AsiaYouthMedia 亚青传媒 sinazen.com

Blog Owner's Explanation: (blog content enhanced 10/04/07)
This blog was started entirely on my own initiative, after I saw the Sunday Times item today about his argument with Chen Jiahao, a former scholar who had some unfortunate run-ins with Yeo. On their quarrel itself I am neutral. (but see below)
I knew Philip Yeo personally, but it was many years ago. My attitude towards his tech development and other policies was ambivalent, as shown in the following blog entries taken from yuenchungkwong.com This blog was started so that some alternative information and perspective is more easily available
(someone referred me to this site
http://socrates-reincarnated.blogspot.com/2007/03/mr-philip-yeo-up-close-and-personal.html
apparently from a person with a closer association to Philip Yeo than I) To provide comprehensive coverage, I set up these buttons for searching out news about him English chinese chinese
-----------------------------------------------
Singapore's man with a plan
I am sure Philip Yeo much prefers the title given to him by Economist,

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3084417

Singapore's man with a plan, compared with the one given to him by Today

The bio-mad man http://www.todayonline.com/articles/137300.asp

I myself prefer to call him "the crash programmes man", crash programmes because they are a few years late.

In the early 80s Singapore went into a crash programme on IT, with the new National Computer Board (now part of Infocomm Development Authority) spearheading a Civil Service Computerization Programme, and rapid expansion of the NUS Computer Science Department from less than 100 grduates in 1983 to 500 10 year later. Curiously, the University of Singapore never had a CS Department: a small one was set up in 1975 in Nanyang University through the initiative of some staff from Mathematics and Physics; it then become part of NUS when the two universities merged. At the time it only had 10 academics and had to scramble madly to cope with growth.

Whereas in the 70s people from Hong Kong and Taiwan were going to USA to study computer science in substantial numbers, and some from Malaysia too, virtually no Singaporeans were doing this. Why? the economic planners thought computers were for rocket science, nuclear research, etc, which Singapore was not interested in. It was nearly 1980 when message began to come through that computers are important for the industry, making it necessary to start a crash programme.

In the 80s molecular biology was making big progress, but in NUS the Biology Department was busy growing better varieties of orchids and fish, things seen to be relevant to Singapore's economy. When Life Sciences got started in a big way, it too was an "a few years late" kind of crash programme. Despite the best intentions, economic planners are some distance away from actual scientific developments, and ideas take time to filter up to them.

Crash programmes allow efforts and resources to be focused. However, there are certain things that are better done through organic growth, and such things are disturbed when competing crash programmes pumped full of money, often more than people know what to do with, are going full blown. It is not the way I myself would prefer to get things done.

