. So could I please write him a letter? So I happily wrote him a letter then I had a chat with him and his wife after that. And he told me proudly that his two children were graduates. The daughter Huey Sun, is an accountant with IRAS and the son, Wei Seong is an A*STAR researcher. He graduated from Singapore Poly. He went to university overseas. Eventually he earned a PhD from NUS. He was awarded an A*STAR International Fellowship for his postdoctoral fellowship in Harvard and now he's back, a research scientist at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. I believe, researching stem cell biology and applications. So Mr Toh was happy that his children had done much better than himself and his family reflects the experience of so many other families in Singapore and epitomizes Singapore’s transformation in one generation from Third World to First. From somebody illiterate, never had a chance to learn to read, but brought up children, children who have been to Harvard, researchers working, doing well. But beyond the broad lesson, I’ll sure you'll want to know what happened to Mr Toh's MPS case. I got a reply from the NTUC Learning Hub which was the training provider. They have automated the process now, so you don't need somebody to read the questions for Mr Toh. They advised Mr Toh to “take the computer-based audio exam”. So the computer will read the questions and Mr Toh can answer. And I'm happy to say that Mr Toh passed the examination. (This is an excerpt from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally speech on August 26, 2012 at University Cultural Centre)