http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/129312
GS aka Pratamad
We don't really belong to the 'Malaysians who come home' category. Not yet at least. But nonetheless, I thought I would share our story too.
My wife and I have been working and residing in Singapore for more than 15 years. We both hail from Segamat, Johor, which is about 100 miles away.
So we do keep in touch with families occasionally. My wife works as a consulting accountant for a Japanese firm here and I as associate director of innovation development for National University of Singapore.
Recently, our fourth baby was just born. All of our children hold a Singapore birth certificate but we all remain as Malaysian citizens.
They are all raised in a relatively safe and comfortable environment of Singapore. The dilemma came last year when our eldest son was about to reach his formal schooling age of seven.
Should we let him be a Singapore public school, it is just a matter of time that he would be 'turned' into a Singaporean. We may as well just change his status to Singapore citizenship.
Furthermore, the Singapore government's policies with regards to foreigners and permanent residents have changed significantly in the last few years in their drive to increase their young citizens.
It effectively applies both 'carrot' and 'stick' in its policies, withdrawing many subsidies while increasing the costs of maintaining children for non-Singaporeans and at the same time introducing incentive schemes to woo non-Singaporeans into making their children Singapore citizens.
After much struggle in our heart, we made the unusual move, defying the trend where Malaysian parents send their children to Singapore schools here.
We moved our eldest son to be with my mom and sister in Segamat. We signed him up in a Chinese vernacular school. In short, we chose to let him sing 'Negaraku' rather than 'Majulah Singapura' every morning.
Even now, after a few months, it is still a struggle. Imagine sending your children into a less safe environment, where crime and health concerns are real. And sending them to a schooling system that has suffered many years of neglect and politicking by the government.
More importantly, the suffering of being parted with the loved ones. But we try our best to cope, having more frequent travels back to our home town whenever we can.
For now, we are planning to make transition so that at least one of us can spend more time in Segamat, perhaps also moving some of our kids there to grow up in a bigger space of Malaysia.
The ultimate, if it is eventually feasible, is to have all of us together in Segamat. But we shall see.
For me personally, being able to grow my family back home is one tremendous feeling, despite all its lesser aspects for a family.
I guess life is never perfect and it is for us to be in it to improve it further. That's probably my sentiment.
GS aka Pratamad
We don't really belong to the 'Malaysians who come home' category. Not yet at least. But nonetheless, I thought I would share our story too.
My wife and I have been working and residing in Singapore for more than 15 years. We both hail from Segamat, Johor, which is about 100 miles away.
So we do keep in touch with families occasionally. My wife works as a consulting accountant for a Japanese firm here and I as associate director of innovation development for National University of Singapore.
Recently, our fourth baby was just born. All of our children hold a Singapore birth certificate but we all remain as Malaysian citizens.
They are all raised in a relatively safe and comfortable environment of Singapore. The dilemma came last year when our eldest son was about to reach his formal schooling age of seven.
Should we let him be a Singapore public school, it is just a matter of time that he would be 'turned' into a Singaporean. We may as well just change his status to Singapore citizenship.
Furthermore, the Singapore government's policies with regards to foreigners and permanent residents have changed significantly in the last few years in their drive to increase their young citizens.
It effectively applies both 'carrot' and 'stick' in its policies, withdrawing many subsidies while increasing the costs of maintaining children for non-Singaporeans and at the same time introducing incentive schemes to woo non-Singaporeans into making their children Singapore citizens.
After much struggle in our heart, we made the unusual move, defying the trend where Malaysian parents send their children to Singapore schools here.
We moved our eldest son to be with my mom and sister in Segamat. We signed him up in a Chinese vernacular school. In short, we chose to let him sing 'Negaraku' rather than 'Majulah Singapura' every morning.
Even now, after a few months, it is still a struggle. Imagine sending your children into a less safe environment, where crime and health concerns are real. And sending them to a schooling system that has suffered many years of neglect and politicking by the government.
More importantly, the suffering of being parted with the loved ones. But we try our best to cope, having more frequent travels back to our home town whenever we can.
For now, we are planning to make transition so that at least one of us can spend more time in Segamat, perhaps also moving some of our kids there to grow up in a bigger space of Malaysia.
The ultimate, if it is eventually feasible, is to have all of us together in Segamat. But we shall see.
For me personally, being able to grow my family back home is one tremendous feeling, despite all its lesser aspects for a family.
I guess life is never perfect and it is for us to be in it to improve it further. That's probably my sentiment.
Last edited:
