Extending EZ-link Passes

Extension of EZ-link Passes for
JC Graduates and Polytechnic Students

We are Yvonne Guo, Chong Ri Jia and Wendy Foo, JC graduates of the year 2005. We would like to petition for the extension of EZ-link passes for JC graduates and Polytechnic students for eight months after their official graduation date.

JC graduates and Polytechnic students are not part of the working population. However, upon our graduation, we are forced to start paying adult transport fares. Although this assumes that we have automatically joined the working population, the truth is that it represents a grave financial burden to ourselves and our parents. The transport costs we incur can amount to $10/- every three days, which is equivalent to at least $100/- a month. Considering the fact that there are 60,300 needy households in Singapore, and still thousands more with a very limited spending capacity, it is extremely unreasonable to force students barely out of school to pay "adult" fares.

JC and Poly graduates also face a plethora of other problems, such as the high cost of university education both local and overseas, which has been accentuated by the simultaneous fare hikes of NUS, NTU and SMU. Since almost all JC graduates and many Poly students intend to further their education at university, most of us start working part-time immediately upon graduation. Unfortunately, due to our lack of professional experience, our salary is capped at $1000 a month. Together with the expenditure necessitated by transport, the amount of money we can save for our tertiary studies is rendered negligible.

Below is an illustration of the gravity of the situation:

19-year-old Chu Yiu Tak is a full-time NSman stationed at the Basic Rescue Training Centre at Jalan Bahar. Due to the nature of his work, he is able to book out every night to return to his residence in Marine Parade and spends an average of $6.50 on transport a day. Assuming he works 25 days, 46.4\% of his monthly salary of $350 goes into the pockets of transport operators. Moreover, this calculation is definitely an under-estimate as it does not include the cost of transport for other activities.

We would like to appeal to your notion of compassion and your sense of justice. Please sign this petition if you believe that Transitlink, with its booming coffers, is obliged to grant financial concessions to students in need of them. If you are a current Poly or JC graduate, your support for our cause may translate into tangible returns in the form of transport subsidies when you graduate - so signing this petition may eventually save you money too :)

Thank you for your understanding.