DEFAULT OF SCHOLARSHIP BONDS

Column No : 1014

DEFAULT OF SCHOLARSHIP BONDS: 10.

Dr Tan Sze Wee asked the Minister for Health, in view of the Auditor-General's report for FY2004/2005, (a) if he will provide a breakdown of the type of scholars who absconded and did not pay their scholarship bonds totalling $1.5 million; and (b) what guidelines will his Ministry develop to handle the default of scholarship bonds and liquidated damages payable, including the write-off of non-recoverable debts.

Mr Khaw Boon Wan: Sir, the scholars who absconded were essentially nurses recruited from China under the Ministry's Scholarship Programme. We started this programme in 1994, to bring in selected Chinese students to be trained in Nanyang Polytechnic, largely as nurses. Upon graduation, they are bonded to work here, failing which they would have to pay liquidated damages.

This has been a successful programme, benefiting both countries and the trainees. The vast majority of the scholars discharge their obligations and contribute to our healthcare services.

Since 1994, we have recruited nearly 1,600 scholars. More than half have already completed their training, with the rest still in training. Currently, more than 700 scholars are serving their bonds in our hospitals.

Unfortunately, a small minority, 25 nurses and one radiographer, chose to abscond without paying liquidated damages.

My Ministry has a set of guidelines to help our hospitals deal with such default cases. This includes coordination with the relevant authorities to cancel their work permits and student passes, while taking steps to contact them and their guarantors. At the same time, all practical efforts to recover the liquidated damages will be taken, failing which, legal assistance may also be pursued.

Dr Tan Sze Wee: Sir, I would like to thank the Minister for the answer.

I understand that the programme is targeted at nurses as we are having a shortage of nurses. I think this is a very good programme. Although the percentage is quite small, the Ministry should look into the reasons why they absconded, because every single person that we invest in for our healthcare needs is a contribution to our society. Perhaps this is something that we should look at.

Mr Khaw Boon Wan: Sir, indeed, we do such studies. No doubt the number is small but if we can salvage each case, it is a contribution. These are people who initially thought that they were interested in nursing, but either during the course or upon graduation, the nursing career is not what they expected or anticipated. So they were having difficulty on the job. Some, unfortunately, then pursued this route to abscond.

Maybe we have to go upstream to the selection process, which means more thorough interviews, assessment, maybe psychological testing. But we know that you cannot hope to do it so perfectly that we have zero attrition. Even in medical school intake, we have extensive studies and interviews lasting many days, and we know that there are still attritions. Except that in that instance, they are Singaporeans and they cannot run away and they are here. So there are no liquidated damages involved.

From my point of view, over a 10-year period, 25 out of 1,500 is not a bad record but, of course, we should always still try very hard to bring it down to as low as possible.

Mr Zainudin Nordin: Sir, in view of the recent report about the popularity of nursing courses and the polytechnics having to turn away some of our local students, will this scheme of bringing in foreign students into nursing be reduced? Does MOH have any plans of opening up more opportunities for locals instead of bringing in foreign students?

Mr Khaw Boon Wan: Sir, in fact, the development in the last two years was a pleasant surprise to me. I grew up in the healthcare career. The problem is that there is always capacity in the training school but there are not enough young boys and young girls who want to opt for the nursing profession. But in the last 2-3 years, there was a significant change. I do not know what happened. It might be because of SARS or it might be because of better marketing, promotion and explanation on our part. But whatever the reason, the end result is that we now have a very happy situation where we exceed our projections. That is why I encouraged the polytechnics to expand their capacity as quickly as they can. And I hope the trend is a definitive one, and not just a fluke shot of 2-3 years. That is why we now have a second polytechnic also going into nursing, and we will quickly scale it up. But at the same time, I see no reason why we should not continue to take Chinese students who are interested every year - maybe 100-150 - to supplement our nursing pool in Singapore. Because if we look a little bit long term, the need for more nurses is there, with aging and so on. It is seen in every country. It is a global phenomenon. Nurses are really precious commodities and they are assets to the whole global labour market. And I think there is no such thing as over training of nurses. The more that we can take in, whether locally-trained or foreign-trained, the better all round.