The University As You Know It Is Obsolete — Here's What Comes Next - Lily Kong (4K)

Today I am joined by one of Singapore's most iconic geographers and president of the Singapore Management University and someone who has not only published a series of

lectures online but also written a book about reimagining higher education in today's more turbulent world. So it is my great privilege I welcome Professor

Lel Kong on to the frontal podcast.

Hello Keith, it's a real pleasure to be here. I'd like to start with the origin

here. I'd like to start with the origin of the university. Perhaps if it might be useful to first understand your background as a geographer.

I want to ask you what what is it about the lens of a geographer that would help you understand education differently

from say a historian or an economist?

Geographers um are very expansive in our approach to things. So as an as an undergraduate I studied geography and I would take causes in population

geography, economic geography, transport geography, uh geomorphology, hydraology and so you will see immediately that it straddles the humanities, the social

sciences but also the sciences and in that sense it's very uh expansive and it's very integrative.

Critics will say that geographers are um imperialistic. Another word that has

imperialistic. Another word that has been used is adjectival. So what they mean is put a word in front of geography and the phenomenon becomes geography. So

you put the word economic in front or population or urban or whatever it is and it becomes geography and and the sense is that geography then encroaches on many different disciplinary areas. I

take a different approach and other geographers also take a different lens on this which is that it actually allows us to be able to see things from very

many different perspectives. It allows

us to draw in insights from other disciplines and um just by nature of the discipline we are very integrative. we

bring different perspectives to bear on a phenomenon and I think um that is really helpful in this day and age for two reasons. One as a scholar I think

two reasons. One as a scholar I think increasingly we recognize that interdisciplinar interdisiplinarity is so important

uh and and geography has well prepared me for that. Second, it's actually really helpful for me as a university leader to be able to recognize the value

of different disciplines and to try and intentionally and the word is intentionally bring different disciplines to bear on particular subject areas. So if we're interested in

subject areas. So if we're interested in aging or we're interested in sustainability, then it's going to require multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. So

interdisciplinary perspectives. So bringing in um climate science alongside climate history alongside um you know uh

sustainable and green finance um they're all different disciplines but brought to bear on a particular phenomenon and so as a university president I think my

geography background has really positioned me well to appreciate this um integration and interdisciplinarity.

I'd like to press a little bit on this question that I had when I was preparing for this interview. There is this book by Tim Marshall where he talks about the being prisoners of geography where

geography to a certain extent influences policy behavior. Uh I suppose that's

policy behavior. Uh I suppose that's where you get the geopolitics in geo right?

Yes. So there is this idea that if geography does not dictate destiny to a certain effect it influences it very seriously and you're a Singapore university leader. I wanted to ask you you know

leader. I wanted to ask you you know what are some hard geographic truths about Singapore that would bear significantly on perhaps the way our

education system is created?

That's a really good question. Um and

I've thought often about this notion of being prisoners of geography. Um, and I think that's that's very real. Um, I

mean, Singapore's own existence, one could frame within that context of being a prisoner of geography. This the fact that we are a tiny island, the fact that

we are um, you know, uh, beereft of natural resources, um, our location in the heart of a predominantly

um, Malay Muslim community. Those are

geographical realities and imperatives and just as that influences but doesn't determine Singapore's future and Singapore's

survival um uh so too do those factors influence how education and higher education in particular are played out. So just as an

example um you know the fact that we are um very heavily reliant on human resource not

having any natural resource means that we have placed we meaning Singapore and Singapore's leaders have placed a lot of

emphasis on education when um Lie Kuanu first you know sort of um found founded

S pap and then later went on to lead um a a PAP dominant Singapore emphasis was placed on three things housing,

education and healthcare and education has always um had very strong support I think from the

government because of our geography.

Then there's a question of how does it influence how education is is um

developed um defined. And here is where um our smallalness has

been uh a constraint as well as uh a strength. a constraint in the sense that

strength. a constraint in the sense that we always think we're so small we have to plan and some would say Singapore is a hyper planned society.

Yeah.

