President, GS, Exco members
Boys and girls
Management partners
Brothers and Sisters
1 I am happy to be here today for the NTWU Education Grant and Achievement Award ceremony for 2011. This is one of the Union’s most important annual event of the year.
2 It is especially meaningful this year because 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of NTWU. NTWU has come a long way from its humble beginnings back in 1981. During these 30 years, members have grown older, have children or more children, nurtured them, and saw them grow up. Lives of our members have improved during this time. New members have joined our ranks, and enlarged our membership base.
3 We are now a credible and responsible Union that speaks up for our members, and that works with our management partners in a responsible and constructive manner. Today, having hundreds of transport workers from different companies gathered together in this hall, together with their children and family members, is a clear testament of our unity and strength. I thank all the members for your continuous support all these years. Stay united, and we will continue to grow from strength to strength. We will continue to help our companies grow, and improve our lives.
4 This year, NTWU is proud to be able to offer education grant and achievement award to even more children than last year. I want to thank NTUC U Care Fund, which contributed $50,000 to the awards today. Together with Union funds, today’s awards amount to $170,000. The number of awardees has increased from 480 in 2010 to 595 this year. The proportion of tertiary education awardees have also increased from 28% to about 34% this year, as we recognise that more of our members’ children have grown up andare pursuing further education. We have also relaxed the eligibility criteria of the Education Grant, so that more members can apply for it. I hope that every child, every young man or lady who receives an award today, will be further motivated to work hard, and make your parents proud. NTWU is behind you to give you the moral support and encouragement.
5 I was looking through the applications of this year’s awardees and felt that I should highlight a few special students, who were not featured in the video except for one.
6 In the Primary school achievement award category, Sri Sankari d/o Muniandy’s result caught my attention. She’s a Primary 3 student from Woodlands Ring Primary school, scoring straight distinctions and an average score of 97%. She’s the daughter of Service Leader, Brother Muniandy from SMRT. Sri has shown good progress in her results – last year, she received the Education Grant from NTWU. This year, I am happy to share her joy of progress. Due to her fabulous grades, she was awarded the Achievement Award this year.
7 In the Secondary school category, I was happy and proud to see the name of one of our union leaders’ child in the Achievement Awards list. The boy’s name is Abdul Rahman, son of brother Ishak Bin Hassan from SMRT Rail. Abdul Rahman is no ordinary achievement award recipient. He topped his Primary school PSLE cohort with an aggregate score of 267. I should also mention he also represented Singapore in a world junior championship chess competition.
8 In the Polytechnic category, the daughters of Bus Captains, Choy Soon Chiong and Chee Kiam Kwee from SBS Transit East District, both obtained a near perfect GPA of 3.958 upon 4. Both girls, Angela Chee and Karen Choy are straight A students in Singapore Polytechnic, majoring in Banking and Finance and Accountancy respectively.
9 And lastly in the University category, we have Wong Man Yu, daughter of Senior Service Assistant Wong Yiu Leung who obtained exceptionally good results in her double-degree program with a full cap of 5.00 for Business Administration (Accountancy), and GPA of 4.73 for Industrial and Systems Engineering. I was told that this is a highly niche and rigorous programme with only a very small intake size.
10 I hope all awardees today will continue your good work, continue to uphold this spirit of excellence when you enter into the society in future. This is the Singapore spirit, and the NTWU spirit. What is this spirit? First, continue to work hard, improve, and make life better. Second, remember the contributions of our elders and our past generations. Whatever we have today is a result of their hard work and dedication in the past. Third, stay united and loyal to our fellow brothers and sisters. By ourselves, each of us is one lonely voice. Together, we are one loud voice. With all our hands on the deck, we can help steer our companies and our industries to greater heights, and we will have our fair share of the fruits of success.
11 Thank you and congratulations to all award recipients today.
