(25-11-2024, 07:23 AM)Tee tiong huat Wrote: Flavour master: ✓ Goh Keng Swee.
Goh Keng Swee (6 October 1918 – 14 May 2010), born Robert Goh Keng Swee, was a Singaporean statesman and economist who served as 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goh_Keng_S...rs%20later.
Young Goh was born in Malacca on 6 October 1918, into a middle class
Peranakan family, the fifth of six children. His father Goh Leng Inn, was a manager of a rubber plantation, while his mother Tan Swee Eng was from family that produced the Malaysian politicians
Tan Cheng Lock and his son,
Tan Siew Sin,
who would later become Goh's lifelong political opponent. Goh was given the Christian name Robert, he disliked & refused to respond to.
When at two years old, his family moved from Malacca to Singapore where his maternal grandparents owned several properties. The Gohs later relocated to the Pasir Panjang rubber estate when his father found work there, and became manager in 1933. In common with many
Peranakan families, the Gohs spoke both English and Malay at home; church services were held at home on Sundays in Malay. His father Leng Inn and the latter's
brothers-in-law Chew Cheng Yong and
Goh Hood Keng taught in the
Anglo-Chinese School for various periods, and were also involved in the Middle Road Baba Church while Hood Keng was pastor there.
Goh attended the Anglo-Chinese Schoo between 1927 and 1936 where he was second in his class in the Senior Cambridge examinations, Goh graduated from Raffles College (now the National University of Singapore) in 1939 with a Class II Diploma in Arts with a special distinction in economics). After graduation, Goh joined the colonial Civil Service as
a tax collector with the War Tax Department but, according to his superiors, was
not very good at his job and was
almost fired. Shortly after the start of Second World War, he joined the Singapore Volunteer Corps, a local militia, but returned to his previous work after the fall of Singapore.
Goh married Alice Woon, a secretary who was a colleague, in 1942 and they have one son,
Goh Kian Chee, two years later. In 1945, he relocated his young family to Malacca, but returned to Singapore the following year after the Japanese occupation ended. That year, he joined the Department of Social Welfare, and was active in the post-war administration. He became a supervisor of the Department's Research Section six months later. He attained a scholarship which enabled him to
further his studies at the London School of Economics. During his time in London, Goh met fellow students seeking independence for
British Malaya, including
Abdul Razak,
Maurice Baker,
Lee Kuan Yew and
Toh Chin Chye. A student discussion group, the
Malayan Forum, was formed in 1948 with Goh as the founding chairman.
Goh graduated in 1951 with a first class honours in economics, and won William Farr Prize for achieving highest marks in statistics. Upon his return to the Department of Social Welfare, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Research. In 1952, together with fellow civil servant Kenneth Michael Byrne, he formed the Council of Joint Action to lobby against salary and promotion policies that favoured Europeans over Asians. Byrne later became Minister for Labour and Minister for Law. Then In 1954, Goh was able to return to the London School of Economics for
doctoral studies again with the help of a scholarship conferred by the University of London.
He completed his PhD in economics in 1956
See why he's our one of only few master. Thk.