STEMming the Tide of the Brain Drain Singapore Style

So it is the case that the Ministry of Education (MOE) recently announced its plans to boost the research talent pool in Singapore by offering research-oriented undergraduate and post-graduate scholarships for Singaporeans.  Actually to be precise, MOE is starting the MOE-Autonomous University Scholarship, a undergraduate level scholarship (with the option of pursuing graduate studies) and will be co-funding existing graduate scholarships offered by the Autonomous Universities (i.e., NUS, NTU and SMU).   The only new kid on the block is really just the MOE-AU scholarship.  And all this was driven by what Minister Heng stresses as the need to develop a "Singaporean core" to push the frontiers of knowledge.  

Photo Credit: Mediacorp, Channelnewsasia

At the moment, it's still a little hard to know what this is REALLY all about.  But at least based on official media reports, MOE sees a pressing need to develop more Singaporean researchers.  Interestingly, Minister Heng doesn't specify which industry the scholarship would fund so technically a research talent in any subject area, however obscure, can apply for the scholarship.  

Of course, chances are, to justify the public funding of the MOE-AU, they will have to lean towards research that can generate Singapore-owned patents, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), which Heng has identified in numerous speeches to be a major area of lack in Singapore.     There is this sense that we can't be importing STEAM (STEM + Arts)  talents in the long run, we need to grow our own pool of STEAM talents.  There should be at least a token Arts and Social Science recipient of course, and I would imagine the Social Science (especially Economics) student would be a prime candidate.  

But I think saying all that puts the cart before the horse.  In the first place, what's actually driving the Higher Education Branch (HED) of MOE efforts to develop this scholarship?  Is it that there are no Singaporeans pushing the frontiers of knowledge in research? Or, in  all likelihood, they ARE pushing the frontiers (e.g. Andrew Ng of Stanford University), but just not in Singapore?  And if the latter were true, from the point of view of the civil service, I can see why setting up another scholarship seems like the obvious solution.  The MOE-AU bond lasts a maximum of 6 years.  By the time these talents complete their bonds, they'll be approximately 28 or 30 years old depending on your gender.

The real danger with locking in the talents is that it cleanly resolves the immediate brain drain problem but fails spectacularly in addressing what could be the more fundamental problems.  Why aren't research talents staying here in the first place?  What is it about the local research environment that does (or more likely does not) allow them to thrive?  Why are all the research 'whales' leaving?  Even if we can lock in these little Singaporean whales who would one day morph into a world renown research whale, will the scholarship terms clip their wings (or flippers LOL!)?  Minister Heng himself says we need a Singaporean core to push the boundaries of knowledge.  But can scholarship recipients, subject to all the terms and obligations of an MOE scholarship (and there are a lot, coming from an ex-scholar), freely push those boundaries?

Eng Kai Er: Disgruntled A*STAR Scholar who runs naked through the busy streets of Holland Village

As cliched as it sounds, the world is changing.  Already it is a fact that talent is geographically mobile and this is only more so in this  age of globalisation.  The last thing you want is an exceptionally gifted and talented kid who at 17 only sees the prestige of the scholarship, and not the little fish bowl he or she might have to live in years down the road.  Now that would be a waste of talent.

Scholarships keep bodies, but not the soul.