Charging teachers for carpark.

Actually, it is defensible to charge teachers for carpark fees in schools' carparks. 

Recall that MOE said it is a taxable benefit. This means that it ought to be added to a teacher's monthly pay and then declared to the Inland Revenue to be taxed. 

This higher amount would mean more tax revenue for the government. That's added tax lost if the benefit is not included in the declaration of a teacher's pay. 

So, the next sensible thing to do is to charge teachers for it. At an annual rate of $960 for cars, MOE can't complain that it is a loss of taxable benefit anymore. 

In fact, the government would reap even higher revenue from the parking charges than merely including the benefit in the teacher's pay to be taxed. 

Should MOE then notationally add the parking charges to a teacher's income for tax rather than make each of them pay for it? Mm...

It is thus hoped that these parking collection from 360 primary and secondary schools and junior colleges would be put to charitable use for more equal redistribution of wealth. Fingers crossed?

Then comes the Auditor-General's Office when they scoured the economic grid of our little red dot and noticed that teachers are getting away with free parking. 

It reports that "the fact that teachers have never had to pay for parking in schools came under the spotlight in 2015 when Auditor-General's Office report faulted some educational institutions for allowing their staff to park for free, or at fees below the market rate."

Again, that's revenue lost and it is unfairness detected since lecturers at Poly had to pay for parking. 

So, the above explains why teachers have to pay parking charges come this August. 

At this point, I recall the management guru Peter Drucker once said that "if you don't measure it, you can't manage it."

And from an economic point of view, our government has measured everything to the tee, and all the dots neatly placed on the "i". 

Nothing escapes their vigilant eye from their panopticon tower. Nothing that can be technocratically harvested for income is to be missed. 

Their sense of fiscal responsibility is not only sharp, but defensively high. And their dedication to economic growth is of a high standard of exactitude. 

Lesson? Mm...I always wonder, Is our government willing or prepared to sacrifice economic growth for X?" 

This "X" can be anything, but intangible and immeasurable. 

For example, it can be the value of a housewife who stays home to nurture her children, the value of a man who gives up his job to do community work, or the value of a teacher who works long, thankless hours to build up the self-esteem of students so that they may contribute to society, not just economically but socially and spiritually. 

Now let me be clear that I am not saying that our government is not helping these groups of people in society, that is, the disadvantaged and poor. There are undeniably many programs to reach out to them. 

But what I am asking goes deeper, that is, how much more is our government seeking to raise the economic tide in a hopeful bid to redistribute the fruits of economic growth more equally to all and sundry? 

That is also related to my question above, "Is our government willing or prepared to sacrifice economic growth for X?" 

Here I recall this saying, some attributed it to Albert Einstein, who once wrote on a blackboard: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Yes, there are many value-added activities in our society that cannot be measured (or counted) in an Auditor-General report or captured in our GDP. And they count a lot to the people. 

We may charge teacher the use of a parking lot in a school and deem that as a plus for government revenue and growth. 

But how do we put a price on sacrifices, learning, encouragement, inspiration and guidance that teacher give to each child that makes their way to school?

And by extension, we can put a money value on psf (that is, per square feet), charge a cubic meter of space in a land strata title, or even penalise companies for carbon emission, but how do we put a money value on psi (that is, per social impact) that teachers, educators and school counsellors render tirelessly just to bridge the gap of learning and character growth in our future generation? 

Should our government pay them much more per social impact to offset the charge for per square feet of parking space they use to educate our children?

While making them pay for parking lots makes sound economic sense, and is a defensible economic policy to increase our reserve, does it send a signal to the society at large that we are forward looking, wise (not just a smart nation), understanding and gracious? 

Or does it send a signal to society that as far as our government is concerned, only what can be counted counts, and what cannot be counted, well, it just doesn't count?

Alas, the inventor of the holy grail of measurement of all economic activities known today as "GDP", Simon Kuznets, (who regretted how it was misused), once asked this: "What are we growing? And why?"

Mm...I think that question is still very relevant to our society, our government and our technocratic leaders. 

Sometimes, it would really help to have a government that inspires hope, and not just one that is ruthlessly efficient. 

That is, a government that treasures "X" at times, and not just measures everything by "$". Cheerz.