Tan chok kian biography channels

TAN Chok Kian, a former chairman of the beloved Post Office Savings Bank (POSB), died on Sunday. He was 84.

Mr Tan, a senior civil servant, had served in many ministries and on statutory boards in the seventies and eighties.

He was acting deputy secretary for Finance (1963); permanent secretary for National Development (1970-1971); permanent secretary for Finance (1972-1973) and Social Affairs (1977). He retired from the civil service in 1986.

Mr Tan was sent by Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, to Nanyang University (Nantah) in 1977 to help push the Chinese-language university to become bilingual as its graduates were falling behind their University of Singapore peers.

In his book My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore's Bilingual Journey, Mr Lee said he decided that the solution to Nantah's woes was for the university to conduct joint courses at the University of Singapore's Bukit Timah campus.

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