The Futures of Higher Education

Tony Tan Keng Yam

This is the transcript of Dr Tony Tan’s speech that was delivered on 19 July 2011 during the Sim Kee Boon Institute Public Lecture. Dr Tony Tan, a former Deputy Prime Minister, intends to contest the 2011 Presidential Election which is expected to take place in August.

I would first like to thank SMU for inviting me to speak at the Sim Kee Boon Institute Public Lecture Series. Today, I am going to talk about something close to my heart: “The Futures of Higher Education.”

There is no spelling error here. I say “futures” because there is no single vision for the future of higher education. The reason is simply this : the future is unpredictable and the only constant in today’s globalized economy is change.

We cannot therefore plan for the future by extrapolating from the past. Instead we have to have frameworks which make possible a variety of paths depending on how the future evolves. For example, many of you undertaking studies now will not have one career, but two, three, or four.

I also want to be clear that I’m talking about higher education generally.

In Singapore, this comprises three types of institutions: Institute of Technical Education (ITE), Polytechnics and Universities. That is why I have asked SMU to ensure that polytechnic and ITE students and faculty are invited to this event, as I hope it will be of interest to them also.

My talk this morning will be in three parts, which you can think of as past, present, and futures. The first part looks back at the development of our higher education sector and the vital role that it has played in our economic and social development. I will then outline some of the current trends in higher education and the challenges that we presently face. Lastly, I will look to the futures.

I would also like to preface my speech by saying that I am not the Minister of Education and it is not my job to determine government policy. My words today are those of a private citizen. But based on my involvement in higher education over three decades, I would like to share three fundamental principles that I believe should guide the formulation of higher education policies that will benefit Singapore and all Singaporeans.

Past

Ever since Singapore’s independence, higher education has been the cornerstone of our strategy for growth and nation building. As a small country with no natural resources, our only asset is our people. It is therefore imperative that we invest heavily in their development to enable every one of our citizens to realise his or her potential.

Our higher education sector started just over 100 years ago, with the establishment of a college of medicine in the British tradition in 1905. This was followed by Raffles College which opened in 1929. Both became part of the University of Malaya in 1949, from which the University of Singapore was established in 1962.

The tumultuous period leading up to self-government also saw the birth of the first Chinese-language university in South East Asia, Nanyang University in 1956. The Singapore and the Ngee Ann Polytechnics were established in 1954 and 1963 respectively, to equip Singaporeans with practice-oriented skills needed for the growing economy.

And so in the first years of an independent Singapore, our two universities and two polytechnics prepared young people for new careers in industry, commerce and other professions.

By today’s standards, however, access was limited. Less than 3% of the cohort were admitted to these institutions in 1965. Most young people started work without post-secondary education, with some not even completing secondary school. The government also invested heavily in primary and secondary education during this period.

In the 1960s and 70s, industrialisation was Singapore’s main economic engine. By the late 1970s, our economy was confronting a new set of challenges — including competition from low-wage countries with plentiful labour. During the 1980s, Singapore began to shift from labour-intensive activities to more capital-driven and higher value-added industries.

We were moving up the value chain, and needed to train our people to keep up with these developments.Nanyang University was merged with the University of Singapore in 1980 to form the National University of Singapore. The Nanyang Technological Institute was set up in 1981 with three Engineering schools, later becoming the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

By the 1990s, the global economy was changing again, with a growing emphasis on innovation and a knowledge-based economy. To take advantage of this, we created a new institution that was closer to the American-style of broad-based education, which we hoped would capture and foster the entrepreneurial spirit. We called this new institution the Singapore Management University, or SMU.

Today, our universities enrol over 50,000 students, with a university cohort participation rate that has grown from 5% in 1980 to 26% in 2010 and will increase to 30% by 2015. To achieve this rate of increase, without lowering standards, is a significant achievement by any standards.

In parallel, the polytechnic sector grew rapidly, from two polytechnics prior to independence to five polytechnics today. These five polytechnics – Singapore, Ngee Ann, Temasek, Nanyang and Republic — trained 43% of the cohort in 2010.

The Institute of Technical Education (ITE) has similarly come a long way since its re-birth as a post-secondary institution in 1992. ITE is a critical pillar of our education system, providing industry-relevant training to 22% of every cohort.

ITE now forms an integral part of the higher education sector, ensuring that no young Singaporean leaves our education system without the skills he or she needs to make a living.

I have been asked more than once in recent weeks whether I favour a “Singaporeans first” policy in higher education.I do. What I understand by this is that Singaporeans can be put first.Whatever initiatives we launch, we must always put the interests of Singaporeans and Singapore first. But “Singaporeans first” is different from saying “Singaporeans only.”

Singapore is an international city and it would be a grave mistake to close our doors. While putting Singaporeans first, we should not make it too difficult for international talent to come to Singapore. Finding the right balance is not going to be easy but we must try.

