The Master Fellowship

Each Fellowship pays a teaching year of $2,500 a month for 12 months at 2–3 days a week ($30,000), then a stewardship of 24 months at $1,000 a month ($24,000) for light duties: Taste Council tastings, the locum tests of the archive, two visits a month to the apprentice's stall and one public session a year. On top come a $15,000 completion grant, up to $15,000 of health security (group critical-illness enrolment and medical gap cover) and employer CPF at 12.5% on the whole stipend ($6,750). It pays less each month for longer, so a Fellow's pay does not drop sharply when the teaching year ends; every cohort's three years are budgeted in the year it starts. Selection is by Registry priority, reviewed by the Hawker Council (§3.8), with no valuation panel, ranks or scoring of a person's worth. Fellows keep their stall, tenancy and right to cook, sell and teach the dish to anyone; an intensive 90-day track compresses the teaching year for masters facing acute health events, then the same stewardship follows, and when the stewardship ends Fellows are first in line for the Relief-Hawker Corps. Conferment is public and annual, staged alongside the Singapore Hawkers' Celebration and Awards.

Who pays

PHILANTHROPY-FUNDED

What it costs

$90,750 SGD · per Fellow (a teaching year and a 24-month stewardship)

Total Fellowship value over three years, CPF included, for a Fellow over 60

Who gains

Diners

Quality is guarded by masters, not cameras (§1.4).

Hawkers

A paid Fellowship over three years, a teaching year and then a stewardship, with no sharp drop in pay when the teaching ends: it adds income and honour, and subtracts nothing (§1.4, §4.2).

Government

A national honours moment for the trade, where the substance is a signed contract and a stipend (§4.2).