I refer to this article What has Tony Tan done for university education? by Luke Ng posted to Temasek Review. The writer makes several misleading claims which are addressed below.

Luke Ng asks if universities which reserve special places for students ever did well for their international standing, and if whether graduates of such universities ever discovered that no one recognises their degree. For this, he needs to look no further than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

MIT is a well-known prestigious technological university in the US. MIT has a quota of 8% for international students. Contrast this with Singapore universities, where foreign students may take up to 20% of each intake. Unlike NTU/NUS, MIT is a fully private university which has every right not to restrict international students to a measly 8% quota. But yet it does. NUS/NUS on the other hand, are public, which though corporatised, do not enjoy the same degree of autonomy as MIT does. Yet, year after year, MIT ranks among the top five universities in the world.

Currently MIT’s undergraduate student population comprises of 400 international students out of a total of4299 undergraduates, which amounts to 9.3%, slightly higher than the stated 8% quota (likely due to discretionary admission criteria). Again this is far lower than Singapore’s 20% quota.

Luke then says that Dr Tony Tan was the one who helped to set up NTI. This is true. But note also that Tony Tan was also in charge of merging University of Singapore and Nantah to form NUS (The Straits Times, 25 April 1980). In effect this amounted to a closure of Nantah.

It’s simple arithmetic to note that -1 + 1 = 0. Setting up NTI only helped to “undo” the effect of closing down Nantah; NTI was not set up as an additional new university as Luke appear to have implied. Why couldn’t the government have expanded Nantah instead of closing it down and setting up a new university?

Luke says that Dr Tony Tan pushed to expand university places for Singapore students. This is only partially correct. In truth, Tony Tan was a latecomer to the idea that university places should be expanded or that new universities should be set up. Who first made the call to set up another university?

It was none other than long-time former opposition MP Chiam See Tong.

The Straits Times 26th March 1985:

SET up another university if a bigger pool of talent is needed, said Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir) yesterday. This would increase the number of graduates, he said, citing Dr Albert Winsemius, the economist, as an advocate of the idea of having a second university in Singapore.

Chiam reiterated his call for another university six months later in September (ST 2nd Sept 1985). In addition,in 1988 Chiam said that university places should be increased to provide Singaporeans with better chances of getting a degree:

Earlier, Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir) said it was not “excellence in education” if 50 per cent of NUS applicants did not get a place. He felt that everyone who wanted a university education should have a chance to get “a training of the mind”.

Guess who objected to Chiam’s call to expand university intake? Dr Tony Tan.

But Dr Tan disagreed with Mr Chiam’s suggestion that the NUS should throw open its doorsand let in students to improve their minds, and not worry about whether they can find work later. The government would be doing a disservice to the students if they could not get jobs later, he said.

A month later in March 1988, Chiam again called for another university to be set up (NTI was not yet a full-fledged university). This time Chiam also argued against stringent faculty quotas, saying that the government should not artificially limit places in certain faculties. Again Dr Tony Tan slapped down that call:

Urging a freer intake of students at the National University of Singapore, he said the Government should not impose a limit on the number who can do a popular course like medicine and ask them to do engineering instead.

Education Minister Tony Tan said the Nanyang Technological Institute would be developed into a technical university in the future, so there would be two universities. But he disagreed that the Medical Faculty should be expanded and the Engineering Faculty shrunk, just because more students wanted to be come doctors.

Mr Chiam interjected from his seat that market forces should be allowed to prevail, but Dr Tan replied: “I’m a great believer in market forces, but not at the expense of the careers of young people.”

(For those who remember, the hard cap on medical student admission of course, was further throttled in the early 1990s, leading to a great shortage of doctors in Singapore. It was not until 1997 that the problem was finally recognised by the government.)

In 1989, Chiam called for a third university to be set up, saying that many Singaporean students had no choice but to travel overseas for their university education. Yet again Dr Tony Tan cautioned that a third university would have to wait, saying that it’s better to upgrade NTI than to start a new university.

THREE MPs who yesterday urged Education Minister Dr Tony Tan to start a third university here were told that the priority (or the next tew years would be to upgrade the Nanyang Technological Institute to a full university by 1991.

Dr Tan said when the Nanyang Technological University is ready, it would be providing more university places. He added: “Until that is done, we would not proceed with the third university. We have to do this step by step in order to make sure that all the universities which we establish will be proper ones, universities which we would be proud of.”

Fast forward to 1996, Chiam again called for universities to expand their intake. Then education minister Lee Yock Suan slapped down that call:

SINGAPORE’S two universities and four polytechnics together provide enough places for about 60 per cent of each year’s cohort of students – one of the highest rates in the world, said Education Minister Lee Yock Suan yesterday.

These six institutes have enough places for students who wish to pursue a tertiary education here, he said in reply to calls by Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir) and Mr Umar Abdul Hamid (Ang Mo Kio GRC) to increase the number of university places.