In response, RDU’s Dr Syed Alwi Ahmad argued that Singapore’s education system is the real obstacle to innovation, urging schools to nurture creativity, risk-taking and original thinking over rote memorisation.
That's the whole point of PAP rule: dumb the kids down so as to not make them ask too many uncomfortable questions, but make them just smart enough to be functional, productive, obedient workers in future.
Innovation and creativity cannot thrive in a totalitarian regime. It also goes the other way: a totalitarian regime cannot tolerate innovation and creativity to flourish.
We operate as users, rather than engaging in research or new development of these quantum computing or AI. As seem from previous examples, such as semiconductor manufacturing, where the emphasis was not on designing and developing new processing methods but rather just as a manufacturing contractor. But even with that we can't compete with our competitors and closed our foundry factory