Thanks Nick, for opening that delightful window of interpretation about a picture I posted yesterday. Your comment: "The first sign, 'Beware of Windows' must have been found in a Sun Microsystems or Apple office." Good one!
[Actually, the silly sign is at the ground level of a certain condo here in Singapore.]
Word of the Day: Confused.
Just as there are "Beware of..." signs and there are "Beware of..." signs, there are surveys and there are surveys.
Recently, there was this "happiness survey" which supposedly found that baby boomers are the happiest lot in Singapore. Does this mean that, as more baby boomers grey and fade away, Singapore will become an increasingly unhappy place to live in?.
The survey also found that men here are happier than women. Again, statistically, since women live longer than men, does it mean that it'll get harder and harder to find happy men here?
Confused? You are not alone...
Now, the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) claims, from -- yes! -- a survey it conducted, that Singaporeans are confused about the job of the highest paid (for now, a review is in progress) public servant in the country.
ST's headline (2 Nov) said: "Many confused about job of president: Poll".
TODAY's headline (2 Nov) was: "S'poreans confused about President's roles: IPS survey".
So, when Singaporeans went to vote for their Elected President in August -- regardless of who they actually chose -- we are now told the voters had no idea why they were going to vote! That seems to be what the survey is suggesting.
As constructed, the survey had 11 statements. ST went to town on the story but TODAY, by keeping to just one story, makes it easier to follow the logic of the "survey", conducted between September and October (last month):
"[It] found that two of the top three roles that shaped a voter's choice were outside the President's official job scope.
"[The] telephone survey asked 2,025 respondents to pick which of 11 statements described the roles of the President... Of the 11 statements, only five were aligned with the Government's interpretation of the office...
"Only one per cent was able to identify all the "correct" and "incorrect" statements."
----------------------------------------
So, that's it! It's a quiz, not a survey. A survey like this has to find out why and how people behaved, and even what were their aspirations, not an 11 upon 11 test score and "you have won" thingy!
Tellingly, the top two roles of the President cited by the respondents were "to ensure that the Government manages the economy wisely" and "to ensure that the Government does what it promised in the General Election". The third most important role -- as ranked by the respondents -- was the President's veto power over the reserves [presumably this role is No 1 as far as the Government is concerned].
The survey has done a service only to the extent that it exposed a disconnect between the people's aspirations for the President's roles and the Government's "interpretation of the office". No, I don't think Singaporeans were confused.
For the TODAY story, see:
http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC111102-0000181/Sporeans-confused-about-Presidents-roles--IPS-survey
For an interesting list of synonyms for "confused", see:
http://www.synonym.com/synonyms/confused/
No comments:
Post a Comment