My definition of an educated man is a man who never stops learning and wants to learn.”- Lee Kuan Yew
One of the key principles guiding my life is imbibing positive attributes and traits from mentors and people I admire and jettisoning the negatives. I give similar advice to the young men I have, or still mentoring. As fallible humans, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. As is true with humans, so it is with nations which explains why some succeed and others fail.
So much has been written on the life and times of the late Singapore leader, Lee Kuan Yew’s achievements, both in and out of office. This great leader was ranked among the best leaders of the 20th century because of what he did for his tiny landlocked city state by turning it into one of the most developed countries of the world. One key area he focused on – which is often overlooked – is the huge investment in education. How did he do this?
The strategy that the late statesman adopted was “to develop Singapore’s only available natural resource, its people.” It is therefore instructive to note that as a result of this strategy Singapore ranks among the top performers in educational attainment, as measured by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD’s) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Moreover, though a city-state of just five million people, Singapore boasts two universities among the top 75 in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the same number as China, Japan, and Germany.
Lee Kuan Yew did not just wave a magic wand and everything suddenly fell into place. No, his was a deliberate, calculated and targeted effort of a mind that is aware that with disciplined efforts man can actually move mountain. As expected, it was not easy starting, especially for a landlocked country without any visible natural resource.
Though a nationalist, Yew ensured that the country’s education system was built on the very solid foundations inherited from Singapore’s British colonial past. In contrast to many of his contemporaries among post-colonial leaders, Lee Kuan Yew was not afraid to embrace whatever elements from that past that would prove useful to the nation-building enterprise. Like most nationalists, he detested colonialism, but he was smart enough to realise that there are elements beneficial in national transformation.
In line with this, many of the country’s premier educational institutions – for example, the National University of Singapore (founded in1905), Raffles Institution (founded in 1823), and the Anglo-Chinese School (founded in 1886) – significantly predate independence in 1963. Moreover, the curriculum for secondary education is modeled on the British O level and A level qualifications (with some adaptation to account for the generally higher average attainment levels of students in Singapore). And, though infrastructure is by no means neglected, the primary focus of educational investment is students and teachers.
To cap it, a national system of generous scholarships enables the best students to avail themselves of an education at some of the world’s premier universities, even as Singapore develops its own world-class institutions. Moreover, with starting salaries above the national median, the teaching profession attracts, develops, and retains some of the best graduates. This was deliberate and it has paid off in the long run.
Standards were also crucial to this strategy as the education system is uncompromisingly driven by merit which some have criticised as being elitist in its focus on identifying and developing the very best talent and, equally important, directing it toward public service. To ensure that the state gets the best from recipients, government scholarship recipients are obliged to serve in the public sector for a minimum of two years for every one year of study.
A system driven by merit will expectedly have higher standards governing the training, development and promotion of teachers. Criteria are created where top-performing teachers are given leadership responsibilities without excessive regard to tenure, and there is a revolving door between the education ministry, classrooms, and school administration. Educators are frequently seconded to carry out policy work. Many subsequently choose to return to the classroom.
The elitist tendency in Singapore’s education system is tempered by the fact that quality education is available for all levels of academic aptitude. The country is rightly proud of its elite secondary and tertiary academic institutions, but one could argue that the hidden gems of the system are the hundreds of neighborhood schools, institutes for technical education, and polytechnics that provide high-quality education for all.
Not losing track of a rapidly changing world, Singapore’s education system is relentlessly forward-looking and in tune with the times. Take the language of communication as an example; the country adopts a bilingual approach with English, in addition to the mother tongue of Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil. These are used to relate with mainland China and Malaysia. This is further driven by the focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics which are better known by the acronym STEM. It helped propel the country from a third to a first world nation in less than two decades.
Why English and not Chinese since a substantial number of Singaporeans are from mainland China, some may be tempted to ask. The choice of English was driven by history and a multiethnic society’s need for a common language. But it was also a prescient recognition of English’s rapid emergence as the lingua franca of global commerce and science, and that once entrenched it was likely to remain so for decades, if not centuries, to come.
In this regard, too, Lee Kuan Yew distinguished himself from other post-colonial leaders of his generation. Rather than pandering to narrow nationalist sentiment and opting for the majority language and culture, he and his colleagues chose to adopt a global language for a global city.
As things began to change globally, Singapore’s education system began to change from the 1990s, as policymakers, concerned that their approach to education might be somewhat regimented and overly focused on STEM, began to provide avenues for excellence in the humanities, arts, and sport. That rebalancing is still ongoing, with a new emphasis on identifying ways to foster creativity and entrepreneurship.
As a forward looking country, policymakers learnt from the Asian financial crisis of 1997. The world economy was shifting to a global knowledge economy, the competitive framework of nations was being redefined and national progress would increasingly be determined by the discovery and application of new and marketable ideas. The growth of the global knowledge economy required a paradigm shift in Singapore’s education system towards a focus on innovation, creativity and research.
All these would not have been achieved without funding which is why education spending usually makes up about 20 percent of the annual national budget. The government subsidises state education and government-assisted private education for Singaporean citizens and funds the “Edusave” programme (part of a scheme to maximise opportunities for all Singaporean children. It reward students who perform well or who make good progress in their academic and non-academic work, and provides them and schools who qualify with funds to pay for enrichment programmes or to purchase additional resources).
The country also created a new educational vision, “Thinking Schools, Learning Nation.” This major milestone in Singapore’s education journey recognised former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong’s belief that “a nation’s wealth in the 21st century will depend on the capacity of its people to learn.” The vision encompassed a wide range of initiatives over a number of years that were designed to tailor education to the abilities and interests of students, to provide more flexibility and choice for students and to transform the structures of education. Career paths and incentives for teachers were revamped and teacher education upgraded.
To those who believe that large-scale change in educational performance is not possible, Singapore has shown several times over that significant change is possible. Singapore has developed a high-quality system in terms of educational retention, quality and efficiency.
The country has taught the third world that to become and remain high-performing, they need a policy infrastructure that drives performance and builds the capacity for educators to deliver it in schools. Singapore has developed both. Where She is today is no accident, it is the result of several decades of judicious policy and effective implementation.
