Changing times

The students in Cambridge receive a first class education as they have always done, but their experiences and reactions over the generations also reflect the wider social trends in Britain and the situation back home in Singapore.

Before the war, the British Empire was the unquestioned order of things. The sun never set on the British Empire, so it was said. Singaporeans who graduated from Cambridge came back to a colonial society, joined the colonial social elite, helped to run the British system, thrived in the professions and business, looked up to all things English and took pride in being loyal British subjects.

The flow of students stopped during the war years, but after the war, our students started going to Cambridge again.

This was a different Britain: the country had been devastated by war, impoverished, and was struggling to find its own feet again.

The spirit of the times had changed. The Labour Party had come into power and started building the welfare state. The colonies were pressing for independence. Cambridge was filled with demobilised soldiers, older and more mature. Many students still came from the colonies. They absorbed Fabian ideas, learnt how the British operated and established contacts with one another and with British students and British political circles, which would prove invaluable later.

But far from being overawed or co-opted by British culture or values, they became more determined to assert their identities and fight for the freedom of their countries.

So you had people like Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew or the late Mr E.W. Barker and their contemporaries. Also graduates from other British universities, like Dr Goh Keng Swee from the London School of Economics or Dr Toh Chin Chye who was in the University of London. They returned home to lead the anti-colonial struggle, they brought Singapore self-government and later independence, and they put the country on the path to where we are today.

I went to Cambridge in the early '70s and it was again a different age. Oxbridge was then still the natural destination that top students from Singapore aspired to. The old ties with Britain were still strong. Few thought of going to US universities. China was still in the throes of the Cultural Revolution with all its universities closed. India was not on the radar screen.

The Singaporeans in Cambridge formed a little community together with Malaysian students. Most worked hard, but we found time to enjoy concerts and plays and to make new friends or find life partners.

Cambridge was then far away from home. Flying was expensive and most of us would return only upon graduation, or at most visit home once during our three years away. A long-distance telephone call home was a major and costly undertaking to be done only in the most exceptional of circumstances, such as reporting examination results.

The Public Service Commission scholars were sent Singapore newspapers to share with one another. The advertisement pages were torn out to save weight and airfare. We'd share with Singaporean and Malaysian students starved of home news.

We kept in touch with our families by writing letters sent via snail mail, which took about a week or, if lucky, five days to arrive.

In Britain, it was the tail end of the Vietnam era. Young people turned against the establishment, spawning the hippie movement and new sexual mores. Some Singaporeans were carried along and adopted the dress and practices of the counter-culture. Some acquired idealistic left-wing perspectives and anti-establishment attitudes. Others simply dressed and adjusted their hairdos so as not to stick out like a sore thumb.

The cocoon of university life was enjoyable and seductive, but this was not really life in Britain, much less life in Singapore. We knew we were coming back home after graduation not to struggle against colonialism, which was over, but to help build a new nation.

Cambridge today

Today, it's again a different Cambridge. Many more Singaporean students go there every year. I was amazed to hear the vice-chancellor of Cambridge tell me that there are nearly 200 Singaporeans, of which 130-odd are undergraduates - which means 30 to 40 per year. It's a different mix and a different socialising experience. With more students, we are more able to rely on one another for help and don't have to fend for ourselves quite so much, which is both a plus and a minus. Cambridge is also more cosmopolitan now, with students from all over the world and many, many of them.

At the same time, we have students now routinely going to top universities elsewhere: the US, top Chinese universities too, but not yet Indian universities.

The students in Cambridge are no longer full of angst but they are still full of passion and ideals. They campaign on climate change, Aids, and scientific and medical research. They dream of breakthroughs to change the world. Their education is as rigorous and demanding as ever. They have supervisions in small groups, they interact with other talented and motivated students, they feel the limitless possibilities opening up when they are young and ambitious and aspire to do something meaningful.

But Cambridge alone is not an adequate preparation for life. Students nowadays need exposure also to the rest of the world, and particularly for us, to the US and to Asia. So I encourage students who are going to Cambridge, or who are already there, to pursue internships, postgraduate programmes, exchange programmes in the US and in Asia. Live and work there, get to know these societies, their ethos, how they operate, build networks with people in business and academia or the public service. It will be useful to you and to Singapore and you will find it an eye-opener, it will challenge you and you will find you are doing things you didn't imagine you could do.

Today, students abroad are well-connected back home. There's e-mail, Skype, cheap air travel. It's much easier to keep in touch with family and friends. But students now have more options other than returning home after their studies.

In a globalised world for the English-speaking talented and well-qualified, all doors are open. Graduates return to Singapore to a vibrant and cosmopolitan city. They come back not to be a tiny privileged elite, but to join a thick layer of talent educated locally and abroad who contribute to our society in many fields: in government, in the private sector, in the professions or in academia.

There are many opportunities for young people to fulfil their dreams. The mission is no longer to fight colonialism or to build a fledgling nation, but to take Singapore beyond anything which we could imagine when I was in Cambridge or when my parents studied there after the war.

Singapore's future depends on this young talent. We send them to study in Britain or America or China or elsewhere, but we are also investing heavily in our local universities: in NUS, in NTU, in SMU and soon the Singapore University of Technology and Design. We are doing this so that even those who can't go abroad will receive a first class education here. Of those who are in Singapore, as many students as possible will have the chance to spend a semester or two on exchange programmes abroad - see the world, measure yourself against the best, and gain confidence that you are up to scratch and you can hold your own.

The new Singapore University of Technology and Design is a project for the 21st century, to build a new university that will give many more of our ablest students an outstanding education in technology and design and reflect the spirit of our society and our people. Singapore relies on all of them to lead and deliver our continuing transformation and progress.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.