To what extent do the problems in Neuroscience Institute and Johns Hopkins Institute relate to the speed at which things get implemented? About these I cannot say, but about IT, I can say that the crash programme was a successful one. In the level of penetration of technology in daily life and economic sphere, there is no doubt Singapore is ahead of Hong Kong and Taiwan, and comparable to the most advanced countries, though with little technology creation as compared to utilization.
johns hopkins singapore research centre
The news item appearing in July 2006 that Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research will cut off funding for the Johns Hopkins Singapore medical research centre caught everyone by surprise, since there have been no public reports of any problems earlier, and the clinical service operated by Johns Hopkins at Singapore General Hospital has enjoyed considerable commercial success (I hear by attracting high paying, foreign, especially middle east, customers). The matter would probably have passed quietly if not for a quoted statement from the JHU side that it fulfilled its obligations but the Singapore side failed to do so. This led to the publication of an extended statement from ASTAR detailing its reasons for terminating its financial subsidy ($25M per year) after May 2007, that the JHU centre has consistently failed to meet a number of Key Performance Indicators agreed upon during the establishment of the centre.
Here we have a classic case of academic judgement clashing with bureaucratic resource management. The JHU side argued that by recruiting a number of junior faculty members (at the assistant professor, i.e., PhD/postdoc level staff) and publishing papers (whose number met the agreed target), the Centre has achieve enough to promise future performance and so deserves continued existence. It probably also thought that the drastic move to close it down would not actually be carried out because of the negative publicity, the ill will produced among the medical research circles by the spectacle of the soon to be unemployed staff and the impact this might have on the ongoing clinical collaborative programme, and had not anticipated the bureaucratic necessity of the outcome nor devised strategem for a possible compromise or at least soft landing.
My own guess is that if the Centre had attracted one or two big name medical researchers to come to Singapore to head a couple of projects, even if only present for part of each year, or produced some commercializable results, all the other issues could have been considered unimportant (such as whether those awarded PhD scholarships are obligated to return to Singapore afterwards, which ASTAR could have settled individually with the students concerned before giving out scholarship money). The PR, commercial, even diplomatic, values of research programmes obviously count a great deal in bureaucratic thinking, much more than academics who do research to publish papers would realize. The well known researchers who sat on the centre's international review board would have been left with much disappointment that their advice and guidance had been to no avail.
Only a few days ago there was an announcement that an MIT research centre is soon to be set up in Singapore. By opening up so fully on the JHU episode, the bureaucratic system may be deliberately revealing its hand to allow people involved in the new operation to have the right expectations.
Scholars in Singapore
In Singapore, the word "scholar" has quite a different meaning from the usual definition "person specializing in the advancement of knowledge". Instead, it means a person who has been given full financial support to complete a degree, often at an overseas university, in return for an undertaking to work for the sponsoring organization for an agreed number of years, or, to "serve a bond" (which in USA often means some kind of criminal penalty, e.g. a six month good behaviour bond), really a modern version of the indentured labour contract.
Each year organizations in Singapore, mostly in the public sector, award hundreds such scholarships to candidates with top Cambridge A level results, while hundreds of scholar graduates return to "serve". Usually, they are placed in fast track career paths that lead to quick promotions into important positions: since they were good students with prestigious academic qualifications, and since they are less likely to quit, they are safer choices for critical positions or positions requiring much training and investment. Over the years, the association of "good student - scholarship - fast track career" became so well entrenched that anyone who has not been given a scholarship of some type is automatically assumed to be not promising, making it all the more necessary for anyone with ambitious career goals to get a scholarship. The pattern reinforces itself. Some students would in fact accept a scholarship offer from an organization they actually do not plan to work for, just so that it is on their record that they were good enough to qualify. Often, scholarship holders are plotting an exit strategy long before they started work for the employer.
The main downside of the scholarship system is reduced freedom of choice and job mobility, with some resorting to devious means to bypass the restrictions, and others becoming overly cautious and immobilized in jobs where quitting is not an option. Since scholarships are awarded to youths under 20 and the bond is served when they are in the mid and late 20s, the chance of changed minds in between is by no means negligible. It also does not help that American professors would often tell them "the bond system is very bad for you".
In a number of storm-in-teacup cases scholars sent overseas decided not to return because they wished to continue to PhD studies upon graduation, or married an overseas resident. This necessitates the repayment of the financial support received, with interest. In view of many private universities in US charging over US$20K per year in tuition fees, the total repayment could amount to US$150K or more for a four year scholarship. The luxury of "breaking bond" is thus available only to the well off families.
Paying back may not, however, be just a matter of money. Some authoorities have taken the view that such breach of promise is unpatriotic and unethical, and resorted to publishing the names of such "bond breakers" in newspapers in a gesture of strong disapproval. It is however, not clear whether such PR ventures would have their intended effect; some might consider any publicity to be good publicity, while others might feel that if the intention is to persuade people to return, then any unpleasantness would only make it less likely.
Whether the scholarship system need to be changed has been debated, but inconclusively so the system continues. In fact, a simple change is to give awardees the option of financing their own education and deciding whether to return to work for the employer at graduation. If they do, their expenses are reimbursed and they serve the bond like the others; if not, neither paying back nor public announcement is necessary. However, this implies that non-return is acceptable and accommodated, an important change in principle. Catching future top technocrats at a young age is part of the ruling elite's renewal process, and any idea of treating it as a mere matter of money and business is severely frowned upon. A large number of members of parliament, cabinet ministers and senior executives of government linked corporation are former scholars; scholarship schemes are a form of early recruitment of the ruling system that seeks to capture talent and mould them in its own image .
