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Chapter 1
The Science Council and Singapore science in the ’60s and ’70s
B T G Tan
When Singapore gained its independence from Malaysia on 9 August 1965 rather suddenly and dramatically, the immediate focus of our leaders was our survival as a new nation with no natural resources. One of the prime tools which could enable us to leverage our way into economic survival would be science, which was quickly seen by them as a necessary prerequisite for industrial and technological progress.
The Science Council of Singapore
In February 1966, Deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye, himself a physiologist and a member of the Faculty of the University of Singapore (the predecessor of the National University of Singapore or NUS), announced a proposal in Parliament for the formation of a new statutory board, the Science Council of Singapore. On 24 May 1967, the Bill for the formation of a Science Council of Singapore had its first reading in Parliament.1 The functions of the new body would be to make reports and recommendations on:
•Scientific and technological research and development.
•The effective training and utilisation of scientific and technological manpower in Singapore.
•The establishment of official relations with other scientific organisations.
The Straits Times of 14 November 1967 announced that Lee Kum Tatt had been appointed Chairman of the new Science Council.2 He was a leading biochemist in Singapore and Head of the Department of Scientific Services, and he would set the Council’s initial directions and became prominent in Singapore’s scientific and technological policy making. Apart from him, ten other members of the Council were appointed, including physicist Hon Yung Sen and chemist Kiang Ai Kim, both faculty members of the University of Singapore’s Science Faculty.
The new Science Council, temporarily housed in Fullerton Building, immediately swung into action and organised the National Conference on Scientific and Technological Cooperation between Industries and Government Bodies in October 1968, with the objective of discussing how science and technology could work hand-in-hand with industry to boost economic development.3 Lee Kum Tatt on announcing the National Conference declared that “It is now recognised more than ever before that knowledge and application of science and technology is the key to economic development.”
The first Annual Report of the Council for 1967 was presented by Lee Kum Tatt to Toh Chin Chye on 30 March 1968, and reported on the Council’s relations with international bodies.4 In particular, the Council appointed a subcommittee to look into matters related to the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA and organised an IAEA First Regional Research Coordination Meeting in Singapore in November 1967. A UNESCO mission to Singapore was asked by the Council to look into the possibity of establishing a Technical University in Singapore. Relations with the Commonwealth Scientific Committee were also discussed.
In 1969, the year of the 150th Anniversary of the founding of Singapore by Stamford Raffles, the Science Council organised an exhibition entitled “Science in the Service of Man” at the Victoria Memorial Hall. The co-organiser of this exhibition was the new Ministry of Science and Technology, whose founding Minister was Toh Chin Chye. The exhibition ran from 15 to 28 October, and culminated in a gala event — the first ever “Science Ball” organised by the Council. The highlight of the Ball was the awarding of the Council’s first Gold Medal for Applied Research, which was won by TG Ling, an industrial chemist who had made significant contributions in the field of animal nutrition and feeds.
The Science Centre
Perhaps the most influential activities of the Science Council in its first decade were in the promotion of science. In late 1968, directed by the Minister for Science and Technology, the Science Council appointed a Special Committee to look into the setting up of a Science Centre in Singapore.5 I had joined the Physics Department of the University of Singapore on 8 November 1968 as a Lecturer as the most junior member of the Department and had met Toh Chin Chye, the Vice-Chancellor, soon after joining.
I was quite surprised to be named as a member of the Special Committee, alongside such senior persons as Ronald Sng, the Chairman of the Special Committee and a founding member of the Science Council.6 The other members were Sng Yew Chong, the Director of Technical Education at the Ministry of Education and the father of technical education in Singapore, and Rex Shelley, a senior engineer at Hume Industries who later became a longstanding member of the Public Service Commission.
The most immediate task of the Special Committee was to gather information on Science Centres and Science Museums around the world, and I was asked to attend a meeting in India of ICOM, the International Council of Museums. The subject of this ICOM meeting was Science Museums, and this served as my crash course on science museums. I, with the other participants of the meeting, visited the leading Science Museums in India, including the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum in Calcutta and the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum in Bangalore.
I was also fortunate to meet well-known science museum directors, including the director of the famous Deutsches Museum in Munich, arguably the most famous science museum in the world alongside the renowned London Science Museum. I did visit the Deutsches Museum in 1999 and it was indeed a magnificent institution with many exhibits of great historical significance.
The Special Committee then asked UNESCO in early 1969 for an expert on science museums who could draw up a proposal for a science museum for Singapore. UNESCO selected Margaret Weston, then a senior curator at the famed London Science Museum in South Kensington, who was in Singapore from 27 September to 30 November 1969. I was asked to assist Margaret, a delightful lady who took a considered and rational approach to her mission, who made sure that all aspects of the issue were looked after. Her report became our blueprint for a modern Science Centre which would cover the aspects of physical science and engineering of relevance to Singapore’s development.7 The Science Centre would not house exhibits of historical interest but focus on up-to-date science and technology. (Ironically, the London Science Museum also started as a museum of modern science and technology, but over the years the “modern” exhibits became historical exhibits.)
At around the same time, consideration was being seriously given to the redevelopment of the National Museum (formerly the Raffles Museum). The National Museum at that time had been housing, in addition to the exhibits on the history and anthropology of our region, the famed Raffles Collection, which consisted of thousands of zoological specimens collected by Stamford Raffles and others over many years. This had become an invaluable reference collection of immense value to biologists interested in the fauna of the region, but unfortunately the collection’s value was then not well understood by policy makers. The National Museum was to focus purely on the history, culture and anthropology of the region, which meant the Raffles Collection exhibits had to find a new home.
A decision was then made to include biological sciences as a second theme to the Science Centre, in addition to the original theme of physical sciences and engineering. With the inclusion of biological sciences, the Special Committee was enlarged into a Joint Committee in March 1970 to “formulate proposals for the integration of the natural history component of the National Museum into the Science Centre”.5
Some of the mounted specimens of the Raffles Collection did go to the Science Centre, but most of the Collection eventually found a home in the NUS Faculty of Science, properly cared for and housed as the Zoological Reference Collection (ZRC), accessible to researchers but not displayed in all its glory. Today, the ZRC together with the important Botanical Collection from the NUS Herbarium is housed and displayed in the new Lee Kong Chian Museum of Natural History under magnificent display conditions.
Eric Alfred, a noted zoologist who was then Acting Director of the National Museum, was originally supposed to be transferred to the Science Centre to head its biological sciences division, and there was a notion that I might join the Centre to head its physical sciences/engineering division. As it turned out, neither of us went to the Science Centre, as Eric stayed on with the National Museum, and I stayed on with the NUS Physics Department.
Ms Weston’s proposal, with the addition of the biological sciences, was accepted and work started on the design and construction of the new Centre. As I recall, the current site at Jurong East was not the only site mooted, one of the several others suggested being at Kallang where the Sports Hub is now located. Kenneth V Jackman from the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley was appointed as Director of the Science Centre, and I found him to be dedicated and knowledgeable. However, he vacated the Director’s position before the Science Centre Building (imaginatively designed by noted Singapore architect Raymond Woo) was completed, and was succeeded by my Physics Department colleague RS Bhathal. The Science Centre was officially opened on 10 December 1977 by Toh Chin Chye and has become a key institution in Singapore for the promotion of science and technology.
The Science and Industry Quiz
Perhaps the other most well-known of the Science Council’s activities in its first decade was the Science and Industry Quiz, known to its many fans as the S and I Quiz. It was believed that an effective method of popularizing science and technology over television would be a quiz show which could combine education with entertainment. Preparations started for the quiz which was to be contested by student teams from secondary schools. Each team ...
