Lee Kuan Yew School Of Public Policy: Building A Global Policy School In Asia

Building a Global Policy School in Asia

Kishore Mahbubani, Stavros N Yiannouka, Scott A Fritzen, Astrid S Tuminez, Kenneth Paul Tan

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9789814417211
• eBook ISBN: 9789814417235
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

In an industry of higher education that measures the longevity of its leading institutions in decades and centuries, the establishment and rapid growth of the eight-year-old Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School), National University of Singapore, is a remarkable story that deserves to be told. The five co-authors, all of whom were involved in guiding the School during its formative years, provide unique perspectives of key events and the thinking behind major decisions that helped place the School on its current trajectory. They also provide insights into the challenges faced along the way as well as their own motivations in becoming part of this enterprise. Finally, each author provides his or her own thoughts as to the challenges and opportunities that could emerge for the LKY School in years to come.

Read the chapters authored by dynamic, key founding and management personnel of the LKY School and discover for yourselves:

• the relevance of an Asian policy school
• what will make the LKY School's curriculum “one of the most innovative”
• what sets global policy studies apart from all other academic disciplines
• why executive education at the LKY School is one of the largest in the world
• why the LKY School is the third best-endowed policy school in the world
• a view of high-profile participating “student officials”

Contents:

• Introduction: Inspiring Leaders, Improving Lives (Stavros N Yiannouka)
• Reflections of a Founding Dean (Kishore Mahbubani)
• Building a World-Class School of Public Policy (Stavros N Yiannouka)
• The Three Enigmas of Professional Policy Education (Scott A Fritzen)
• Richness, Rigour and Relevance: Creating a Strong and Vibrant Research Community at a New School of Public Policy (Astrid S Tuminez)
• A “Singapore School” of Public Policy (Kenneth Paul Tan)
• Conclusion: Lessons Learned and the Road Ahead (Scott A Fritzen)
• Appendix A: Global Public Policy as a Field of Study: A View from Asia (Kanti Bajpai, Scott A Fritzen and Kishore Mahbubani)
• Appendix B: A Sampling of Research Projects and Milestones

1	Reflections of a Founding Dean

Kishore Mahbubani

It all began in New York.

Some time in 2003, the year Mr. Lee Kuan Yew turned 80, Dr. Tony Tan, then Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore and currently President of the Republic of Singapore, invited me for lunch at the Palace Hotel in New York. I was then serving as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN. At the lunch, Dr. Tan told me that the Singapore government would like me to consider becoming the founding Dean of a new School of Public Policy to be named after Mr. Lee Kuan Yew.

I accepted the invitation quite readily. I was then 55 years old and I knew that I would have to leave the Singapore Administrative Service within a few years. After having been Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry and having represented Singapore at the UN Security Council, I was ready for a new challenge. And I had always wanted to go into academia. However, this ambition had to be shelved for 33 years, as the Foreign Service proved to be very exciting. Having finally joined academia, I am pleased to report that my eight years as Dean have been among the best and most satisfying years of my working life.

As the founding Dean, one of the few traditions I have started is to make three points in my speeches. Hence, this chapter will also have three parts. The first part answers the age-old question of who “owns” the LKY School. Here I will describe the contributions made by the many stakeholders to the School. The second part describes some of the key successes that the School has enjoyed in the academic, financial and executive education fields. The third part discusses the constant challenges that a public policy school faces and reflects on how the LKY School will respond to these challenges.

Who Owns the LKY School?

The LKY School has been blessed in many ways. One of our main blessings is the large variety of stakeholders, each of whom has made a significant contribution to the success of the School. I was alerted to this reality of many stakeholders when I was invited to a private dinner with my main “boss”, then President of the NUS, Professor Shih Choon Fong, soon after I became Dean in August 2004.

We had a wonderful private dinner together. At the end of the dinner, Choon Fong gave me a copy of a famous book by the Harvard Dean, Professor Henry Rosovsky. The title was The University: An Owner’s Manual. It was a truly fascinating book. Rosovsky, an excellent writer, described well the many stakeholders he encountered when he was the Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 1984. His book prepared me well for my new job because the LKY School proved to have even more stakeholders than those described in the book.

