5. Bond Breaking & Attrition

At this point, let me give you my own take on a subject that has generated controversy from time to time - bond breaking. Having spent a great deal of money and effort on a scholar, it is natural for the government to be disappointed if the scholar leaves before his bond is up.

Recruiting a scholar for the public service is more than a commercial contract. Serving the nation cannot be the same as serving a company. As a public servant you are entrusted with the lives of your fellow citizens and are supposed to deliver public goods in the public interest. You are serving Singapore, not Boston Consulting Group or Citibank. You are tasked to improve the lives of Singaporeans, not raise the bottom line of your firm by making more profits from consumers.

But do we expect 100% of our scholars to stay throughout their bond period? No.

Do we expect a significant majority of them to stay? Yes. Attrition figures are important as warning indicators to alert us if there is a problem, but they hide many things. When the various Ministries come to brief PSC and present their staff attrition figures to me, I often ask them if the attrition is a good attrition or a bad attrition.

What I mean is 'Are you losing the right people or the wrong people?'

If the best officers leave, and only the mediocre remain, the public service is in big trouble. We need enough of our best people to stay and provide a continuous flow of leaders. Likewise, with scholars. No matter how robust our selection process, and no matter how astute our PSC members are in judging people, a handful of candidates who are not suitable for public service will manage to slip through. Among them will be those who lack commitment and have little interest in the public service and merely want either the prestige or the funds that come with a scholarship to study overseas. A few may be smart, perhaps even committed, but have character flaws that show up after they join service.

If those who are unsuitable for the public service break bond, we should be disappointed that we failed to sieve them out earlier, but we should not be unhappy.

However, we still get upset with scholars who break their bond without serving even one day after they finish their studies. They have wasted the PSC's time and effort and used taxpayers' money upfront for their selfish purpose. Even if there is no scholarship quota, there is an opportunity cost to every taxpayer dollar spent on scholars. In the period 1999 to 2008, there were 9 such PSC scholars out of a total of 791 scholarship holders recruited. Although this is a low attrition rate of 1%, we would like to see it go down to as close to zero as possible.

There are also some scholars who finish their bond and leave for positive reasons. Some scholars move on because they want a change in career. Nothing wrong with that especially if they stay in Singapore or contribute to Singapore in other ways. Others want to care for their young children. As a family-friendly nation, we should applaud such a motive. A few get invited to tea and become politicians. Others go on to become successful entrepreneurs and managers in the corporate world. And if they stay in Singapore or work in Singapore firms overseas, they can still make a contribution to Singapore.

Next: Good management of public service officers is key