(added on 30 march: ST today carried a detailed report on what Chen Jiahao said in 2005 that ASTAR found objectionable; in light of the new information, I find facts and logic on ASTAR's side, though it might not have handled the PR issue in the best way - I may have additional comments later; added further on 30 March: my additional comment is: admission of foreign undergrads into publicly funded state universities is in some cases restricted, and occasionally a special arrangement need to be made for scholars; this is a far cry from "favourtism" or "bribery", and a blogger ought to be careful, both in using reliable information and in presenting the information fairly)
added on 28 March: do young people need to learn values? of course; the question is why so many prospective members of the elite did not; (see, for example, singapore elite members ) maybe the current establishment members should consider whether the kind of education and upbringing the Singapore youth receive places too much emphasis on obedience and not enough on loyalty.
In fact, do people know the difference between the two? Loyalty to someone/something means acting in that person's/system's best interests; from time to time, this requires you to tell him/her/it things he/she/it does not like to hear, to act in a way contrary to what he/she/it wants.
A scholar that understands obedience but not loyalty would know all the rules and use them to advance his/her own interests, instead of the interest of the system. Of course, most of the time the two are likely to coincide and there is problem; however ...
added on 31 March
I just became aware of
aaron-ng.info/blog/clarification-from-astar-over-acidflask-incident.html
where the information in yesterday's ST was published on 10 March!! further, I have some problem with the following
Mar 10, 2007 at 1:09 am
US high school students apply to US colleges by end Dec 2006 (example) for Fall 2007.
Spore students get their A level results in March 2007.
EDB entered into late admission fee arrangements with a select few US undergraduate schools including UIUC.
A level is such an important exam here, but it is actually not a "requirement" for US college admission because the knowledge level is considered to be beyond standard high school curriculum and is equivalent to Advance Placement Tests, used to get freshment year credit; because of this, many Singapore students can graduate in 3 years. The admission officers are more interested in the content of the transcript (the substance/difficulty level of the subjects taken and of course the grades) in the context of the particular highschool's standing, and SAT results provide a way of comparing between schools, with transcripts from those schools having high average SAT scores being taken more seriously. However, good Advance Placement/A level results do help in getting admission; hence, the Late Admission arrangement is more useful to someone who did not get admitted in the early round, to have an additonal chance. Clearly a scholar does enjoy opportunities others do not, just as they do in career advancement after they graduate (if you have a critical position requiring much investment and training, you are more likely to select someone who is less likely to resign) and the ASTAR was in my view overdoing the "they are treated like everyone else" part. In fact, though admission officers are supposed to be "need blind", everything else being equal, it would be better to admit the applicant with guaranteed finance. (I also point out there is no mention of the amount of "late admission fee"; is it a small number? or is it equivalent to a substantial percentage of annual tuition?) With many colleges thinking of alumni relationship, the fact that a graduate is likely to have a senior position quickly alone counts a great deal.
we have here a typical case of organizational PR inviting comparison with the bikini: what it puts under wrap might be more interesting than what it reveals
added on 2 April: in any case, I provide a complete set of links from Google:
Clarification from A*Star over AcidFlask incidentThe Truth about the postings on A*STAR by Chen Jiahao/AcidFlask and those ... aaron-ng.info/blog/clarification-from-astar-over-acidflask-incident.html - 429k - 31 Mar 2007 - Cached - Similar pages Elia Diodati versus Philip Yeo: a watershed for blogosphereFor the past 2 years, Chen Jiahao/Acid Flask/Elia Diodati have been pretending that he ... Aaron will make an effort to respond to all comments on his blog. ... aaron-ng.info/blog/elia-diodati-versus-philip-yeo-a-watershed-for-blogosphere.html - 85k - 31 Mar 2007 - Cached - Similar pagesPhilip Yeo's side of the AcidFlask/Elia Diodati incident[Aaron's note: the preceding quote was taken from my original entry and was made by me, not Philip Yeo]. For the past 2 years, Chen Jiahao/Acid Flask/Elia ... aaron-ng.info/blog/philip-yeos-side-of-the-acidflaskelia-diodati-incident.html - 114k - Cached - Similar pagesHear ye! Hear ye! - Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble[Aaron's note: the preceding quote was taken from my original entry and was made by me, not Philip Yeo]. For the past 2 years, Chen Jiahao/Acid Flask/Elia ... aaron-ng.info/blog/page/3/ - 64k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages
and actually inserted the following comment
"yuen chung kwong // Apr 2, 2007 at 3:44 am
Perhaps I could bring the discussion back to where it all started; I happen to be someone who has been exchanging friendly emails with both Philip Yeo and Chen Jiahao in the last few days. To quote from my last mail to Elia Diodati:
"a. I believe Philip Yeo was sincere in wanting a personal discussion with you; I consider your
response to him as wrongly premised, though understandable, and his response to that as bad PR, though again understandable; things then went steadily worse from there, also understandable, and it is now meaningless to attribute fault or devise remedy ..."
until 30 March when Straits Times published details of the 2005 controversy, I felt neutral; I did not know that the content was already available here on 10 March; having seen the actual item ASTAR objected to, I thought facts and logc were on its side, though it may not have handled the PR well (an opinion, it seems, shared by both parties); I also feel ASTAR was overdoing the "scholars are treated like everyone else" part - they do enjoy advantages others do not have; for my reasoning please see yeophilip.com"
However, my attempt to focus on the original issue was unsuccessful; all 3 threads have gone off along the tangent....
added on 29 May 2007: suppose Philip Yeo was still running EDB, would University of NSW have got greater support for retaining the Singapore campus? I dont have the answer, but I would think the current top management of EDB could only keep to the original terms of the agreement between EDB and UNSW. A significant change of the agreement would have required higher level approval. Philip Yeo might have been able to exercise a higher level of decision making on his own.