Lessons from Singapore | The Daily Star

When Singa-pore was expelled from Malaysia in 1965 and thrust into an undesirable independence, its total situation—financial, social and political—had been under no circumstances conducive. The nation confronted a myriad of issues: a stagnant financial system with little manufacturing base, poor infrastructure, extreme unemployment, poverty, crime, dysfunction, poor public well being, an acute housing scarcity, and recurring battle among the many ethnic and non secular teams that made up its inhabitants. It was an undeveloped nation, often known as a backward fishing village, with a GDP per capita of lower than USD 320. At the moment, this tiny island-state, with a complete land space of round 280 sq. miles and no pure useful resource of its personal, is ready to produce a GDP that exceeds USD 350 billion yearly. Singapore’s GDP per capita rose to USD 64,579 in 2018, making it the fourth highest on this planet and is taken into account to be the most effective fashionable, industrialised societies, considered as a task mannequin for different governments in Asia and past. So, how have they executed it? Quite a few specialists have tried to clarify this improvement. For my part, I’d say that this has been attainable due to robust management, beginning with founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and different pioneer leaders, who labored exhausting with imaginative and prescient, honesty and real want and dedication to construct a multicultural, secular and meritocratic nation the place justice and equality will prevail.

“United we stand, divided we fall” is a well known saying. Whereas many elements contribute to the general improvement of a rustic, nationwide unity is probably the most important to deliver peace, concord, wealth and prosperity to a nation. A nation can’t prosper if the persons are not united. From the very starting, Singapore’s founding fathers believed passionately within the imaginative and prescient of a multiracial society. On August 9, 1965, the day Singapore turned impartial, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew stated: “This isn’t a Malay nation; this isn’t a Chinese language nation; this isn’t an Indian nation. Everybody may have his place, equal: language, tradition, faith. We unite no matter race, language, faith, tradition.” This nationwide identification has performed an essential function in politics and has formed many main nationwide insurance policies, spanning schooling, housing and healthcare, amongst others.

When it turned impartial Singapore didn’t have a standard college system or a standard curriculum. There have been colleges established by completely different ethnic teams like Chinese language, Malay, Indian that didn’t have a standard curriculum. Nationwide unity, as advocated by sociologists, is greatest achieved via unified schooling system; defective, divisive, discriminatory and contradictory schooling can’t produce good residents, not to mention take the nation ahead. Singapore’s pioneer leaders have lengthy recognised the significance of unified schooling system, and as such, one of many first issues they did was that they merged the faculties that had been established by completely different ethnic teams right into a unified and impartial schooling system to create a way of nationwide identification. All colleges adopted a standard curriculum. Though Singapore recognises and teaches 4 official languages—Chinese language, English, Malay and Tamil—English is the language of presidency and the medium of instruction in colleges. This has helped keep away from the racial and ethnic segregation that afflicts many international locations and performed an essential function in creating nationwide unity as effectively.

For Singapore’s founding father, schooling went past formal education. As Mr Lee put it in a speech in 1977: “My definition of an informed man is a person who by no means stops studying and desires to be taught.” Since independence, the Singaporean authorities has invested very closely in creating a very good high quality educating power and a very good staff of college leaders with robust emphasis on arithmetic, know-how and science schooling to facilitate a big and competent workforce upon commencement. It views schooling as a nationwide funding and spends round 20 p.c of its annual finances on schooling sector.  Singapore’s schooling system is relentlessly forward-looking and is taken into account the most effective on this planet. The federal government is consistently engaged on reforms for the schooling system and opinions syllabi to stay versatile and assure the standard of schooling. It has been stated that Singapore was blessed by its lack of pure sources as a result of it was pressured to develop its solely useful resource: its folks. Investing in its folks has been a successful method as a method of creating its financial system and elevating dwelling requirements.

Good authorities begins with “honesty”, which is probably the most important trait of a frontrunner. With out honesty a frontrunner can’t lead with integrity and impartiality—a mandatory ingredient for financial improvement and prosperity. There’s a Chinese language proverb: “If the highest beam is askew, the underside beams might be crooked.” Maintaining a system clear should begin on the very high. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew knew effectively that the easiest way to win folks’s belief is by being sincere and clear. He selected extremely educated, devoted, and sincere residents to run the nation, recruited them primarily based on their particular person advantage, talents, efficiency and achievements. Mr Lee emphasised the significance of excellent management in his memoirs, when he wrote: “My expertise of developments in Asia has led me to conclude that we want good males to have good authorities. Nevertheless good the system of presidency, unhealthy leaders will deliver hurt to their folks. The one decisive issue that made for Singapore’s improvement was the flexibility of its ministers and the prime quality of the civil servants who supported them.”

Singapore’s leaders, cupboard ministers and senior civil servants are paid aggressive salaries, so the temptation could be much less to take bribes and make backend offers towards public curiosity. They run Singapore like a CEO runs an organization—they’re totally centered and at all times trying to deliver enhancements within the financial and social domains. Their fundamental goal is folks’s well-being by remodeling Singapore into a world financial powerhouse.

At a time the place newly impartial nations had been implementing protectionist insurance policies to guard native industries, Singapore went the other method. Like different creating international locations they didn’t depend on international support, however on commerce and funding to realize its improvement objectives. Singapore’s leaders, bureaucrats typically toured the world, however not for his or her private pleasure however to draw international funding. They invited multinational firms (MNCs) to arrange manufacturing amenities in Singapore. They made business-friendly legal guidelines, supplied varied tax breaks and enticing insurance policies to new traders and multinational firms like Shell and Esso to ascertain oil refineries in Singapore. This not solely addressed the large unemployment however billions of dollars additionally poured in, making certain the nation’s success.

One other key ingredient of Singapore’s success is its corruption-free governance. The rule of legislation and good governance acted as a supply of attraction to international traders to do enterprise in Singapore. The founding leaders knew that they needed to begin from a clear slate. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew pressured the significance of excellent governance in his memoirs: “After we took the oath of workplace in June 1959, all of us wore white shirts and white slacks to symbolise purity and honesty in our private behaviour and our public life. We made positive from the day we took workplace in June 1959 that each greenback in income could be correctly accounted for and would attain the beneficiaries on the grass roots as one greenback, with out being siphoned off alongside the best way. So from the very starting we gave particular consideration to the areas the place discretionary powers had been exploited for private achieve and sharpened the devices that might forestall, detect or deter such practices.” This symbolised their willpower to maintain the federal government clear and incorruptible, and it has set the tone for Singapore ever since.

Abu Afsarul Haider studied economics and enterprise administration at Illinois State College, USA. He’s an entrepreneur at the moment dwelling in Dhaka. E mail: afsarulhaider@gmail.com