This is the most to the point analysis about the sorry state of the engineering world I have ever seen. Someone please send this to our PM (or the opposition party). The entire engineering industry will just go downhill, or the vicious cycle will continue i.e. more FT introduced since no sane bright Singaporean student will aspire to be an engineer. I don't think this is what the government wanted. Someone in the civil service obviously cared much more about KPI than the future of our young generation (or for that matter, the future of Singapore). There is no way that Sg can be a technology hub without the apprentice system. Having worked in developed countries around the world (Japan, US), I can tell you this FT policy is uniquely Singapore.