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Brunei told to strike a balance between foreign, local talent (1 December 2011)Brunei should find the balance between bringing in foreign expertise and training local talent to grow its economy, a human resource expert said yesterday. "If you have to be self sufficient locally, you can't grow, because Brunei only has 400,000 people," Philip Yeo told The Brunei Times in an interview. Yeo, who is in town for the Conference of Asean Federation of Engineering Organisations, is chairman of Spring Singapore, previous chairman of A*STAR (a Singaporean agency focused on conducting scientific research) and chairman of the Economic Development Board. "It is up to Brunei's policy on what they want to do with people. If they want to upgrade their people, they have to bring people in to help with the upgrade," he said, adding that if Brunei does decide to bring in foreign expertise, they would have to train their own people as well in order to remain sustainable. "You have to do both, you have to rob and train, because if you always depend on foreign people, then you will never grow," he said. To attract the best talent from around the world, employers should "make them happy", Yeo said. "You have to get people in, make them feel at home, and then they can contribute," he said. He explained that this is what Singapore has been surviving on, and that the nation grows by "borrowing talent". "For Singapore, we can take people from anywhere, and whether they are there for five years or 10 years, that is good, but if they stay permanently, that is better," he said. Yeo emphasised that for Singapore, an economy that has no natural resources and hardly any land, human resources are its best assets. "Training people is the most important function, and to train them young and fast then they can take over," he said, adding that with a population of 400,000 people, it should still be manageable for Brunei. He estimated that there should be about 4,000 babies a year, which means that each year an average of 4,000 children should be educated. If out of that number, only 400 people can be trained, it would be good, he added. "The constraint is not money it is people," he said. During his time as A*STAR chairman, Yeo gave out 1,000 scholarships around Asia to train people from their high school education to a PhD level. "I gave the scholarship to young people where they can choose any areas of science except law and economics, because what I want is talent," he said.
The
scholars came from Vietnam and India and Malaysia, and
were some of the brightest students in their
respective countries. They were trained in
mathematics, genetics, neuroscience and
bio-engineering.
"These people came to Singapore at a young age and grew up as Singaporeans and they got a Singaporean passport, so I literally steal people," he said. After 10 years, the scholars are now returning back to Singapore to help in the universities and research labs. The city-state, he said, spent around $1 million per student. He said he did this because he strongly believes in developing the nation's talent, as it is the populace that will build the nation. "It is people, and not infrastructure that will build a nation, and anyone can build a nice building, but to train people, that is not something everyone can do," he said. "Investment in people is long term, and it is something tangible, not like a building, and I know that this is a competitive advantage that a lot of people don't realise," he added. Yeo said that Singapore has no choice but to "steal" people because it is a nation with no science history or tradition. "It is a nation that was built for traders and none known industry," he said. But after the scholars have returned to the universities and the laboratories in Singapore, the institutions can now afford to upgrade itself, he added. "I only have interest in Singaporeans or 'new Singaporeans'," he said. He admitted that Singapore is easy to copy, but added that most nations wouldn't do what it has done. "Which is good because I won't lose out, they cannot copy my model," he said. Asia One News
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