SCIENCE COUNCIL OF SINGAPORE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

5.40 p.m.

The Deputy Prime Minister (Dr Toh Chin Chye): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

An Ad Hoc Scientific Committee was formed in February last year to advise the Government on problems of science and technology. During the one year of its existence, the Committee has given valuable advice in different fields. Subcommittees were formed to study problems of water utilisation and water pollution, to make an appraisal of available literature on the desalination of sea water in conjunction with the generation of electric power, and to survey available scientific and technical manpower in the State. The Committee also made recommendations on the teaching of science at pre-University level, studied the equipment requirements of the Nutrition Laboratory and Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory of the Department of Primary Production, and collected data for U.N.E.S.C.O. on research facilities in Singapore.

The experience of the Committee during the past year has revealed that, because of its non-official status, it was handicapped in carrying out its work through lack of budgetary support and could not have access to confidential official data. The purpose of this Bill is to remedy these deficiencies and to give such a scientific advisory body official status. The functions of the Scientific Council will be to investigate problems of a technical nature which are of interest to the Government, to report on matters involving scientific and technological research and development, to study how industrial development can be promoted by the effective training and utilisation of scientific and technological manpower, and to establish official relations with other scientific organisations.

In modern societies it is not cultural values alone that are the attributes of civilisation. Civilisation is now also associated with the presence or absence of those utilities which make living more comfortable and which have been made possible by technical inventions such as a ready supply of electric power, a working telephone system, modern sanitation and so on. But all these utilities would not be possible if we do not have the technical manpower to organise or maintain them. We are fortunate that we have in Singapore well over 2,000 scientists, engineers and technologists. Of these, about two-thirds are practising their professions in either the public or private sector and the remaining one-third are teaching in the schools. In the past this wealth of talent has not been as fully utilised as it should be nor has it taken a leadership role in Singapore's social development because of the absence of an organisation which can co-ordinate their activities or stimulate them to creative endeavour in different fields. It is my hope that the Science Council and the Singapore Academy of Science will be able to fill this vacuum.

The popular image of the scientist is that of an absent-minded and impractical person lost among his test-tubes and other laboratory paraphernalia and equally lost when confronted with real-life problems of this work-a-day world. This is an image which our scientists should discard and take on instead the role of a man of action, No doubt there will be problems of a purely technical nature which will require the attention of the back-room boys, but scientists and engineers can be more effective if they can also comprehend the relationship between technological innovation and economics and develop a flair for administration. Scientists by virtue of their training in analytical and deductive processes can quickly grasp the essentials of a problem and understand its nexus with other problems. Our local scientists can take heart that it is this endowment which qualified a well-known British professor of anatomy, an expert on monkeys and apes, to act as chief scientific adviser to the British Secretary of State for Defence. Singapore will not need scientists or engineers to build atom bombs, but we will need them for the many practical problems which face us in our task to make this island a viable State. With the concentration of talent that we have in Singapore, we can be assured that our economic and social development can take place in a purposeful direction and that we will not arrive at our goal by a painful process of trial and error or by expensive rule-of-thumb methods.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. -[Dr Toh Chin Chye].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.