So we plan to the last degree how many graduates we must have from which disciplines. Um and in that sense we

disciplines. Um and in that sense we have succeeded well in saying well our human capital resource that's developed in the universities responds to economic

needs and that's a positive thing. But

when we over plan with this view of we're so small we have few natural resources we must maximize our human

resource then we over plan. And in this day and age where knowledge boundaries are much more fluid, it's very difficult

to say we want this many civil engineers or this many mechanical engineers um or this many um lawyers etc. because of the

fluidity of boundaries of knowledge. Um

and so this this geography that has influenced the ways in which we plan and perhaps over plan is both a strength and a weakness at the same

time. Yes,

time. Yes, there's a interesting parallel which is the beauty of being small is that you can uh scale up really fast and I was talking to some fintech leaders

previously and some of them commented that actually if you look at the e- payment landscape a decade ago Singapore was actually quite lagged in some regards. Uh but the beauty of being

regards. Uh but the beauty of being small is that you could accelerate and catch up really fast and that within a few years you can leap throughout the rest because you have the beauty of having the resources of a state but

maybe the size of a city. So in in that sense that's a constraint but also amplifier.

Absolutely. So I agree with that. Um I

mean smallness is is both u a real strength as well as a setback. Um and I think about that in the context of my own university right the fact that we

are about 13 14,000 strong in terms of students compared to university that are 30 40 50,000 I see that as a real strength right

because then that sense of community that sense of being able to pull everyone along together it's a real parallel to

Singapore in that sense but at the same time smallness can be a drawback because then you don't have that pool of talent in the same way that you have in far

larger societies. So in any situation

larger societies. So in any situation the same fact can be a double-edged sword.

Yes. Another thing about Singapore is that we seem to synthesize really well uh both the east and west. And I think in your earlier lectures you talked

about this idea of uh western universities versus eastern universities. And the western university

universities. And the western university you kind of have this European model or European idea which is a self-governing institution like a state within a state whereas in say eastern or perhaps maybe

more Chinese traditions of universities you have kind of like a imperial academy that looks at training civil servants.

One of my past guests and friends uh pointed out that actually if you look at modern successes of universities being born and generating a surplus of human

capital. Singapore come as a leading

capital. Singapore come as a leading example. Uh and this person was part and

example. Uh and this person was part and he was talking about you know within ASEAN he says the Singapore education model is something that is very aspirational

because you are able to with that model attract billions of dollars of FDI in the past. So I'd like for you to kind of

the past. So I'd like for you to kind of comment a little bit about how did Singapore University succeed in say in the past 50 plus years of our

independence and if you like you know a little bit more about you know some of the limitations or constraints that we're facing now.

Um so first uh lovely to hear Pita's name. He's a friend of SMU um and used

name. He's a friend of SMU um and used to sit on one of our advisory boards. Um

so lovely to be on the same series with him. Um

him. Um I think over the last 50 years uh Singapore universities have evolved and changed. There was a time when we were a

changed. There was a time when we were a one university town much like a one horse town right we had one university everybody who's a graduate is a graduate from that

university and that was a time when I would say there was um a great deal of effort put into

developing human capital to feed into economic needs. So when Singapore went

economic needs. So when Singapore went into um investment into engineering and tech, it was a response

to the need of Singapore society when we were at a point when we were building our city and you needed a lot of engineering and tech and so the university the university of Singapore at that point in time it established an

engineering school. So that was a very

engineering school. So that was a very clear example of how the university responds very directly to the needs of society by producing the kinds of human

capital that are needed at that point in time. Things have changed significantly

time. Things have changed significantly since then and so education in universities is not the only um sort of

imperative and remit and the remit of universities has expanded. So in the late 1990s early 2000s it became apparent that universities needed to

contribute not just in terms of producing workers for the for employment but to ensure that new knowledges are produced. So research became really

produced. So research became really important and this was the point when research universities um became a model for Singapore universities to strive after

and then there was a sense that well research in itself is not enough producing new knowledge itself is not enough and it's important for us to think about how to translate that

research into usable ends whether it's in innovation and then entrepreneurship or in terms of research arch that informs public policy and business

policy and practice and so forth. So the evolution over time uh is a reflection of the maturation of Singapore society and its needs and a

maturation of the universities as well.

It's interesting that you say that because I think in public discourse today, especially with a lot of this economic anxiety over jobs, the the frame or the mode of discourse primarily

seems to be centered around universities as a way to generate economic employment. Whereas I think we're still

employment. Whereas I think we're still a little bit under indexed on the value of it in creating new innovation, new research, uh uh or new IP, right, as some might put it in the in the commercial speak.

Yes.

I I'm curious you know why do you think that's the case?

Keeping the balance for me is really important.

