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Cover Story

Singapore lesson unlearned
lished vocational schools christened Joint Government
n 2010, when the Foreign Educational Institution Training Centers to expand the pool of skilled technical
(Regulation of Entry & Operations) Bill, 2010 was tabled manpower.
Iin Parliament, your editors travelled to Singapore to In 1997 in collaboration with the education ministry, the
investigate the causative factor behind the island Republic board launched its World Class Universities programme
of Singapore having emerged as a hub of world-class edu- and the Global Schoolhouse Initiative in 2002 ‘to develop
cation. Excerpts from our cover story of July 2010 (https:// Singapore as a world-class education hub offering a
www.educationworld.in/educationworld-archive/?_sfm_ar- diverse and distinctive mix of local and international quality
chive_year=2010) services’.
In his remarkably candid memoir From Third World Quite obviously, the island republic’s strategy under
to First — The Singapore Story 1965-2000 (Harper which EDB identifies, invites and facilitates the entry of
“Collins, 2000), Dr. Lee Kuan Yew, the blue-chip universities and higher education insti-
founding father of modern Singapore, recounts tutions has paid off. Currently, Singapore boasts
his version of the quick passage of Singapore 16 globally-respected universities and B-schools
from developing to developed nation status, including INSEAD, Digipen Institute of Technol-
in a chapter titled ‘Nurturing and attracting ogy, Duke University, German Institute of Science
talent’. Lee narrates how the first PAP govern- and Technology, Waseda University, Shanghai
ment of independent Singapore built upon ‘the Jiao Tong, S.P. Jain Institute of Management
good fortune that under the British, Singapore and Research, Mumbai, and the Jamnalal Bajaj
had been (developed) as a regional centre for Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, among
education’. ‘It has taken me some time to see others, who have established campuses in the
the obvious, that talent is a country’s most precious asset. country. Their presence has drawn over 90,000 foreign
For a small resource-poor country like Singapore, with two students from Asia and around the world to the city state…
million people at independence in 1965, it is the defining However, it’s pertinent to note that quite logically, the
factor,’ he writes in his engaging memoir. education development and upgradation initiatives of the
For the purpose of encouraging the inflow of invest- Singapore government and the EDB in particular, are sec-
ment, entrepreneurs and skilled professionals — and of tor agnostic. Therefore the city state boasts 22 globally
education institutions — into post-independence Singa- benchmarked international schools — including the United
pore, the Lee government reactivated and re-energised the World College, Anglo-Chinese International and Canadian
island’s Economic Development Board (EDB), established International schools affiliated with highly reputed examina-
by the colonial government in 1961. In the initial years tion boards including the International Baccalaureate Or-
after independence, EDB’s main task which it discharged ganisation, Geneva and the Cambridge International (UK).
with exemplary efficiency — the Lee government was Indeed presumably driven by the same logic, Singa-
pronouncedly free enterprise-oriented and had few of the pore is currently experiencing a boom in early childhood
pro-Soviet ideological hang-ups which crippled economic education with high quality pre-schools mushrooming
development in post-independence India — was to deliver in all neighbourhoods. This perhaps explains why the
trained technical manpower to the large number of foreign hitherto US-based Knowledge Universe Learning Group
companies attracted to Singapore with its low corporate which owns over 1,800 KinderCare and New Beginnings
and personal income tax regime. Back in the early 1970s pre-schools in 39 states across the US, and 132 Busybee
in collaboration with corporates including the Tata Group brand pre-schools in the UK, took a momentous decision
(India), Rollei (Germany) and Philips (Holland), EDB estab- to move its global headquarters to Singapore in 2007. ”

grade teaching, chronic teacher ab- state capitals since 2014, if Indian ic civic management. And rising illegal
senteeism and rock-bottom learning high schoolers were ranked #80 out of emigration. The best available option
outcomes — to write PISA is certain students from 81 countries who wrote is to join with us in our non-negotia-
to lead to disaster. In the circum- PISA 2022. ble campaign to make education the
stances, the Union education minis- Yet the government and establish- #1 item on the national development
try’s last-minute decision to opt out ment can’t fool all people all the time. agenda. And this campaign has to
of PISA 2022 was perhaps prudent. Post-independence India’s neglect of succeed sooner than later lest India’s
With General Election 2024 a mere education is manifesting in all walks demographic dividend — the world’s
four-five months away, it would have of life — low industrial and agriculture largest child and youth population —
reflected badly on the BJP which has productivity, rising unemployment, transforms into a demographic disas-
been ruling in New Delhi and several spreading crime and violence, pathet- ter ●

60 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2024