Dr Goh Kwee Swee,regarded as one of the builders and founding fathers of modern Singapore, passed away at the age of 91 on 14th of May 2010.
Dr Goh had many contributions to Singapore, but three areas where his contributions are most significant are the economy, defense and education of Singapore.
Dr Goh was appointed as the minister for Finance in 1959 and industralised Jurong which was at that time a swampy wasteland. He offered tax incentives and made a big show of attending factory openings to get television coverage so as to achieve the aim of drawing foreign investors and serving as a one-stop agency for all their needs, from land and power to work safety.
During the economic recession in 1985, Dr Goh insisted that the Currency Board kept separate instead of letting the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) take charge of issuing Singapore Dollars. Although a currency board system needs more effort to maintain because every single Singapore dollar has to be fully backed by reserves, it prevents the over-enthusiastic issuing of new dollar notes that could cause inflation.Dr Goh's action stopped the dwindling of the Singapore dollar.
When Singapore attained independence on 9th August 1965, Dr Goh became the first Defense Minister and saw the urgent need for a strong defense force.To quickly build up the nation's Armed Forces, he made national service compulsory for all male Singaporeans above 18 years old.Besides, he built up the foundation of the Singapore Armed Forces(SAF) based on a concept of a combination of conscription , a practice of ordering people by law to serve in the armed forces,and a professional military on the model of the Israeli Army.
During his term as the Minister for Education, Dr Goh introduced a unique education system ,streaming, a system that separates students into different categories according to their capabilities. He sought to minimise wastages of talents in the Singapore education system and emphasized the importance of bilingualism because there was a high dropout rate. Since then, every Singaporean would at least receive 10 years of education.
These were the major contributions that Dr Goh made to Singapore.Besides these, there were also others such as suggesting Sentosa,originally named as "the island behind which lies death" in Malay to be transformed,into a tourist attraction as well as the closing of Punggol pig farms ,which once earned him the moniker of "Pig Minister", because of the stench it created and the cost of pork that would be cheaper if imported instead.
Singapore would be a different place today without Dr Goh because he made many important contributions.Though he sometimes had to experience unpleasant criticisms, he was never moved due to his firmness.
Sources:
http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_662_2005-01-11.html
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20100517-216720.html