I understand that some people believe that our higher education sector should only educate Singaporeans. In addition to the inherent problems of protectionism, however, closing our doors would limit the talented individuals who presently contribute much to Singapore.

Closing our doors would also restrict our ability to engage in the kind of collaborative research that has put Singaporean universities in the very top ranks of universities in the world.

There is another reason not to close our doors.We live in a region in which Singapore enjoys many advantages. As a small country, however, we have a strong national interest in helping to raise the standards of governance across the entire region.

Positioning our institutions of higher education as part of a global network, with alumni going on to leadership positions around the world, positions Singapore well, secures relations with other countries and brings further benefits to Singapore.

Having said that, our primary responsibility is to Singaporeans — to give Singaporeans and their families every opportunity to be first, to be the best that they can be, and to find their own path. To that end, Singaporean citizens have priority entrance to primary and secondary school; this lays the critical foundation for success in higher education.

Many subsidies and scholarships are available to Singaporean students to pursue higher education here or abroad. To ensure that Singaporeans can take advantage of opportunities, the government should continue to monitor carefully the proportion of foreign students in our educational institutions to ensure that the proportion matches the present and future needs of the country, and that Singaporeans are the main beneficiaries of our education policies.

In retrospect, what we have achieved in our higher education sector over the past decades may be an easier accomplishment compared with the difficult tasks ahead. Up to now, we have had role models. We could aspire to build our infrastructure and our human resources to first-world standards, thereby differentiating us from other countries in the region.

Today, we are no longer playing catch-up with Britain, the United States, or anyone else. Today, we have to start charting our own path.

Present

This brings me to the second part of my talk, on the trends and the challenges that we now face.

Let me highlight three trends.

First, we are witnessing unprecedented growth in developing countries, most notably China and India, with greater integration of these economies into the global economy.This puts increasing pressure on Singapore to maintain a highly-skilled workforce that leads the region.

Achieving this requires ability but also flexibility, so that we can upgrade our skills or develop new skills entirely. Only by doing so can we stay ahead of neighbours with greater natural resources and larger manpower bases.

Second, the demand for goods will grow as the economic pie increases in size, but it will grow in ways that are hard to predict. Rising affluence will fuel the growth of an increasingly specialised services sector to cater to a variety of tastes.

This in turn will lead to the creation of new classes of jobs, notably in the services and entertainment sector. For example, jobs such as “social-media manager”, “search-engine optimisation specialist” and even “professional blogger” did not exist ten years ago.

As someone who oversaw a large media company’s move to embrace the online platform, I can say that it’s an exciting time.Those of you preparing for the workforce will be confronted by a wide range of new and exciting occupations and careers.

Most of the attention tends to be paid to these high-end jobs.But at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, there are four billion low-income consumers in today’s world. As we have seen in China and, to a lesser extent, in India, many of these people will successfully aspire to higher income levels, with an accompanying expansion of demand and consumption.

The third trend is demography.The increased affluence that I’ve described will be accompanied by a change in life expectancy as well as life style. People will live longer and have longer and more diverse careers.
In some countries, the aging population will put pressure on the social safety net. In others, this demographic shift presents an economic opportunity if one can accommodate the medical and lifestyle challenges that it raises.

As I said earlier, many of you will have not one career, but two, three, or four. Sometimes the reasons will be economic. But there are also many people who change careers for self-fulfilment.

I was reminded recently, for example, that Mr Willin Low, the chef-owner of “Wild Rocket”, gave up a lucrative career in law to set up his own restaurants. I am sure that Singaporeans, being the food-lovers that we are, would welcome more of such mid-career changes.

The challenge for higher education today, then, is to be more flexible — but without compromising the standards of excellence in education for which Singapore is known.

Futures

So, for the third and final part of my presentation: what do the futures hold? One thing is clear: Singapore must remain an open society, even though it will face even more competition in the years ahead. As a young nation, we must also continue to focus on nation-building and strengthening social cohesion.

As I have said, I am not the Minister of Education. Nevertheless, I hope it will be helpful if I share some thoughts about the foundational principles that should guide the next phase of developing higher education in Singapore.

I see three such principles.

The first is comprehensiveness. Our institutions of higher education must, collectively, aspire to offer the widest range of programmes to the widest range of people.

The multiple pathways that we offer through our ITEs, polytechnics and universities must cater both to the needs of the economy and the inclinations of our learners.

Each pathway should have the necessary scale to cater to a significant proportion of each cohort, but there should also be scope to mount courses in areas of large demand and also in areas of emerging or niche demand.

ITE is, for example, beginning to distinguish each ITE regional college. While NUS and NTU remain comprehensive universities, each is also expanding its range of courses on offer, through new institutions such as the Yale-NUS Liberal Arts College and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine respectively.

As with SMU, which specialises in business, management and the social sciences, Singapore’s fourth university, the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), will offer a novel multi-disciplinary curriculum with a strong focus on design thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship.

