Below is an edited exerpt from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's speech at Cambridge University's 800th anniversary gala dinner. » Read article

» Many opportunities for grads who return home

Cambridge originated in the 13th century. It started with the expulsion of foreigners from the University of Paris in 1167 which caused many English scholars to return from France and settle in Oxford. In 1209, there was a dispute with townsfolk in Oxford; some scholars left Oxford and formed Cambridge - and that's why we are here today. There have been many ups and downs over the centuries but today, Cambridge is a vibrant and forward-looking institution.

For centuries, Oxford and Cambridge were the only two universities in England and they became key institutions producing leaders for the Church, the country and in the sciences and arts. It produced clergymen and ministers, writers and poets, scientists and philosophers - many great names through the centuries.

In the 19th and 20th centuries as the British Empire rose, Cambridge was at the centre of this empire and talent came to Cambridge from all over the world: physicist Ernest Rutherford from New Zealand, mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan from India, and also many brilliant refugees from Europe between the two world wars fleeing the Nazis, like the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein from Austria.

But while Cambridge men took active part in national life, the university itself remained in splendid isolation. It's some distance outside of London in the middle of the fenlands, once upon a time swampland but now drained, and the way it was put, people or students came 'up' to Cambridge and went 'down' to London. That was the order of things.

Even Cambridge town was outside the cocoon of the university, and hence the distinction between 'town' and 'gown' and the frictions between the two.

Hence also the sardonic graffiti which has since been preserved on a lamp post in the middle of Parker's Piece that said 'Reality Checkpoint'. This marked the boundary between the university area and the real world of non-academic locals living in Cambridge town beyond Parker's Piece. The Reality Checkpoint was a reminder to those going past: Please verify your notions of reality as you go into the outside world.

Today, the world has changed. Britain's great empire is just a memory. The United States is today the economic powerhouse of the world. The best US universities like Harvard or Stanford or Yale or MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have become outstanding centres of teaching and research and the top Ivy League universities are at least on a par with Cambridge.

They operate on a different model. They are more integrated into the economy and society, they are more closely linked with their alumni networks, they are more independent of the US government in terms of funding and governance and they have larger endowments, eclipsing even the wealthiest Cambridge colleges.

Most importantly, they have attracted talent - both students and professors - from around the world and established formidable reputations for themselves.

And on the other side of the world, Asia is emerging. China and India are educating large numbers of talented and driven young people, and their best institutions like the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) in India or Beijing and Qinghua universities in China have admission competition that's fiercer than anything which Cambridge and MIT experience.

The Indians say that if you have a bright kid, try for the IIT; if you can't make it, go to MIT. The Chinese don't say anything, but if you look at their population - 1,300 million - and you look at the admission to, let's say, Beijing University, maybe 3,000 a year, and you scale that to Singapore and the National University of Singapore, we would have maybe 10 admissions per year.

So they have the talent and the potential. They have not yet established themselves as premier institutions in international comparisons, but they will improve over time as India and China develop and open up, and they will reflect the vibrancy and dynamism of their economies and societies.

Cambridge remains a great university, but it now shares top placing not with one or two others but perhaps half a dozen, so far mainly in North America.

In response to these changing times, Cambridge is also evolving. It's not easy, given the accumulated weight of 800 years of tradition and a system of colleges with substantial autonomy, if not a preference, to go it their own way.

But they are changing. They have a Judge Business School - they no longer consider business to be something which is beneath one's dignity, but something which has to be mastered. They operate a very successful Science Park to exploit the ideas and breakthroughs that Cambridge academics generate.

They collaborate with industry in research. For example, Microsoft Research Cambridge has been set up together with Microsoft.

They encourage dons to be entrepreneurial and to take on consultancies, and you can do as much as you like as long as you fulfil your academic duties to your students and your faculty.

And they're becoming more international, taking on many foreign students from the European Union and the rest of the world.

They are involving the alumni in their activities more. The Cam - the university's magazine for alumni - will from time to time make an appeal for funds. This 800th anniversary is a very significant occasion for the university to raise funds.

But Cambridge remains a British institution subject to Britain's social and political climate. It's heavily dependent on state funding; the fees that it can charge are capped. If it were not subject to government caps, it could charge a lot more.

It's also under pressure to become more inclusive and to admit more students from state schools who may come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Singapore has had a long relationship with Cambridge, going back to before World War II and probably before World War I. We've had students sent there almost every year, beginning with one or two a year, but now about 30 or 40 a year. On a per capita basis we must send the highest number to Cambridge of nearly any country in the world.

Next: Changing times

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.