Speech for the Education Forum 23rd January 2010

Good afternoon, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; As a fresh graduate from the NUS class of 2009, I am very pleased to be able to be here this afternoon to share some reflections about our tertiary education system. Apart from talking about the key challenges that I faced as an undergraduate, I will also recount some first-hand observations as a young professional entering the workforce. The topic that I am going to speak about today is something that is undoubtedly hot on everybody’s minds: foreign talent and their contribution to Singapore.

Firstly, upon matriculating into NUS, I observed the demographic of the student population and was shocked to discover the sheer number of foreign students on government scholarships. I couldn’t comprehend what I saw. Although I had been raised to believe that Singapore as a small country needs all the top talent it can get, the sight of so many foreign students was quite jarring. I asked around. It was soon explained to me that the scholarships awarded to foreign students were modeled after the Fulbright scholarship in America, to prime Singapore as a knowledge-based hub where members of the global intelligentsia could gather, and then spread the Singaporean system to the far-reaches of the earth. It was at once shocking that the Singapore government, well-known for its financial prudence, was charting its own imperialist agenda to spread its own brand of soft power across the world. Education had now become a foreign policy tool.

Each year, thousands of foreign students continue to pour in. Despite the odds that few of them would eventually settle down and take up citizenship, let alone serve national service, the government continues to allocate a large amount of tax-payer’s money developing foreign talent which is at best, a gamble. This translates to local students having to seek tertiary education elsewhere. Each year, the same number of Singaporeans deprived of places in our local universities, turn to overseas colleges or private institutions offering correspondence courses, spending what I believe is more than the value of government scholarships to foreigners. The futility of such a policy is at once jarring as resources continuously flow out in both directions. The resource that we lose is not just monetary. Our best resource, human resource, Singaporeans with wider options will choose to stay on for good in foreign lands, and yet be branded “quitters” despite being marginalized by the system which they are citizens of.

Secondly, another interesting observation from the demographic of the student population at NUS was that our top scholars were nowhere to be seen, having all gone abroad to foreign universities. While foreign students were entering in droves to our local universities, it was equally strange that the institutions that we hail as world-beaters, were not an option to our top government scholars. Instead, they were headed to British and American universities. Let me just clarify by saying that there are indeed advantages by studying abroad and gaining some perspective of the world. I myself spent a semester abroad on a student exchange programme and have benefited from it.

However, why is our government singing two different tunes? If we are indeed serious about growing our university to world-class standards, our top scholars must remain. We must instill confidence about our education system, keep our top scholars at home and not replace them with second-rate foreign students who are on a Singapore government scholarship because it is the next best thing available to them.

A third observation I would like to share is something I noticed upon stepping into corporate life – that many of our top corporate leaders were foreigners. However, they were of a different breed, educated in their homeland, cut their teeth in the corporate world and brought in laterally from other institutions. The trend of foreign CEOs is not new. Given the quick-paced development of Singapore in the early days of independence, securing foreign talent that Singapore did not have, especially at the top layers, was crucial. However, the current focus on foreign talent seems to be an aberration to the original intent.

The influx of foreign talent, at all levels and especially visible at the tertiary level, seems a misguided attempt at improving our workforce. Instead of allocating resources and grooming well-rounded leaders, we are importing foreign talent expensively, on the chance that they will be more talented and loyal than our own citizens.

At any rate, the education system which we pride as world-class has its deficiencies. As commented by others, we are producing solitary peaks instead a high broad plateau, and as a result, we just do not have enough talent to go around. Outside of rare situations, it is Singapore that should be the net exporter of foreign talent to the world given its globally competitive institutions. This is however, not the case. For a country whose per capita GDP is already amongst the highest in the world, we are continuing to buy foreign talent. And therefore I say this reluctantly but not subtly, that Singapore’s education system is a mockery for not being able to stand up to the education systems of India and China, which are exporting talent to replace Singaporeans.

Conclusion

To end off, I would like to qualify that although these observations may come across as stark, I think they are truly reflective of the state of affairs in Singapore, and there is no easy solution to this. Although it is true that we cannot afford to close our doors to the rest of the world, it is in my estimation that in order to move Singapore forward, we have to re-focus on retaining our top talent and prioritizing our citizens ahead of foreigners. If there is one truth in public administration, it is that the maintenance of the status quo will punish instead of reward. We have to continually re-evaluate the success of policies and if they don’t work, replace them with ones that will.

Thank You.

It was at once shocking that the Singapore government, well-known for its financial prudence, was charting its own imperialist agenda to spread its own brand of soft power across the world. Education had now become a foreign policy tool.