Mr. Lee Kuan Yew

The first and most obvious stakeholder was, of course, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. It was very generous of him to share his name with our School. In subsequent years he also demonstrated his kind support in many other ways. However, he was always careful to not project his own ideas on the School. It was clear that he wanted the School to develop an independent reputation for excellence. While he always responded positively to our requests for support, he also wanted to give the School the space to grow and develop an independent identity. We have truly benefitted from this approach of his.

At the same time, Mr. Lee’s support has been invaluable. At the very inception, he encouraged McKinsey to do a pro bono study to help the School’s initial growth. Chapter 2 by Stavros Yiannouka explains well how we benefitted from this study. From time to time, Mr. Lee would also meet distinguished visitors hosted by the School, from Professor Roderick MacFarquhar and Professor David Ellwood of Harvard University to Mr. Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who kindly agreed to become a member of our School’s Governing Board. Also, as I will describe later in this chapter, Mr. Lee wrote an extremely important letter to Dr. Li Ka-shing, which resulted in a SGD100 million gift to our School. He also visited our School several times, gave several lectures and interacted with our students. For many of our students, this was one of the most valuable experiences of their time at the School. We were also truly blessed when he agreed to serve as a Distinguished Fellow when he retired from the Cabinet in May 2011.

The Singapore Government

The Singapore government has also proved to be a valuable stakeholder and supporter of our School. Like Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the government provided discreet support without exercising any kind of heavy hand. We enjoyed academic freedom in developing our School. Then Minister for Defence and Minister in charge of the Civil Service, Mr. Teo Chee Hean, put it well when he received Professor David Ellwood, Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, in his office on 27 March 2006. Minister Teo smiled broadly and told Professor Ellwood, “We have told Kishore that he should build the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and not the Lee Kuan Yew School of Thought.” Minister Teo explained to Professor Ellwood that the LKY School provided an ideal opportunity for policy-makers to compare and contrast their respective experiences in governance and to study the best practices around the world, rather than focus on any specific theories. It was therefore important for the LKY School to be seen as an objective centre of academic research that commanded the respect of its peers. Professor Ellwood agreed with Minister Teo’s observations. Clearly, this message had a powerful impact on Professor Ellwood and our friends in the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

Harvard Kennedy School

The HKS was another important stakeholder in our School. We were fortunate that we inherited the public policy programme that the HKS had set up in the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1992. Hence, when we started the School in 2004, we did not have to start from scratch. We inherited a fully functioning Public Policy Programme with an established faculty, curriculum and tradition of recruiting good Asian students. This programme initially began with an 18-month Master of Public Policy (MPP) with a class of 15 to 20 students. Later, in 2001, the NUS added a Master in Public Management (MPM) programme for more senior officials. This programme also had about 15 to 20 students. We have retained and expanded the MPP and MPM programmes, and further deepened and expanded the partnership with HKS.

One of the main contributions HKS has made to our School has been to send to us some of their distinguished faculty members to visit and lecture in our School. Most of the time, the faculty came to give lectures over a short period of time. We were therefore truly delighted when Professor Alan Altshuler, widely regarded to be one of the most insightful professors in Harvard, agreed to co-teach a course, “Singapore: The City”, with Professor Kenneth Paul Tan during the second semesters of 2009 and 2010. In a similar way, we were also blessed when other equally eminent Professors like Robert Putnam and Steve Kelman agreed to serve as the Li Ka Shing Professor in our School in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Our relations with HKS were helped a great deal by the fact that the Singapore Cabinet probably has more HKS graduates than any other Cabinet in the world. Mr. Lee Hsien Loong (Prime Minister), Mr. Teo Chee Hean (Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs), Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and Minister for Manpower), Mr. Lim Hng Kiang (Minister for Trade and Industry), Mr. S. Iswaran (Minister, Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Second Minister for Trade and Industry), and Mr. Heng Swee Keat (Minister for Education) are all graduates of HKS. David Ellwood, the HKS Dean, used to proudly tell me that when he travelled around the world, he would always mention PM Lee Hsien Loong as one of the outstanding graduates of HKS. Indeed, PM Lee set an unusual record for having co-published an article with Professor Richard Zeckhauser in a top-tier economic journal when PM Lee was only a student in Professor Zeckhauser’s class.

