Asia’s Global
SCHOOLHOUSE

If this INSEAD MBA class looks decidedly non-Singaporean, that's exactly what government planners had in mind when they developed the concept of global schoolhouse.

Tan Chek Ming

The “hub” has long been a favourite concept of Thai economic planners. Given Thailand’s favourable location at the heart of Southeast Asia, it is only natural, they say, that the country should strive to become the regional centre for a host of economic activities.

Health care is a current priority, and just two weeks ago, the Prime Minister announced a plan to make Thailand a regional oil trading hub. Transportation is also mentioned as a possibility – assuming, of course, that our new airport becomes operational as promised.

Then there is education. According to the Web site of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of the explicit aims of the government’s education policy is to “promote the role of Thailand as an educational hub for the neighbouring countries”.

This will clearly take some doing. Estimates vary, but there are currently probably fewer than 5,000 foreign students in Thailand. A big reason, of course, is the relative lack of academic programmes available in English, but there are quality issues as well. The Thai educational system is often perceived as lagging behind some of its important neighbours.

Thus, for the foreseeable future, if there is to be a regional hub of education, it will be located elsewhere. Singapore is a likely choice. The tiny island republic has a lot going for it – a top-notch public education system with an English language curriculum, political stability and a standard of living that rivals that of the Western economic powers. And with 50,000 foreign students already there, the Singapore government has an ambitious programme in place to attract many more.

Just last month, Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry, George Yeo, launched an initiative designed to make his country a “global schoolhouse” for students from all over the world, especially Asian students. The aim, he said, was to double or triple the number of foreign students coming to Singapore.

To do so, he said, would have many positive spin-offs for the economy. “Our shops, restaurants and housing rental market will all benefit. More than that, these students, when they return home, will expand our international network.”

Actually, the global schoolhouse concept has been in the works for quite some time. One of its chief architects is Tan Chek Ming, the assistant managing director of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). Recently, the learning post paid him a visit in his offices high in the Raffles City Tower above the business district.

INSEAD's famous Orchard Road

The Singapore government is unabashedly business oriented, often taking the lead in the search for new industries. Here, Tan’s EDB plays a central role.

“The EDB is continually on a lookout for new businesses,” Tan explains. “You can say that this particular government institution’s job is to see what businesses we can engender in Singapore in order to strengthen our economy.

“We could adopt a very laissez-faire style and let industry go by themselves, but that’s not how we do it in Singapore. The private sector can do their own thing, but when they take the initiative, it’s not very harmonised,” Tan observes.

“If we [the EDB] think there is one industry where we should put more resources, we’ll study it very carefully. We try to systematise the process by coming up with a game plan for the industry. We examine where we are today, what we are going to achieve and what must we put in place in order to facilitate private industry.”

Among the industries the EDB has helped put in place since the 1960s are electronics, petrochemicals and the service industry. For Tan, education is a logical next step.

“Places like Australia, the UK and the USA have thriving education industries,” he says. “They bring in students from all over the world, and they really make a business out of it — no different from tourism, retail and so on. So around the mid-nineties, we started to think about whether we, too, can turn this field into a business.”

Looking at education as a business required a new way of thinking, Tan says. “If you are familiar with Singapore, you will realise that in Singapore, by and large, education has been a social function — something the government has invested in just like what we do with roads and airports.

“We subsidise education. For every Singapore student, the government pays a lot. We’ve never seen it as a business sort of thing.”

Tan says education as a business requires a very different model. He and his EDB colleagues envision putting in place a parallel, privately run educational system catering largely to foreigners.

“If it’s just to cater to the domestic population,” Tan reasons, “we are not enlarging our economic pie. So we want to get more foreigners. Of course, if a Singaporean chooses to go there instead of our local institutions, so be it, but our intent is to attract more foreigners to come here.

“So that’s how the whole concept of the global schoolhouse came along. Foreigners will come here to study. They will rent apartments; they will eat here; they will buy stationary; they will pay tuition fees. Jobs will be created, and, in addition, we will be able to build up a knowledge base creating society. All this adds up to what we call an education industry,” Tan concludes.

An obvious question for the global schoolhouse planners was where to start. “Education is a very big area,” Tan observes. “It ranges from maybe four or five years old, pre-school to primary school, to secondary school to undergraduate to polytechnics to post graduate — it’s such a wide area.”

As an experiment, the EDB team decided to focus first on the postgraduate sector, seeking to entice at least 10 high profile institutions to set up programmes in Singapore. They were remarkably successful, meeting their target within three years.