Um and there is a danger as we have seen in some universities or many universities in other parts of the world where the research takes over

and so little attention is paid to the educational endeavor and enterprise and I think then something is lost. So in

Singapore and certainly at my own university, I am deeply committed to ensuring that we keep the balance that education

is really important but education not just in terms of producing workers, education for the whole person.

Right? So there's one balance there.

Yeah.

And then the other balance is between education, research and enterprise, innovation and enterprise. So I think the university is an ecosystem that is

all about balance and keeping all of it in balance. Now why is it that people

in balance. Now why is it that people don't in Singapore at least don't necessarily think as much of the research and innovation and enterprise?

I think it's a reflection of the history of universities. For the vast majority

of universities. For the vast majority of people my age and older than me, the university was

principally a means to a better career.

Yeah. Um, when I went to university, only about 10%, this was the 1980s, only about 10% of the population went to university. And why did people think of

university. And why did people think of going to university? Because it's a ticket to a better job. So, the framing and the connection is very much about

employment. And so, um, you know, for a

employment. And so, um, you know, for a vast majority of Singaporeans my age, older, slightly younger, we all think in those terms.

Yes. And it's only in more recent years

Yes. And it's only in more recent years that even the government um has recognized that research investment in research an

investment in turning that research into as you say IP is important. So as the government recognizes this shift perhaps in the last 15 to 20 years,

the population usually follows behind, right? Because

the societal change needs to happen. The

investments need to happen. The value of research and entrepreneurship from universities need time to demonstrate their effect and then people begin to recognize it.

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As an aside, because you're in SMU, you're known to have very entrepreneurial students. Uh you also

entrepreneurial students. Uh you also sit at one of the the leading universities in Asia-Pacific.

Have you seen any research and innovation that's excited you in the recent years?

Um so so there are two ways of responding to that. There's research

that um really leads to new innovations um that then lead to new enterprises that create jobs for people, right? Um

and makes life better for people and you know um examples of that um would be very often in the medical area and the tech area. So just as an example and I

tech area. So just as an example and I will stay clear of speaking about the Singapore context just the example of um co vaccines right uh the mRNA sort of

technologies that uh were worked on for some years and then turned into useful purpose immediately after. As another example,

immediately after. As another example, um the humble seat belt, right, is was was came out of research into accidents. What would um you know,

into accidents. What would um you know, sort of um uh um help prevent the accidents, um

research into how to design it and so forth. Now these are the these are

forth. Now these are the these are innovations that came out of the western world in the main um but I cite them as

examples of how lives get changed.

Um but the other part of the answer to this question is it's not research necessarily about uh new technologies um new discoveries of medicines and so

forth but research into entrepreneurship in itself innovation and entrepreneurship in itself. I have a colleague for example who's been doing a research project on what is it that makes good entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

Another colleague who's doing research on why is it there are so few women entrepreneurs and those sorts of studies those sorts of research can help to um unlock the

potential of entrepreneurs once we begin to understand what are the circumstances that actually support and encourage entrepreneurship.

Yeah. What immediately comes to mind was actually just that like there is a lot of public good there is a lot of public good that actually gets generated out of universities that I think are often not

spoken of or spoken of enough. So I

think the example you gave uh about seat belts is a good example right where it's like you need you needed uh researchers that had kind of an academic or

intellectual pursuit that maybe had a real world application and then they sought to kind of uh apply in real life and then that actually generates a lot of public benefit that maybe no

corporation or no uh uh business would take on themselves.

And there's this big question that's looming in my mind, which is that there are like significant mega trends or factors that shifting or shaping the reshaping the world as we speak. One of

the more interesting points that you point out that I think a lot of people don't talk about today is actually the aging society. Uh that once again our

aging society. Uh that once again our TFR has reached a new low. We're at 087.

Uh and then on top of that, we're living longer than we have before. So that

actually creates new economic constants and if really there was something that really would shape our destiny, it would be demographics. Demographics truly is

be demographics. Demographics truly is destiny. So I'd like for you to help me

destiny. So I'd like for you to help me unpack how should we understand the extension of our lifespan in the context of this higher education that we see today.

Right. Um I really thank you for that question. It's a subject close to my

question. It's a subject close to my heart and there's so many parts to the response. one is that as we age, we

response. one is that as we age, we could die off um more people could be dying off, right? But with the advances in public

right? But with the advances in public hygiene, um nutrition, better health care and so forth, actually in Singapore and in several

parts of the world, people are living longer.

So I have written about living a 100redyear life and it's not that distant a reality.

