Civil Service ‘Cupid‘

Press, 7 May 1984, Page 24

Civil Service ‘Cupid‘

NZPA-Reuter Singapore

The Singapore Government has set up a special unit to play cupid for unmarried graduate officers in the Civil Service, according to official sources.

The formation of the body, known as the Social Development Unit, follows a call by the Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, to arrest a decline in the island’s national talent pool. A spokesman for the S.D.U. refused to talk about the unit’s activities, but the sources said its main aim was to create opportunities for graduates of opposite sexes to mingle freely and to nudge them gently into wedlock. The S.D.U. has been or-

ganising “educational seminars” at holiday resorts and special briefings on the importance of marriage and child bearing for graduate workers in various Government and statutory organisations.

It has also planned “Love Boat” style cruises to help participants overcome shyness and build up personal confidence in finding life partners, the sources said. In a letter inviting graduate officers to attend its briefings, the S.D.U. said it had been set up to “initiate and facilitate mechanisms to enable male and female graduates to meet and interact with one another.”

With the S.D.U. keeping silent, it is difficult to judge public response.

But many graduates appear indifferent to the programme. “Thp nation needs you, mate,” has become a standard joke among some scholars. But the Government is dead serious. Mr Lee has made clear that his Government is unhappy about Singapore’s present birth pattern under which uneducated women have produced twice as many children as educated women.

He has said Singapore’s genes stock would be depleted if the trend continued.

"Levels of competence will decline, our economy will falter, administration will suffer, and society will decline,” according to Mr Lee.