Scholarship
A review in store
Like other Singaporean sacred cows, this unique one will not be slaughtered but a major change can be expected. By Seah Chiang Nee
Sept 12, 2003

WITH a career in the civil service becoming more attractive than the uncertain job market outside, Singapore's controversial scholarship system faces one more reason for a review.

Its objective is to channel the state's top students in the bureaucracy and armed forces by sending them to the best universities abroad on scholarship and then bonding them for six years.

Long held that Singapore's prosperity depends on an honest, efficient public service, the government has, for years, fought fiercely to keep its brightest scholars from being hired by the private sector.

In a strong economy, salaries were jumping, promotions speeded up and some top bureaucrats were given perks like expensive golf club memberships at friendly terms.

It has worked well. An efficient civil service, largely free of corruption, has helped Singapore attract high-value investment and transform itself into a modern, advanced city.

But in a changed economy today, Singapore is urgently seeking new ways to earn a living and one of them is to promote an entrepreneurial society.

The idea of channelling the city's best scholars into a high-paying civil service, instead of letting them loose in the corporate world, seems self-defeating.

Admitting this, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew recently said the government would think of ways to free some of them to start and run their own business.

But other pressures are building up against the concept.

There's a general feeling of de-control in the air and work bondage, whate The first is that job creation in the private sector has dropped significantly.

In this harsh environment, the safety of the civil service becomes a lot more alluring.

Recent statistics showed that the number of new jobs created in the last five years (1997-2002) fell by 78.5% to 102,000 compared to 474,800 in the previous period (1992-1997).

Secondly, many senior civil servants, especially administration officers, are over-paid relative to the private sector.

All this has shifted the advantage of recruitment firmly to the civil service, where jobs are less uncertain. Many graduates are flocking to join it.

Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has already served notice of an imminent cut in starting graduates' pay in the civil service to close the gap.

These are having an impact on the bureaucracy - and the scholarship system.

It is unlikely that it will be scrapped, but under the current Remaking Singapore exercise, it may come under some fine-tuning that may reduce the number of government scholars or the period and conditions of the bond.

One argument against doing away with "high rewards" and the scholarship system as a means of recruiting top talent is that the government is not just competing with the private sector here but also with global companies outside.

During the past decades, scholarships have proliferated.

The most prestigious are the President's Scholars (about four a year) and the Armed Forces and Public Services Commission scholars.

Almost every ministry and statutory board has its own list and every parent knows its value by heart.

In fact, the scholarship scheme has become a source of much parental pressure on their children to study hard to qualify, which requires a string of A's in colleges exams.

The chosen ones are sent to the best universities in the US, Britain, Germany, France and now China and US, Britain, Germany, France and now China and Japan.

IIn return for a four-year degree course, they are required to work for the government for six years (four years for local universities.)

The scholars find themselves in demand not only for senior positions in the civil service but also foreign MNCs.

With costs in the West reaching astronomical levels, the scheme provides opportunities to many lower or middle-class Singaporeans to get a world-class education.

Not every Singaporean, however, sees it that way.

Some critics disagree with the government's criterion of academic grades as an indication of talent to be earmarked for special opportunities.

A common argument is that a string of distinctions shows nothing more than the person is hard-working and exam-smart, but not necessarily having special abilities.

Others say the system promotes elitism in the bureaucracy with a small exclusive clique of excessively paid people in secure jobs while the rest of the state languishes in retrenchment and pay-cuts. It is an unfair description, of course.

Several years ago, controversy erupted when some scholars broke their contracts, opting instead to pay back the costs.

The Economic Development Board angrily denounced these bond-breakers as irresponsible and lacking integrity - then publicly naming them.

The action split the ruling party Parliamentarians into two camps, those who said the move was too harsh and those who agreed that the bond was not a civil contract that could be discharged with money.
"The more prestigious the scholarship, the greater the responsibilities - to return, to serve, to lead, to benefit future generations," said one MP.
It was the prestige of the government scholarship that gave their service and skill a premium to the MNCs. These selfish acts, he added, were threatening the future of the scheme for others.

He said that out of six recent cases, five had refused to serve. Some had rich parents while others were headhunted by major corporations prepared to pay off their bonds.

Four PAP MPs objected to the public-shaming idea.

Deputy Prime Minister Dr Tony Tan suggested it was time to replace the scholarship scheme with a new bond-less loan system in which the scholars would repay the government after graduation.

DPM Lee quickly rejected it, evidently because it would have detracted from the objective of recruiting the best into public service.

With the market attractiveness of the civil service, some believe it may be time to give Dr Tan's idea a fresh hearing.

Even without the bond, the civil service will be able to attract top talent because of the uncertain job market outside.

There may come a time when the number of bonded graduates is excessive to what the government needs.

In a value-added service economy where ideas and innovation count most, a reluctant, calendar-counting scholar may not be the most productive.
(This was first published in the Sunday Star, on August 31, 2003.)