Goh Keng Swee’s “Legacy Fact and Fiction

[Papsmearer]

Ministers are crawling out of the wall now, praising GKS and his contribution as an architect of singapore’s success. Even clowns like Vivian who don’t know him at all coming out and praising him like they are best friends.

Well, let’s examine some of these claims:

1)Architect of S’pore’s Economic Success:- Personally, I find this very hard to believe. Here we have a man who just freshly graduated from London School of Economics, has no experience in the economic field other than the theory he learnt at the school, never worked as an economist, or for any economic consultancy, and returned to S’pore and brilliantly formulated the economic policies that made Singapore successful? I don’t care if he is the best student ever produced at the LSE, but with no track record, this is highly improbable. More likely what happened was the PAP appealed for help from the UN, they send their best guy Winsemius (a Dutch practicing and professional economist with a good track record), and he TOLD them what to do. The only thing I can credit GKS with doing at this point is that he did not resist and instead implemented the entrepot program, and attracted foreign investment and other policies according to Winsemius and stayed out of his way.

2)He started EDB- Yippee kaiyay. Was EDB a success in its earlier decades, probably yes. They did attract a lot of investments to S’pore. But many times, they sold the farm for it. Free tax holidays for foreign investors, subsidized this and that. It was a good start. But EDB did not help transition S’pore into modern times. Are we still attracting companies that need cheap labour? Yes. Where have all the tech companies gone? To India and China.

3)He started SAF – I highly doubt this, he was never in combat and as far as I know he attain a rank of corporal as his highest rank. Where did the org. of the SAF come from? From the Mexicans of course. They are the ones with the combat experience and needed all the friends they could get. Today our entire military is modeled on theirs. Was it a good thing in our early days, NS and the conscription. Probably, after all we needed to build up numbers as fast as we could, the country was too poor to afford a large standing professional army. Did we still needed to have a conscription army in the 80s and till now. NO. The SAF has morphed into a large and unnecessary blood sucker of our GDP and annual budget. Even worse, NS altered the Singapore social landscape and forced males to enter the workplace 2 years later, hence giving females in the same age group an economic advantage.

4)Minister of education- This was the worse portfolio he took and the least successful he was at. The education is s’pore is screwed up back than when he ran it and it still is. Streaming was the worse idea he could have thought of. Under streaming as he implemented it originally, students were condemned at a young age. If you did not make it into science or tech stream in Sec 2, than your entire life was predetermined right down to what you can read in NUS. Failure to open up more than one university during this time, resulted in many bright and promising students could not get into uni, especially those with the problems in 2nd language. It also resulted in the loss of $100 millions from the tens of thousands of students who had to go overseas for undergrad studies.

5)Mentoring – Now, assholes like Mah Bow Tan claim that GKS was their mentor. If I were GKS and still alive, I would vehemently deny this. Mah claiming to be a protégés of GKS is an insult to GKS legacy. This is an idiot who insist that HDB flats are affordable and heavily subsidized when blind man can see it is not. And he was mentored by GKS? Its bad.

I can only conclude that in the end, GKS started a lot of things. Mostly with the help of others. For whatever reason, the propaganda did not acknowledge this. He also left many things unfinished or incomplete. I am sure that he did not disagree on where the direction of the Education portfolio was going or where the SAF was going, but he was prominently silent on this. I think if u really care about the country, u have to ask some questions like Ong Teng Cheong. If you keep silent, and enjoy your so called retirement, while the country is going to hell, than u are just as culpable in its present day failure.

 

[besotted]

Goh Keng Swee is great man, knows how to work hard and knows how to have fun

He was a visionary as well as a cheongster

RIP Dr Goh, thanks for all you have done

 

[Papsmearer]

Goh Keng Swee is great man, knows how to work hard and knows how to have fun

He was a visionary as well as a cheongster

RIP Dr Goh, thanks for all you have done

How come nobody mentions the common man? If you ask me, he is the hero of the economic miracle. If the population of this country was 70% malays instead of chinese, do you think 10 Goh Keng Swees would have been able to make any difference?

 

[jw5]

I think the praises in the media and here as well as some of the brickbrats here, have some merit.
He has done some good work and few can deny that he did it with good intentions for the benefit of Singaore, but as some have said, there were inevitably also some wrong moves and he was after all LKY's loyal lieutanant.
What I think is that after all the accolades and praises and occasional brickbrats, it's now time to say "Well done, thank you and RIP".
Don't go over-the-top either way.

 

[scroobal]

Goh Keng Swee spectacularly failed in one ministry and in one field. It had powerful impact on a generation and there are people out there who are still paying the price for it.

However he was exceptional and marvellous in everything else that he did. He gave us things that that provides the quality of life - the Zoo, the bird park, SSO and he found people that created the world first night safari. And he created an economy with Winsemius to work and enjoy the things that he left behind.

Guess in what field did he fail?

 

[kiss]

Education which created spastic tonychat !!! :p::p

 

[scroobal]

Yes, education. This was the system engineer gig which included the likes of Philip Yeo and gang. It was a monumental disaster and the fact that his newly found love was instrumental in guiding him to disaster was quite well known by those in the corridors of power. Because of his phenomenal success in everything else, it was kept quiet.

People like Rudy Mosbergen who was in MOE and couple of principals toiled to ensure that many kids were saved. They nearly got the sack for it. It was actually the first instance of social engineering, where kids at the age of 9 had their forehead stamped with the label "loser" and destined for trade school. It was based on the SAF experience with Ah Bengs and dialect platoons.

Try getting the full report - its probably consigned to the state secret archive.

