WTC Wrap: 7 March 2026

I've been down with a cold/exhaustion all of this week so I'm considering it a major win that I'm actually writing this newsletter right now. I've also been feeling very guilty about not getting work done, but because I'm flying to Europe this weekend I've been trying to focus as much as possible on getting well—it sucks to be ill on a plane!

(1)

Why did it take so long for us to get to this point—and for it to still be so inadequate? As of 2027, Singapore will ban the use of caged lorries to transport workers. Sun Xueling, Senior Minister of State for Transport, said that the prohibition stems from safety concerns: if these cages are latched or locked, the workers might not be able to get out in case of fire or accident.

Okay, sure, caged lorries are horrendously unsafe for people to be transported in. But transporting workers in lorries is dangerous in general, and there have been accidents and fatalities demonstrating this. It's been pointed out for years that lorries aren't made to transport people, and that migrant workers are the only people who are still subjected to such unsafe modes of transportation. The government has resisted change for so long. This might be a tiny shuffle in the right direction, but it's still so far from where we should be.

(2)

Do we have any ideas that aren't just "make the penalties harsher"? Parliament has passed laws to make vape/Kpod-related punishments even harsher. For example, an adult who exposes a child (under 16 years old) to a Kpod—or doesn't prevent a young person (under 21 years old) from using a Kpod—could face up to 10 years in prison. Also coming in are all-too-familiar presumption clauses: if vapes or Kpods are found in a vehicle entering Singapore, for instance, the driver can no longer claim they didn't know about it. Instead, it would be up to them to persuade the court that they had no knowledge that the vaporisers were in the vehicle.

This new law, the Tobacco and Vaporisers Control Act, will come into effect on 1 May. This is a good time to again point you to Sick and Tired's three-part Instagram series on Singapore's war on vaping: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

(3)

Some changes on the education front… The Gifted Education Programme is on its way out. From next year, 15 schools will offer advanced modules for "high-ability students". Unlike before, kids will no longer have to transfer schools to go where the programme is offered; instead, those identified can decide to attend after-school modules at one of these 15 schools. This new system will be able to accommodate more kids than the gifted programme could, and it's also not compulsory.

Other changes: the three separate post-secondary admission processes—for junior college, polytechnic, or Institute of Technical Education (ITE)—will be streamlined into one single exercise from 2028 on.

Got some more…

✈️ War in the Middle East—you can catch up on live updates through news outlets like Al Jazeera English—has led to flight disruptions. Singapore Airlines and Scoot have cancelled their Middle East flights, and other airlines, like Qatar Airways, have suspended operations, too. Singapore is working on repatriation flights for nationals stranded in the region.

🖥️ Two lawyers have been fined for citing fictitious cases in their legal submissions. See lah, kena sabo by GenAI.

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