In March 2010, PM Lee also agreed to post an article on our website to explain the virtues of public policy education. A few paragraphs are worth quoting here:

“My year as a Mason Fellow in the Harvard Kennedy School in 1979–80 confirmed my respect for the value of a public policy education. I picked up much from my fellow students, who came from all over the world. I learnt how economic principles were relevant to a wide range of public policy areas, even those which at first sight appeared far removed from economics. And I discovered how systematic, analytic thinking could clarify issues and suggest creative solutions to complex problems.

But my lasting lesson was that in a dynamic and demanding environment, public officers need more thorough preparation and effective tools for governance, to formulate policy rigorously and in depth, to evaluate trade-offs and develop mitigation measures, and crucially to garner political and public support to turn ideas into results.

This is especially relevant in Asia. Many Asian countries are transforming their economies, uplifting their peoples’ lives and restructuring their bureaucracies. They seek to progress faster by learning from the experience of other countries which have gone ahead of them, to avoid making the same mistakes and to discover better ways forward.

The situation in each country is different, and public policies must adapt to the circumstances, needs and politics of each one. But good government is vital to progress everywhere. The rich range of experiences of Asian countries can be collected, compared, and analysed. These raw materials should be distilled into a coherent body of knowledge which public officers and scholars can tap on, and add to.

The LKY School is well-placed to play such a role. It is based in Singapore, which has paid particular attention to public policy and good government. It is also in the middle of Asia, where able, professional public officers are most needed to sustain the Asian miracle and to meet the challenges of globalisation and development. It attracts students from all over the world, and enjoys close links with outstanding public policy schools both in the East and West.

Preparing public officers to lead and serve their countries is a challenging but also a fulfilling mission. I am confident the LKY School will deliver to its students an outstanding public policy education, to provide them with the skills, knowledge and values to become agents of change and progress, within their workplaces, communities and countries.”¹

The PM would also regularly receive calls from distinguished HKS professors, such as David Ellwood and Robert Putnam. All this helped to cement our relationship with HKS. Indeed, as I was new to academia when I became Dean and as we were trying to build up the School rapidly, it helped the LKY School a lot to have this steady partnership with HKS. Members of the HKS faculty were generous in their time, advice and support as we put in place new programmes and processes in the School. I remember well a long one-to-one lunch I had with Professor David Ellwood in Davos. Similarly, I recall well a conversation I had with his predecessor, Professor Joseph Nye, also in Davos. As we were walking on snow and ice, I asked Joe Nye what the curriculum of a public policy school should consist of. He replied, “Kishore, it should rest on three pillars: Economics, Politics and Leadership and Management courses.” I took his advice to heart. We also made it a point to consult our Harvard colleagues as we planned our new ventures. Like all partnerships, we had the usual ups and downs, but I am truly pleased to note here that over the years, the partnership has become stronger. In early 2012, a group of Young Global Leaders (YGLs) from the Davos World Economic Forum called on the new Academic Dean of HKS, Iris Bohnet. They asked her whether HKS had developed partnerships with other institutions. A Young Global Leader who was attending the meeting was pleased that she mentioned the LKY School as an important partner of HKS.

The Students

When I began reading Henry Rosovsky’s The University: An Owner’s Manual, I fully expected him to put the President and Governing Board of Harvard first as the owners of Harvard University. Instead, he put them last. He placed the students first. After eight years as Dean, I have realised the wisdom of his judgement.

The most important stakeholders of any academic institution are the students. They give up valuable years of their lives when they join a school of public policy like ours. If we do not add value to them when they are with us, we will have failed in our mission. Fortunately, the School has received many testimonials from its students saying that the LKY School has added value to their lives.

