Question: Many leaders of Malaysia (Ismail Sabri, Muhyiddin), Indonesia (Jokowi), Philippines (Duterte, PNoy), have degrees only from their countries’ local uni’s. Why do Singapore leaders always have degrees from Western uni’s (Cambridge, Williams, etc.)?

https://www.quora.com/Many-leaders-of-Malaysia-Ismail-Sabri-Muhyiddin-Indonesia-Jokowi-Philippines-Duterte-PNoy-have-degrees-only-from-their-countries-local-uni-s-Why-do-Singapore-leaders-always-have-degrees-from-Western-uni-s-Cambridge?q=singapore%20leaders%20western%20degrees%20malaysia

Khengsiong Chew:

The premise is wrong. While Ismail Sabri is a local graduate of Malaysia, many of the country’s former leaders received their education or training in Western countries.

Tunku Abdul Rahman (1st PM) - Cambridge University
Tun Abdul Razak (2nd PM) - as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, London
Najib Razak (6th PM) - Nottingham University

Furthermore, Hussein Onn, the 3rd PM, received his training at Indian Military Academy when India was still a British crown colony.

His son, Hishammuddin Hussein, widely touted as the future PM, studied in University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and also London School of Economics.

KJ, current Health Minister and widely seen as the best performing of the cabinet members during this Covid pandemic, studied in Oxford University and University College London.

Sadly, a few months into his premiership, we have already seen the leadership quality, or the lack of it, of Ismail Sabri. Perhaps Western education indeed makes a difference.

Sam Qwato:

(1) Thanks for the A2A.

(2) This is a Singaporean perspective.

(3) Short answer:

(3a) Because Singapore (SG) is a Chinese-majority East Asian heritage dominant society. East Asian heritage cultures (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc) accord primacy to education excellence, feeding into meritocracy and technocracy. All these feed into robust state (state machinery, bureaucracy, Civil Service) capability and capacity. East Asian societies, whether democratic or authoritarian, have high-performing state capacities which delivered economic miracles, Asian Tigers (SK, Taiwan, HK, SG). E.g. Japan’s rise to be a regional power running up to WW2, and post-WW2 Japanese recovery and economic miracle. China’s juggernaut rise to world #1 GDP PPP, and tracking to #1 GDP. Contrast China’s state machinery capacity with India’s.

(3b) The SG ruling party, the PAP, wants to set a very high bar expectation for entry into SG politics, to become a political office holder e.g. Prime Minister, cabinet member, MP, etc. This makes it difficult for the Opposition political parties to compete for political candidate human resources. Singaporeans from Oxbridge, the Ivy League, LSE, MIT, etc will prefer to pursue gainful careers than to devote efforts to Opposition where there...

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Richard Yang:

BECAUSE they got $$$$$$$$ to do so. Not all our leaders were born into rich families.