The Singapore's way of developing human resources

(This entry is continued from "Singapore - their Housing Development policy".)

In my opinion, the most important reason for Singapore's development is their strong policy of human resources. The government is keen to choose elites even children who are under 10 years old, so people are very concerned about their children's educational qualifications. In my opinion, the fact that Lee Luan Yew, the ex-prime minister and the founder of New Singapore, is an admirer of so-called eugenics, in other words, "Like father, like son." plays a key role in this trend.

In 1983, he dropped a verbal bomb on two TV programs as follows: "If college-educated man want well-educated sons / daughters like him, it would be stupid to marry a low-educated woman." He also quoted from a study from Minnesota. The study showed that twins have a lot in common - even if they grow up in different countries. 80% of their trends are the same - vocabularies, IQs, habits, tastes of food and friends, characteristics and personalities. He said, "In other words, 80% of person's ability is decided by nature, 20% of that is a result of foster." This topic caused massive controversy. In the following year, Mr. Lee's political party's votes decreased 12%. Mr. Lee predicted these consequences in advance. Why?

He was anxious about Singapore's future when he read a statistics report in 1980: It showed that college-educated women of Singapore tended not to marry and not have children. The reason for this was that Singaporean men didn't want to marry with a woman with the same level of education. Half of college-educated people were women and two thirds of them didn't marry. No matter what ethnic group, college-educated men like to marry with women whose education level lower than theirs, the rate of marriage between college-educated men and college-educated women was 38% in Singapore. Mr. Lee thought this was a serious problem.


But Mr. Lee wasn't a man who worried about the "serious" scene, he was a man who was active. He and his partner created a national society club for college-educated men and women. This proved fruitful: the rate of marriage between college-educated men and college-educated women increased to 63% in 1997 from 38% in 1983.

In my opinion, I don't agree with his thinking "80% of human ability is decided by nature". I think the environment a child grows up in is very important. The book, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, says "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." In addition to that, I am not an admirer of the opinion placing educational background above anything else.

However, I don't hesitate to admire Mr. Lee's quick response and enthusiasm for developing Singapore. His strong leadership and clear decision made many excellent results. Now, his son, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong is the Prime Minister of Singapore. He is also a smart leader. Lee Kuan Yew, his wife and his son all received the No.1 position in Cambridge University. At least with the Lee family, Mr. Lee's opinion seems to be true - "If college-educated man wants well-educated sons / daughters like him, it would be stupid to marry a low-educated woman."