Advertisement

COMMENT: What's wrong with the No Star Arts Grant?

COMMENT: What's wrong with the No Star Arts Grant?

Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.

How many of you are working in jobs you dislike?

I’m willing to bet that the number isn’t small. There’ll be a spectrum, of course, from people who are just “meh” about their jobs to people who downright hate what they’re doing, only they haven’t been able to find a way out.

Yet people are outraged by Dr Eng Kai Er launching the No Star Arts Grant. The Straits Times article on her may also give the impression that she is greedy and unreasonable.

The whole issue has now been framed as an ungrateful scholar who regrets her field of study and is upset that she has to fulfil her obligations of bonded employment.

But is Eng actually protesting her bond?

Let’s look at The Straits Times quote:

"Eng Kai Er is not interested in science at all, but has to serve her bond or pay, as of 30 September 2014, around $741,657.37 in order to quit her job. Since she understands the pain of having a paid job that is not aligned with her interests, she wishes to change the world by having more instances of paid jobs aligned with people’s interest.”

I would classify none of this as a “protest”. Eng is simply making a statement of fact: she is disinterested in her current occupation, but she is bonded to it. Quitting would mean stumping up $741,657.37. It’s a sucky situation, and while she is stuck in it she hopes to support others by helping them do what they actually like.

Where is the protest? There is no sign of Eng trying to get out of her bond – she simply wants to help others avoid this situation.

I can only conclude that all this boils down to unhappiness that Eng isn’t “grateful” or “appreciative” enough. Since she’s taken the money, the thinking seems to go, she should be eternally grateful to her sponsors. She’s had all this good fortune; she has no right to be unhappy. And even if she is, she should just shut up and deal with it. It’s not enough to serve the bond. You have to be happy – or at least pretend to be – doing it, too. Those are the rules, and woe betide the individual who strays.

It’s strangely skewed thinking about scholarships. We don’t – or at least, we shouldn’t – hand out scholarships so that we get to “own” people, where they work in bonded employment with no space or outlet to express any unhappiness. We hand out scholarships to give people opportunities, and the bond is a way to get them to contribute to the society that sponsored their opportunities.

It doesn’t make sense to me that Eng is now required to stay in A*STAR rather than be transferred to somewhere like the National Arts Council where she can continue to fulfil her scholarship obligations to the country that sponsored her studies. But since the transfer hasn’t gone through, I don’t see why we have such a problem with her launching the No Star Arts Grant while she continues to serve her bond. It’s a great scheme in a country that could do with more non-state funding of art and artists.