If people are to live a 100redyear life and are to actually have the financial means to live that long, uh, two scholars in London Business

School have made their calculations.

And if we're to live a certain standard of living not too far from the standard of living that we last have before we retire, then we probably have to work

till age 80. And if we were to work to age 80 and we went to university and graduated at age 22 or 24,

then we have another 55, 60 years to work.

And if we're going to work that long, what makes us think that the knowledges and skills that we picked up and learned 50 years ago, it's going to last us that

long? It's not.

long? It's not.

Yeah. And so then universities need to think of our roles in a 60-year relationship.

And so I call it the 60-year university, right? To walk 60 years with

right? To walk 60 years with individuals.

um and therefore rethinking how we deliver our programs, what programs we offer. For someone who is coming for a

offer. For someone who is coming for a 4-year undergraduate degree, learning the foundational, the fundamentals, developing the critical thinking skills

is really important. Once you're in the workforce, you're not interested in some of those things. you need some of the the the skills and knowledges that allow

you to pivot very quickly in your work.

And so then what kinds of format byte-size for example short causes should we be putting out? How regularly

should people be coming back? Do we

leave it to individuals to make that decision or do we work with corporations to structure training for their their

employees? Do we work with our alumni to

employees? Do we work with our alumni to say you have a subscription model with us and you can come back regularly at

certain points less regularly at other points. So the concept of the university

points. So the concept of the university and the format with which we in through which we deliver needs to be rethought radically.

Yeah.

And no university in the world has done that yet. We're having conversations

that yet. We're having conversations within my university right now which I've generated. There was an article in

I've generated. There was an article in Forbes recently about precisely this and it talks about university as a service.

Yeah.

So the university is not a place you go to for four years that's it and after that you're alumni and you come back for events and you might even you know um

offer a gift to the university by way of donation and that's the extent of the relationship. No, the university remains

relationship. No, the university remains as a place of service to alumni for the next x years and that could be 60 years.

In in your mind, some of this preliminary conversations, how are you rethinking about this concepts? Like for

example, if one thinks about the idea that you've talked about uh that as we age and as our productive years extend, essentially the halflife of our

knowledge is decreasing, right? we're we

what we learned in the past now becomes irrelevant at a faster rate. So these

are all um preliminary thoughts um and we're still in discussion as I said and they're not you know in execution mode haven't even decided which way to go but

um the collective wisdom of my colleagues and I want to really credit them for some of these thoughts one of them who is our incoming pre vice president for professional and

continuing education he said to me why don't we think about it in the same way that we think about the medical checkups that we go for,

right? So, up to a certain age, we all

right? So, up to a certain age, we all go for our regular medical checkups. Um,

some areas you go for deep dive review.

Some areas you just kind of go for the blood test every year, right? U if you're doing a colonoscopy,

right? U if you're doing a colonoscopy, you might do it every 5 years or every 10 years, right? So, there are different kinds of medical check-ins that you do.

And his analogy was, should we have people come in for regular and periodic check-ins to say, you know, what am I

facing as shortfalls for me to do the work that I need to do? What are the new developments that have taken place in medical technology and in this case in

in skills in work that I feel I I I want to avail myself of. I want to test against it. So there let's say there is

against it. So there let's say there is a new medical technology that says um you can help um sort of anticipate glaucoma much earlier than previously

the case and I want to I want to try I want to test against that right so can the university be the location for periodic check-ins to know where your

strength and your weaknesses or your gaps are and then to guide in terms of additional development. So that was one

additional development. So that was one idea. Another idea was that um we we

idea. Another idea was that um we we can't leave it to individuals.

Evidence suggests that right now the plenty of opportunities for coming back for upskilling and reskilling.

But there are people who don't do it who still don't do it because they don't know what to do.

Yeah.

two because the imperatives of the workplace are such that I don't have time to do it.

Yes.

Right. So, how do we then respond to those two um roadblocks? One is if you don't know what to do, let us

work with you to through that that mechanism that I just talking about the regular check-ins to understand where your gaps are and to help you identify

what to do. The second is if you don't have the time, how do we work with employers to see that actually reskilling and upskilling, letting your

employees go for that is actually a plus to you, a a midterm to longerterm plus to you as opposed to a short-term gain of having the immediate work done.

One way of doing that and we are already um using this approach to an extent is to say don't have the training as a didactic

lesson. Right? In other words, you don't

lesson. Right? In other words, you don't have a group of 40 people come back for retraining in whatever blockchain etc. and have an instructor in front of the

class tell people what blockchain is about and so forth. Make it very projectoriented.