While Singapore places a strong emphasis on science and technology, we are increasingly aware of the need to promote the arts in Singapore. To this end, our arts institutions, LASALLE and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), have played an important role in developing skilled manpower for the arts and creative industries in Singapore.

For individuals, this principle of comprehensiveness means learning widely even as one develops specialist skills. Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple, is an interesting example of this. At college, the subject he enjoyed most was — of all things — calligraphy. At the time he thought this was entirely separate from his interest in computers. Years later, however, Apple produced the first computer with beautiful typography, changing the way we think about computers and publishing.

The second principle is flexibility. We need a system that is flexible and allows for a network of bridges and ladders that can link the various pathways. In the past, higher education has often been linear. Once you began down one pathway, there was very little prospect of switching to another. That is a very narrow view of education, and a very limited view of human potential. In the future, it will be untenable.

Education, especially higher education, should offer a range of opportunities to all. People develop at different paces, and many will need or want to switch paths. In some cases this might be seen as offering second chances. But more generally we need to ensure that our learners are flexible and nimble, able to seize opportunities and capitalize on them. A second chance is only a chance if you identify it, and you seize it.

The newly established Singapore Institute of Technology is an initiative that provides upgrading opportunities for polytechnic graduates through quality, industry-relevant degree programmes, which are established in partnership with overseas universities and the polytechnics.

We must also build on our Continuing Education and Training (CET) programmes to prepare our workforce for a more dynamic future and a longer working life. This includes upgrading programmes, such as part-time diploma and degree programmes in the publicly-funded institutions, as well as private bodies such as UniSIM.

Another example is the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, which takes in students who have a basic degree in a variety of disciplines, but nonetheless feel passionately about medicine as their calling.

Earlier this month, I attended one of the NUS graduation ceremonies, and spoke with one of the students.
He was a little older than the others — 35 — and I asked him about his background. He told me that he had served as a colonel in the SAF but realized that his dream was to practise medicine. So he gave up his military career and enrolled in the Graduate Medical School.Soon he will be fulfilling that dream.

My third and final principle is openness. We must ensure that our institutions are high-quality, but also open and connected to each other and to the world. In a world of tough competition and scarce resources, our institutions must leverage their local, regional and global networks to attract and retain the very best students and faculty, prepare local students for global careers and to be at the cutting edge of research.

All our institutes of higher learning now have exchanges and immersion programmes that allow students to spend time in overseas institutions. These must continue and grow. Four Centres of Innovation (COIs) now support local R and D initiatives at our polytechnics. ITE’s Global Education Programme sends around 3,000 students abroad every year. Centres of Technology (COTs) promote deeper collaboration between ITE and industry.

At the University level, the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) offers open spaces for research interaction between NUS, NTU, SMU and leading overseas institutions. The Ministry of Education (MOE) and the NRF have established Research Centres of Excellence (RCEs) to undertake cutting-edge research in areas such as Quantum Technologies, Cancer Science and the Earth Sciences.

These collaborations have reaped early fruits. NUS recently developed a method for the early diagnosis of gastric cancer. NTU researchers have discovered that annual growth rings on corals in Indonesia could potentially predict massive earthquakes in the region. These are all positive initiatives in the public sector. But an area for greater attention is leveraging on private networks also.

Private foundations have always played a prominent role in giving back to society by donating to educational institutions. Recently, the Lee Foundation donated $150M to the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. This trend must continue for Singapore’s higher education to secure diverse resources for its future growth.
In the future, I would like private and corporate support to extend beyond financial support to include mentorship, research collaboration and learning opportunities.

Just as society and the world have an impact on the face of higher education, good institutions must also have a transformative impact on society. I have spoken at length on the economic role that our institutions play, but we must never forget their social purpose. Other than training manpower and promoting research and development, our higher education sector must also contribute to society.

SMU was the first university to make public service a prerequisite for graduation, and last year clocked up its millionth hour of service by students. Many of our tertiary institutions now have similar programmes in place. The role of higher education is not just to prepare one for a job, but for a contributing role in society and for life.

Although there is much cynicism in the world today, idealism and social consciousness is also high. Our institutions must nurture the idealism of their students into lifelong commitments to work for the betterment of society. In short, I believe that a comprehensive approach to education, that is flexible and open to new ideas is necessary for Singapore’s continued growth. But I also believe that these values will enable all Singaporeans to set and achieve their own goals, to dream big and work to live out those dreams.

Conclusion

In painting this picture of the past, present, and futures of Singapore’s higher education sector, I want to be clear that I remain confident about our future. That future is uncertain, but it is not something to be feared. It is something to be shaped.

Singapore today is radically different from the Singapore of 100 years ago — and from the Singapore where I completed a degree in physics, at what was then the University of Singapore. We have created new institutions to respond to challenges and offer new opportunities to current and future generations.

Moving forward, we must continue to offer a comprehensive education to all Singaporeans, we must be flexible, and we must be open to new ideas. If we can do this, we will prosper and our students will thrive — whatever the futures hold.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions and comments.

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Photo courtesy of the Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics.