AWARE praises rise in number of female med students

AWARE responds to a rise in the number of female medical students. The Editor Forum Page ST Dear Editor, The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) congratulates the recent cohort of women who qualified for entry into the NUS medical faculty. NUS’s incoming class demonstrates a 50% female enrolment, and the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School current has 73% women in its first batch of participants in the Graduate Medicine Programme (Medical School Sees an Influx of Women, ST, 24 August, 07). These are clearly results of lifting the quota that has limited women’s opportunity in Singapore from 1979-2002.   Since its founding in 1985, AWARE has been consistent in pointing out the contravention of the Constitutional provision for “equality before the law” (Singapore Constitution) by the quota and lobbied for its removal.  It is not unreasonable to deduce from the recent ratios that a similar pool of aspiring women have been deprived of their chances in the past. For this reason, AWARE shares the concerns of Dr Vivien Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports and Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, as women will reach top positions in the field, as work-life balance will become more of an issue. AWARE is compelled to remind the Minister and Singaporeans that a principle objective in the drive for work-life-balance is to recognise that both men and women have responsibilities in the family. To this extent, if the current drive is to have any success, both women and men will “want jobs that would allow them to balance work and family life.” It is also important to remember that it was gender stereotyping and discrimination that informed the one- third quota policy of 1979. Please let us not go there again. Both women and men need work-life balance. In the meantime, AWARE would like to acknowledge the government’s effort in its drive for work-life-balance. Yours sincerely Constance Singam President, AWARE