So we have a pedagogical approach that we call SMUX. Undergraduates do it, postgraduates do it. They work on real world projects with partner organizations under advisement from the

instructor.

Why won't we do that with the continuing education? And the projects are the

education? And the projects are the projects in the workplace, the individual's workplace.

So that what happens is when an employer says, well, you want to go for two weeks for training. who's going to do the

for training. who's going to do the work? Well, you're actually still doing

work? Well, you're actually still doing the work because the project that you do as part of training is actually the project at work.

Yeah.

So, this kind of SMU X style pedagogy um could actually be extended and we have started using that to good effect. The question is how do you scale

effect. The question is how do you scale those things? Yeah,

those things? Yeah, I know I spoke to a lot of folks in the um spin-off space and especially people working in the university spin-off labs.

I think that's essentially some of the inspiration behind it where maybe you have someone who is technical uh in the startup world like they develop or started building a technology but they haven't found the useful

scenario. So then you try to marry them

scenario. So then you try to marry them with industry experts and that seems to be a very uh effective model so far in perhaps generating enterprise value for example. On top of

that, there is this idea that not only is our halflife depreciating, it's depreciating at an accelerating rate because you now have the lay of AI, right? You think about the use of

right? You think about the use of generative AI today which has generated a lot of economic anxiety in younger folks like myself for example they are thinking in the past entry level jobs

drops used to be the gateway for you to better training but now that seems to be removed as organizations seek to leverage AI and downscale perhaps

then I I have to ask you know in in this landscape of artificial intelligence how then do universities adapt adapt if knowledge is no longer the key bottleneck.

I see university education in an expansive way. Um first the focus of

expansive way. Um first the focus of universities has actually narrowed from schools whereas schools tend to see whole person development as quite important. So you

get character education, you get physical education, you get art, music and so forth. Right?

By the time we get to university, we have narrowed so much to cognitive learning. Yes.

learning. Yes.

And it's very much about knowledge and it's very much um um about thinking skills.

Yeah.

And I think that is uh something that needs to change. I think it needs to um especially because as you say, you know, knowledge has become ubi information has

become ubiquitous. Knowledge is not

become ubiquitous. Knowledge is not necessarily ubiquitous. Information is

necessarily ubiquitous. Information is ubiquitous. So you need to continue with

ubiquitous. So you need to continue with the cognitive and you need to help young people learn how to turn information

into knowledge. Right? So what do you

into knowledge. Right? So what do you get online? Um whether it's through MOS

get online? Um whether it's through MOS or through social media or through the abundant material online, how do you make sense of that for whatever

situation it is you're trying to address? And that's not to be taken for

address? And that's not to be taken for granted even with AI. The second is that beyond the information knowledge

translation whole person development I think needs to come back to universities being much more human as everybody says

everybody says with AI what are what are the things that matter it is about being more human and we say that a lot but what are we doing about it is the question

what are we doing about it in universities and here is where I think things like building resilience is really important. Things like um giving

really important. Things like um giving young people the creative room to explore and to think out of the box is really important because what is AI? AI

is trained on existing knowledge.

What we need is new knowledge, new perspectives, new insights and getting, you know, that that quality of

creativity, that quality of resilience, that quality of integrity, of ethical judgment. All of those things are

judgment. All of those things are outside the immediate domain of knowledge acquisition.

And so the question is, how do universities do those things? the

traditional classroom approach is very limited. It's it's not absent, but it's

limited. It's it's not absent, but it's very limited in cultivating these qualities. So, how do we create

qualities. So, how do we create environments of resilience of of testing our students, stretching them in ways outside the classroom, getting them out

to do different types of projects that they cannot easily get responses from chat GPT or deepseek or whatever from, right? So just to give an example,

right? So just to give an example, creating the environment for young people to try

work that they would have done as first year lawyers, second year lawyers, right? Because we say by the time they

right? Because we say by the time they enter the workforce, AI can do first year lawyering work, second year lawyering work. So why don't we create

lawyering work. So why don't we create those environments within university where you're learning to do that work before you can get on to do the higher

order work. So instead of just sitting

order work. So instead of just sitting in a classroom and learning about the law, why don't we create situations where if you were a first year lawyer

five years ago and you went to work in a law firm, you needed to do that work.

Show me how you would do that work now.

Right? I firmly believe this that at this point in time AI is benefiting people from my generation much more than the younger generation.