To his credit, he eventually realised his mistake. He however failed to tell others and MOE and subsequent ministers failed to touch it because it was such a hot potato. The only good thing was building ITE to compensate the kids who were destined for rubbish heap.

Interestinly, someone drew a parallel with Ho Ching and PM. Yet another who was given to much power and influence beyond her capacity. And the common thread is Philip Yeo.

Ask any of the systems engineers in the team. Nobody wants to talk about it, nobody has it in his CV. The team that screwed a generation.

Education which created spastic tonychat !!! :p::p

 

[Rogue Trader]

Ask any of the systems engineers in the team. Nobody wants to talk about it, nobody has it in his CV. The team that screwed a generation.

Can you give us a few names in Goh's gestapo? They should be in their 50s now. you mentioned Liew mun leong. i know another is now a professor in australia.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

3)He started SAF – I highly doubt this, he was never in combat and as _far as I know he attain a rank of corporal as his highest rank. Where did the org. of the SAF come from? From the Mexicans of course. They are the ones with the combat experience and needed all the friends they could get. Today our entire military is modeled on theirs. Was it a good thing in our early days, NS and the conscription. Probably, after all we needed to build up numbers as fast as we could, the country was too poor to afford a large standing professional army. _Did we still needed to have a conscription army in the 80s and till now. NO. The SAF has morphed into a large and unnecessary blood sucker of our GDP and annual budget. _Even worse, NS altered the Singapore social landscape and forced males to enter the workplace 2 years later, hence giving females in the same age group an economic advantage.

You mean to say it was the mexicans that trained the saf?
I thought they were the Israelis?

 

[Rogue Trader]

You mean to say it was the mexicans that trained the saf?
I thought they were the Israelis?

To avoid trouble from our neighbours, the jews were codenamed mexicans.

 

[eQuipment]

well said! there's a breed of dog that's meant to point, but doesnt follow thru. likewise, all he did was point, but let other do the sai-gang, when the job is in the making, he claims credits & wash his hands off.

 

[kingrant]

I think another was Chuang Kwong Yong, trained in psychology in Australia and former Auditor General (now I dunno where) who rose from MAS MSD . Very niau fella I heard. Took his job so seriously that he will never acknowledge you as his old schoolmate or fren even outside his job like in public in case he got approached for favours or news.

Can you give us a few names in Goh's gestapo? They should be in their 50s now. you mentioned Liew mun leong. i know another is now a professor in australia.

 

[Papsmearer]

Goh Keng Swee is great man, knows how to work hard and knows how to have fun

He was a visionary as well as a cheongster

RIP Dr Goh, thanks for all you have done

I only like the cheongster part. Since u say he was a great visionary, does that mean that he was the one responsible for setting up Geylang redlight district?

 

[Papsmearer]

You mean to say it was the mexicans that trained the saf?
I thought they were the Israelis?

Because of the sensitive nature of importing Jews to set up our armed forces, they were told to pretend they were Mexicans, all reference to them was that they were Mexicans. If the neighbours ever find out,t he Mexicans will be more acceptable than Jews. The should have made them all eat refried beans, so they fart the whole time. When I mention Mexicans, its an inside joke. Con You thought he was very smart to think up this mexican cover story.

 

[Papsmearer]

Yes, education. This was the system engineer gig which included the likes of Philip Yeo and gang. It was a monumental disaster and the fact that his newly found love was instrumental in guiding him to disaster was quite well known by those in the corridors of power. Because of his phenomenal success in everything else, it was kept quiet.

People like Rudy Mosbergen who was in MOE and couple of principals toiled to ensure that many kids were saved. They nearly got the sack for it. It was actually the first instance of social engineering, where kids at the age of 9 had their forehead stamped with the label "loser" and destined for trade school. It was based on the SAF experience with Ah Bengs and dialect platoons.

This fuck up alone has tarnished his legacy tremendously. That is why I don't share the respect that people are supposedly according him. Unfortunately, I am the victim of 2 of his fuck ups, NS, and the education system. I was one of those condemned students that got into the wrong stream, and also kenna NS at a time where there is no necessity for it. The negative social implications of these 2 policies are tremendous. The press makes him up to be a hero and heap adulation on him. I dispise this SOB. The fact that his cocksucking cheebye girlfriend influence him like that makes it doubly worse. THere are a slew of international world renown educators that he could have hired or consulted with to come up with an education system that maximizes the only resource S'pore has, its people. Instead, he listens to the bitch that sucks his wrinkled lanchiao. Was she the best possible person for the job. Of course not. It was too bad there was no Winsemius equivalent for the MOE.

Try getting the full report - its probably consigned to the state secret archive.

To his credit, he eventually realised his mistake. He however failed to tell others and MOE and subsequent ministers failed to touch it because it was such a hot potato. The only good thing was building ITE to compensate the kids who were destined for rubbish heap.

Realise his mistake so what? Failed to tell others? WTF is that? He was in China for 6 years after his supposed retirement. If this asshole has any form of moral fibre, shouldn't he have set things right BEFORE he retired? Many late bloomers were lost to this streaming crap. This streaming crap favours females who mature earlier and command better language abilities. Many others forced to go overseas for their tertiary education at a very high financial burden to their families. All due to his policy suggested as pillow talk.

Interestinly, someone drew a parallel with Ho Ching and PM. Yet another who was given to much power and influence beyond her capacity. And the common thread is Philip Yeo.

Ask any of the systems engineers in the team. Nobody wants to talk about it, nobody has it in his CV. The team that screwed a generation.

Unfortunately, the team has screwed several generations. And will continue to do so. This is his true legacy. A fuck up education system, compounded worse now by more idiots running it and catering it to special interest groups like FTs.