As Dean, I have two important formal encounters with every batch of students. The first encounter is at the opening orientation session. It is truly moving to see the enthusiasm with which they begin their studies. The second encounter is at the closing valedictory dinners. These valedictory dinners are important occasions as few of our overseas students (who make up the majority of the student population) return for the official graduation ceremonies a year later. Hence, these valedictory dinners provide them with the opportunity to bid farewell to the LKY School.

The students could leave the LKY School feeling tired or burnt out from their stay in our School. Instead, these valedictory dinners are full of excitement and enthusiasm as they speak about their student experience at the LKY School, and show videos and slides commemorating their time at the School. What comes through unfailingly at each valedictory dinner is their overwhelming happiness with their experience in our School. Indeed, these valedictory dinners became so celebratory that we finally decided to dispense with the time-honoured tradition of having distinguished Guests-of-Honour at such dinners. We found that the presence of these distinguished guests actually dampened the enthusiastic spirits of these dinners and took away from the evening of fun and reflection that the students wanted to have. Looking back now, I wish that we had videotaped some of these events. They would have provided eloquent testimonials of how the LKY School has enriched the lives of these students.

When the students reflect on their experiences, it is clear that they have learnt a lot from formal teaching in the classrooms. From time to time, they would pay tribute to their professors. The graduating MPP class of 2012, for example, started a new practice of giving out Oscar-style awards to the faculty. They gave out the following awards:

1) Dr. Suzaina Kadir — Most Caring Professor

2) Visiting Professor Thampapillai J. Dodo — Most Memorable Professor

3) Visiting Associate Professor Razeen Sally — Coolest Professor

4) Associate Professor Kenneth Paul Tan — Most Engaging Professor

5) Associate Professor Kenneth Paul Tan — Most Inspiring Professor (Core Modules)

6) Professor Huang Jing — Most Inspiring Professor (Elective Modules)

7) Professor Charles Adams — Most Inspiring Professor (Elective Modules)

To give out these teaching awards was a purely spontaneous decision of the students, with no prompting at all by the School administration or faculty. Such spontaneous tributes are among the most valuable that a School can receive.

When they speak about their experience at the LKY School, the students also speak without fail about what they learnt from each other. We probably provide some of the most diverse public policy classrooms in the entire world. The students say that when they discuss a specific public policy problem, they are astonished to discover how different their perspectives can be from students of different countries. They absorb and understand the real diversity of our world almost through a process of osmosis. In so doing, the School may be providing the students with a strong competitive asset for their future careers as they leave the School with a high degree of cultural sensitivity that is a huge asset in an increasingly globalised world. In addition, the strong regional and global networks that have developed in our School can also contribute over the longer run to increase international understanding and cooperation. These are the other intangible benefits provided by an education at the LKY School.

At the same time, there has also been cross-cultural misunderstanding in our School. I recall vividly one painful experience that the LKY School had. Some students from China were upset that in the process of discussing a case study from China, some of the “failures” of that case were also discussed. The students regarded that as a national insult and protested vigorously. We had to carefully and patiently explain to them that their role at the LKY School was not to serve as ambassadors of their country but as students. Students can only learn from critical enquiry and questioning. Indeed, we emphasised that they would be more valuable to their country if they could dissect and learn from their country’s failures as much as their successes. In subsequent years, I made it a point to emphasise to all incoming classes that they should act not as ambassadors but as critics of their own countries in classrooms.

The other heartening aspect of the LKY School’s student community is th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• HalfTitle
• fm
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Authors
• Introduction: Inspiring Leaders, Improving Lives
• 1 Reflections of a Founding Dean
• 2 Building a World-Class School of Public Policy
• 3 The Three Enigmas of Professional Policy Education
• 4 Richness, Rigour and Relevance: Creating a Strong and Vibrant Research Community at a New School of Public Policy
• 5 A “Singapore School” of Public Policy
• Conclusion: Lessons Learned and the Road Ahead Scott A. Fritzen
• Appendix A: Global Public Policy as a Field of Study: A View from Asia Kanti Bajpai, Scott A. Fritzen, and Kishore Mahbubani
• Appendix B: A Sampling of Research Projects and Milestones