Why is that? Because we have had to go through the difficult work of reading, synthesizing, we've got the experience when

Gen AI throws up an answer. I I have a suspicion that that's not quite right from my tacet knowledge from my um experience which younger people wouldn't

have had. So how can we reasonably

have had. So how can we reasonably expect them to be questioning when they haven't had that depth of experience. So

for me therefore it is trying to create those environments of deeper experience in a shorter time.

Yes.

Within university days. So that's one.

Then the second is if we're going to live a hundred years, we don't want to live 40 of those years or 30 of those years in ill health

without friends.

So interpersonal intelligences in terms of cultivating in young people the ability to make and keep friends

to keep relationships is so important because otherwise we're going to die lonely.

Yeah.

Keeping healthy is so important. And so

everything about nutrition, about living a healthy life, about physical activity, none of that appears in university right now.

We kind of think that after primary school or maybe secondary school, PE is a thing of thing of the past. Unless

you're a male and you go to NS and then you have IP that continues, you know, to push you, etc. The rest of us, that's history that's behind us. But it's not.

That is so important. So I really think that universities actually are the place where we cultivate these habits of

good nutrition, healthy living, physical activity and it's as much about doing it out of habit as it is about

understanding it. So I think we we

understanding it. So I think we we should be doing you know talks, seminars, workshops for young people on these on these dimensions. When I was

young, I took it for granted.

I'm much older now and and regret having taken it for granted.

Yeah. Seems to me that you're making the case that university is where you have that integration of mind, body, and soul. And one could actually argue even

soul. And one could actually argue even from a more utilitarian perspective is that if you're a state or if you're a government, you're incentivized to do it because you could keep cost low. And I

think one of the conversations I had earlier on in my journey was I had with Minister and he was talking to me about this idea of healthier aging. He said

that actually if I could solve a lot of the upstream problems, I can save save a lot of money on mitigation. So I I am

able to be a I'm able to generate better health outcomes at a lower price, a lower cost and I think that there is something to that that perhaps in your most formative years in university you should try to invest in that.

Absolutely. I fully agree with that. So

investing in that so that we understand you know at at the younger age we understand why this matters and we develop the habits so that we continue those habits. The other thing is um and

those habits. The other thing is um and this is is something I feel passionately about building. Why is our TFR so low?

about building. Why is our TFR so low?

Um we're not getting enough marriages and when people get married we don't necessarily um have children. And part

of that is also cultivating um the the context for for young people

to fall in love with one another.

Right. And I am an advocate for saying when we fund a university, it's not just about the classrooms. It's about the sports field. It's about

the dance hall. It's about the student residence.

Yeah.

Because all the other things that make for healthy aging, positive relationships, good marriage rate, etc. comes from all

these other contexts. and not just the classrooms. So, I think we are shortsighted and wrong if we say that we will only invest in lecture theaters and seminar rooms.

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It's almost weird and ironic that almost till the age of 18, there is this obsessive focus for example on like physical health and then once you go into university kind of just free-for-all for for the ladies, it's

like it's literally a year apart. So,

like that huge drop off seems to me to be quite paradoxical.

Yes. Um there is also another paradox you talk about with AI other than the the polani paradox that you alluded to earlier that it's hard for us to articulate the tested knowledge we have

and which is and then the flip side of it which is the moravx paradox which talks about what AI cannot articulate or to a certain extent to a certain extent AI cannot be in the real world it cannot

act in the real world so there is still a very fundamental limit with artificial intelligence so you're kind of making the case that we should be investing

into being more human and therefore humanities something that you talk about before as well. What does the new age of humanities education actually look like in this day and age?

So I was hugely encouraged about 10 years ago when I joined my current university and I saw it was so

interesting the business school capstone was centered on the humanities.

Yeah. And I thought, oh, how did that happen? And one of the professors at

happen? And one of the professors at that point in time said to me, I actually think that a lot of leadership, business leadership lessons, well, general leadership lessons, but also

business leadership lessons can actually be observed in some of the classics, right? And he wanted his students in the

right? And he wanted his students in the capstone project to say, you've gone through a class on leadership and team building. You've gone through a class on

building. You've gone through a class on ethical business. you've gone through a

ethical business. you've gone through a class on um you know literature or history or whatever. Now pull all of that together. What lessons have you

that together. What lessons have you learned and how do you apply it in business? So actually in the humanities

business? So actually in the humanities um there is a lot of applicability of the lessons that are observed of human behavior

in different arenas, right? And we're not we're not tapping

right? And we're not we're not tapping that sufficiently. Studying literature

that sufficiently. Studying literature is not just about practical criticism, although I think it's one of the most useful skills that I learned in in junior college. Right. You learn to

junior college. Right. You learn to deeply read a text. You'd learn to take apart the meaning and so forth. Those

skills can be used in any job you're in.