“We decided to try to bring in some of the world’s best postgraduate courses in order to compliment and supplement our existing facilities,” Tan recounts. “We started off with INSEAD, the University of Chicago, John Hopkins, MIT and Stanford.

“Today we have ten universities from all over the world who have very strong programs here. When I say ‘strong programs’ I don’t mean the professors just come during summer and then go back. These are actually institutions who fly their flag here. They have permanent staff based here. They issue degrees from Singapore,” Tan says with obvious pride.

The EDB’s role in the process is two-fold. First, it seeks out and actively recruits desirable programmes to come to Singapore. Then, it acts as a key facilitator in helping them set up their Singapore operations.

“We have to do our homework,” Tan says. “If this is a good candidate, then we go and visit them and say ‘why don’t you come to Singapore?’ Then they ask me, ‘why should I go to Singapore? Prove to me why I should go to Singapore.’

“It’s no different than how we asked electronics companies to come to Singapore to manufacture computers or how we got a petrochemical company to come. We say, ‘you ought to come to Singapore because of this and this and this.’ Then we say, ‘come over and have a look.’

“You’d be surprised. Some of the academics are actually fairly parochial. We must bring them here and let them see for themselves. So they come and look and they think, hey, there is some truth here. And slowly, slowly, slowly things happen – it takes years,” Tan says.

“It’s something that is very scary for some universities. They are very conservative people. They don’t think like businessmen. They are academics. They are there to create and impart knowledge. You ask them to be a businessman and do business, it is very against their nature, so we’ve got to push them and egg them on.”

Once there is a commitment to set up a programme, the EDB seeks to make sure the process is as hassle-free as possible.

“We help them assimilate to the local environment. For example, they say ‘Mr Tan, we need X hectares of land, so can you look around for that?’

“I say ‘OK we’ve got four sites or five sites. This is the pricing. If you want to build, these are architecture companies A, B, C, D. These are construction companies 1, 2, 3 4. There you are.’

“Then, subsequently, they need to bring teachers here. They need special visas. Their students need special passes and so on. We again facilitate to ensure that their teachers and students come in here in a very seamless manner.

“That’s the greatest thing,” Tan says. “We can make you very comfortable here. Any rules and regulations pertaining to education, we make sure that you can clear the obstacles. We find this an extremely valuable service, and this is where we add value.”

Ultimately, however, Tan stresses that the institutions must succeed on their own.

“We tell them, ‘when you come here, you stand on your own two feet because you are the one who is going to run the business, not us. You have do your own sums and calculations. You have to make it commercially viable because it’s your business. We can assist you, but by and large, it’s up to you.’”

At the undergraduate level, Tan says plans are well underway to set up a brand-new university just to serve foreign students.

“Today we have three universities, but they are there to cater mainly to Singaporeans. So we are trying to invite a foreign university to come to Singapore to set up a full-fledged comprehensive private university. We would like to think that we will ink an agreement by the end of the first half of 2004.

“It’s going to be big, and because it’s a comprehensive university, it can take maybe 10,000 or 15,000 students.”

The last piece of the globalschool house jigsaw, according to Tan, will be the secondary level. Here the model will be somewhat different from either the postgraduate or the undergraduate approach.

Singapore, he says, is blessed with a number of secondary schools with stellar reputations — on par with schools like Eton in the United Kingdom.

“Our intent is to leverage on their good reputations to create a private arm,” Tan explains. “There is a Chinese High, for example, which falls under the Ministry of Education. We want to create a private equivalent of this school called Chinese High International. This one will cater to full fee paying foreign students.”

But will all this be enough to draw an additional 50,000- to 100,000 students to Singapore? Tan is optimistic that it will.

“Even today without much promotion, there are 50,000 of foreign students in Singapore. There’s no promotion. They just come. With a more active government role, I think we can get there.

“Singapore has a lot of natural endowments in the education industry,” Tan observes. “Above all, people have no qualms about sending students to Singapore because it’s safe and secure. Parents want to be sure that when their 14-year-old boy comes to Singapore, nobody’s going to mug him or he’s not going to get involved in drugs. He’ll come here, be a good boy and study and go back, and that’s it.

“So we think that that figure of an additional 100,000 is challenging, but I think it’s reachable. The question is when – whether it’s 10 years’ time or 15 years’ time. We have set ourselves a very strong target. Let’s go for it.”

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Last modified: September 9, 2003