John Gustafson, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore, explains how Singapore universities became world-class so quickly:
When the Singapore government decides to do something, it never goes halfway. They figure out what resources it will take, and they spend them. And if something simply takes time, no matter what the resource cost, then they (the government) also have a lot of patience. Having consistent political leadership for 50 years will do that. They decided they wanted NUS and NTU to be world-class universities, just the same way they decided, say, that they wanted a subway system that was second to none. There is so little corruption in the Singapore government that it is possible to allocate money to something and not have most of it siphoned off by bureaucrats with bad comb-overs and incredibly generous pension plans. So when the government decides to spend money on education, it (gasp) actually goes to education.
Also, I have noticed some quality controls on the teaching that go beyond what I’ve seen at other universities. They treat education the way they would treat a manufacturing process. Use quality control; measure everything; fix problems as soon as they are discovered; please the customer; show zero tolerance for lousy teaching; treat course descriptions as a legally binding contract for what will be learned by those who take the course and apply themselves.
When professors create final exams, their exams are scrutinized and approved by independent reviewers before they can be given to students.
When they decide which courses to offer, they have one faculty member decide what needs to be taught, and a different faculty member decide who should teach that course, like a separation-of-powers principle.
They bring in external review committees to look at what they teach and how they teach, and solicit critical input that they take to heart. I know other universities use external review committees as well, but when NUS does it, they pick reviewers whose academic credentials have earned them biographical entries in Wikipedia.
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It’s amazing how fast universities can excel when they are freed from politics, both internal and external. I think that is what has happened at NUS and NTU.