Yeah.

So from a very utilitarian perspective, the humanities offers those skills. But

those studying the humanities is also about understanding humanity. And humanity

understanding humanity. And humanity needs to be understood whatever job we're in. If you're a business leader

we're in. If you're a business leader and you need to read your business partner or your business competitor, that's part of it. If you're a political

leader and and you know you read Bingfa or you read something about Maveli,

it the these are these are texts that come from the humanities but they help us shape the human being, the human

individual that each of us is.

Yes.

So I think that in some senses drawing to light these lessons because then people see the value of the humanities in living their lives.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's interesting you say that because I was a human student and one thing I realized as I begin to explore my interest in say history in economics

is that you kind of are able to deeply empathize with a person or character's motivation.

Yes. And it's surprising how much of that actually plays out in real life, which is why sometimes they say, you know, that uh life models itself after fiction sometimes.

It's it's um you know, it shapes our values in ways that maybe we don't realize at that point in time. And for

me, one of the the classics that really resonate with me and I enjoyed it then um but I realized 45 years later how it

has stuck with me and it shapes it shapes my values. It was reading to kill a mocking bird and Atacus Finch who talked about

climbing into other people's shoes and walking around in them and that's empathy.

Um, and that phrase has stayed with me and my friends for the best part of four decades and it shapes how we think about who we are, how we respond to situations.

So far, we had a very kind of positive understanding of where the universities could take us.

There is this idea that has been floating around recently. I mean I think in the past few years which is that this idea that university is a scam and and and I mean that in a more hyper that

there is a certain hypo hyperbole around it uh to some extent I think it's an exaggeration uh but the idea is essentially that you know you kind of

have the this ship skin effect it's like a lot of it is just signaling you know can you be compliant um and on top of that I think if you layer on the economic anxieties of today that comes

with for example geopolitics we think about US China decoupling. So there is therefore an increased competition for high value jobs uh the aspirations of

middle class um Singaporeans or citizens across the world that look at university as a ticket to a better job and not seeing that Singapore doesn't suffer from a problem of inflating um

university fees that we see maybe in the west. uh but there is still this idea

west. uh but there is still this idea you know that's out there and you know even as recent as this year we see like 74.4% 4% of our graduates are able to find full-time jobs in six months. So

there's a decline in that.

I wanted to ask you, you know, with regards to this this illusionment with universities right?

Especially in the the face of job uncertainty for fresh grads. How are you thinking about how universities should adapt in making sure that this uncertainty doesn't become this

illusionment?

Keeping the trust in universities is really important. We've seen the decline

really important. We've seen the decline of that in the United States, right? Uh

Pew Center polls, I believe it was, um that looked at trust in institutions in the states um shows that trust has declined and trust in universities has also concently

declined for a variety of reasons in the United States. One, it's because of um growing

States. One, it's because of um growing debts, right? Young people go to

debts, right? Young people go to university, incur debts that they can't pay off for years if not decades. Two,

trust in universities is declined because people feel I get a degree and I don't get a job, why should I trust you?

Right? So the idea of the scam. Three,

um uh the the pmics in some universities, some university campuses,

um the uh extreme ideological positions that are taken for example. So for a variety of reasons there is sad.

It's not just in the United States. If

you look in um closer to home, Taiwan, China, you see different statistics, but the story goes something like this. Youth

unemployment is higher than the average employment. So then what does it

average employment. So then what does it say about how education is preparing people for the for employment? And so

trust declines in Singapore.

uh employment rates are still good for graduates and not just university graduates but poly techchnic graduates as well. Um and together that accounts

as well. Um and together that accounts for a significant proportion majority of each cohort. The truth of the matter is

each cohort. The truth of the matter is this year things have the the percentages have declined but I think it's um whether it's a long-term decline

the start of a long-term decline or whether it's a reflection of a difficult period time will tell. Yeah.

What must universities do? It's

imperative, critical that universities pay attention to the value that it gives so that

people continue to come to universities.

And the value must be in two ways at least. One, the immediate employability and two, the lifelong relevance.

