The past policies are causing too many problems:-
(1) Meritocracy - over-produces academicians, breeds elitism and class divisions, hyping the government civil service wage costs, neglect of practical knowledge application and developing entrepreneurship.
(2) Pro-foreign investment and jobs policy - foreign companies are gradually proving to be our nemesis. They have been pulling out from our economy for quite some time now and are still doing so because of our high costs of doing business (not necessarily due to workers' wages, but overpaid higher echelons)
The above-stated policies are not likely to change for a while. Government is still pushing for foreign investments as the main pillar of our economy.
Sad to say, we do not have that much time to wait for another ten years to upgrade our economic structure to VALUE-ADDING TECHNOLOGY-ORIENTED MODEL LIKE THAT OF Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Korea and Japan.
Yet the above-stated major problems are unlikely to be solved by the present ministers very soon. They have been trying to do so since the last two recessions with no news about implementing their VALUE-ADDING economic model. There is no news of consistent applications of knowledge and innovations at the workers' level.
What is for certain is that the ministers have totally neglected maximizing the returns on our available assets e.g. hundreds of thousands of middle-aged and older unemployed, new graduates who cannot find jobs for prolonged period of up to 6 months, and over-supply of scholars who are under-used.
My suggestion is to set up a NEW MINISTRY - Ministry of Internal Resources to create investments and jobs ...making use of all our unemployed available at lower costs than even FTs...making use of empty lands and factories which need not be charged at full rentals etc.