The immediate employability is about being responsive in our curriculum and our pedagogy in the face of AI, right?

As AI makes entry- levelvel jobs redundant, how do we prepare our young people to be able to go into year three, year four of jobs?

That that shift needs to happen. But the

second part of it, the relevance of universities is lifelong.

Yeah. If people then see that I have grad I graduated 10 years ago and I'm facing a block in my career and I don't know where to pivot.

If universities fill that gap and say let us help you and they see that there is value in that help and they do make that pivot then the trust in

universities will lift. Yeah.

So it's not just no longer just at the point of employment but about value in the longer chain in the longer arc of life. when you were talking earlier

life. when you were talking earlier about this idea of the university as a subscription, right? It kind of

subscription, right? It kind of resonated with me because I think for example in Singapore, our government is actually doing a lot in terms of getting people to really embrace this idea of lifelong learning be it through skills,

future credits, right? Uh but I think that the challenge with that is that it seems to be almost an overwhelming amount of choices and sometimes quality control is an issue. So that's where

universities can fill a gap from my point of view is from my point of view.

I think if you have like you know for example skills future credits is just exclusively for universities and like you know you can have your choice and people can go back to and people feel

reassured that they're supported I think it's easier but at the same time another challenge is that people just find it hard because one the competition in the marketplace is already so intense so it

feels I cannot take my eye off the ball.

Yes. So earlier you alluded to some solutions but how else how else do you think universities should be reaching out in terms of actively engaging people to come back

to continue their education?

Yeah. Um so we've made a start and um there's been some progress but I think we need to think harder about how to accelerate the progress and that is we

offer a career uh advisory for alumni um forever right. So, so don't feel that the career office in the university is

only for the graduating students, but we have opened up the service and we've put in more resources for alumni to come back and that's the check-in that I was talking about earlier like the medical

check-in right you come back who do you talk to who do you see the career office should be the place that really understands the changing career trends the changing

skills needs um where the economy is going and therefore where new opportunities are coming up in order to be able to give that advice. And with that advice, it

that advice. And with that advice, it would be to say well you know your experience has been this the changes that are already in your

face or coming in the very near future are these and you need this kind of training to help you pivot. So the

career advisory should be scanning the landscape um thinking about um for each individual what experience set you already have

where the gaps are what training programs we have and maybe we don't have the programs but being able to give the advice to say for this you need to go to this other university or that other

university so that those regular check-ins are paired with advisories for training and then the Last piece is placement

and that is difficult um that I think universities will have difficulty doing on our own because we're not really a placement agency but then we have to

work with agencies like workforce agency or we have to work with um other professionals that are placement companies and so that whole loop has to

be closed and universities can play a significant part of that loop. What are

some of the ideas that you're surfacing to the policy makers and saying, "Hey, we should do more of this. In other

words, you know, what are some of the whisperings that you're giving to some ministers in?"

ministers in?" Well, I'm making a bid for more um hostile space. Um I and I don't like the

hostile space. Um I and I don't like the word hostel. It's not just a roof above

word hostel. It's not just a roof above people's head. It's a residence. It's a

people's head. It's a residence. It's a

residential college which you would be very familiar with. And that sense of building community and so forth. That's

one thing. A second thing is um just in terms of support for lifelong learning um in the same way that we give the

subsidies to undergraduates to come to university skills future has been supporting working adults coming back and my bid is to say we must continue that.

Yeah.

A third bit and it's um it's not so much about employability and workforce. I

wrote about this in my op recently. I

believe in upliftment and enrichment for older people for its own sake, not just for employment.

Yeah.

So, um I wrote about how my late mother when she received a letter informing her that she she has $500 in skills future, she was about 89 or thereabouts and she

was delighted and she said, "Oh, I could learn I could learn how to um cut hair." Right. She's never going to be a hairdresser, but she thought that's a skill I always wanted.

Yeah.

Um and the delight in her face said to me that we cannot put an expiry date on curiosity and learning.

And if there was some way in which we could support older people to continue learning as long as they're interested for upliftment for a sense of self

respect and value. We would also go a long way in a utilitarian way of keeping older people healthy.

One last question for you. Knowing

everything you know and sitting where you're at, what's one piece of advice you give to a fresh graduate entering the working world today? I would say

don't panic because the human qualities are going to still stand you in very goodstead even in the face of AI.

The advice I would give besides don't panic is to say use your university years to cultivate your humanity.

With that, Profong, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much Keith.

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