Professor Lily Kong has been President of Singapore Management University since 2019, making her the first Singaporean to lead the institution and the first woman to head a university in Singapore. She was previously Provost of SMU (2015-2018). Before that, she held various senior management roles at the National University of Singapore. An award-winning academic, she is an interdisciplinary scholar, with academic roots in geography. She joined Nord Anglia’s Education Advisory Board in October 2024.
I've always wanted to be a teacher. My mother told me that, from the time I was three, I would line up my dolls against the wall and pretend to be a teacher with them. I’ve always enjoyed explaining things to people and always thought I would teach at a pre-tertiary school one day. Even during my school or university vacations, I worked as a part-time relief teacher to help at schools, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
But as an undergraduate I gradually grew to love research as well. A week or so after my final exams, my head of department called me and said, “We'd like to sponsor your PhD, and then after your PhD you could come back and work with us. Would you like that?” And I absolutely loved the idea of being able to combine both teaching and research.
There are a few reasons. First, as part of my research I’ve studied students who attend international schools and grow up in communities outside of their home countries. I visited the British School of Guangzhou, which is part of the Nord Anglia network, and I’ve long been interested in the phenomenon of “Third Culture Kids” — how they develop and learn — so I saw this as a great opportunity to deepen my understanding and, hopefully, contribute something meaningful to this area.
The second reason is that Nord Anglia is such a large network of schools, and I mean that in the best possible way. There are so many schools within the system, and if good practices exist in one, there's real potential for them to have a broader impact across the network. If, as a board member, I can play a part in that multiplier effect, it would be incredibly rewarding.
I also wanted to help bridge the gap between K-12 and university — whether it’s practices in universities that K-12 can adopt, or vice versa — it would be gratifying to contribute to that shared learning and growth.
Absolutely. Let me start by revisiting a point I made in those lectures. We need to shift our focus beyond purely "cognitive intelligence" and place greater emphasis on other areas like bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. These are all vital and they can’t be left to develop once someone enters university. They need to be nurtured throughout a person’s education from an early age.
In fact, I would argue that schools are currently doing a better job of supporting these areas than universities. For instance, many schools still prioritise physical education, which hones a bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, whereas universities often neglect it, and I think that’s a real loss. If we’re to live longer lives and make meaningful contributions to society and the economy, then maintaining our physical, emotional, and social well-being will be crucial. That foundation needs to be laid early.
Schools provide an environment where young people learn essential life skills, such as how to collaborate, handle conflict, and repair relationships. These human experiences are fundamental, and schools play a key role in helping students navigate them.
If you have two individuals with the same cognitive abilities and the same ability to deliver good quality work, chances are a company is likely to hire or promote someone who also has those soft skills and can go beyond just the technical side of a job.
I think the sad thing is that, at the C-suite level, people will absolutely say it's not just about grades, it's all those other dimensions that matter. But when it comes down to hiring managers and you're faced with hundreds of applicants for one position, what do you look for? You use grades as a sifting device. It’s harder, in a sense, to test for other qualities like resilience. You might be able to test interpersonal skills in an interview, and you might be able to ask hypothetical questions about resilience, but you don’t really know. So unfortunately, at the point of hiring, companies all too often tend to fall back on objective measures and don’t focus enough on those other more human dimensions.
I think it is essential young people learn how to learn. That’s the most valuable skill they can carry with them throughout life.
We sometimes hear from employers who say, “Your graduate didn’t know what to do on their first day — we had to train them. You must be doing a poor job.” But my response is this: if you're hiring someone into the finance industry, for example, we’re not teaching them the specific products your company sells. That’s your role. What we are doing is teaching them to understand those products — and more importantly, to develop the skills to imagine and design the next generation of products.
They’ve built the right foundations and habits of mind to enable them to learn quickly and adapt. In time, they’ll pick up the specifics — but it's that ability to learn that matters most.
On top of this, especially in a day and age where many people, both young and old, are facing challenges with mental well-being, we must find ways to strengthen the resilience of young people.
In Singapore and perhaps in much of Asia, there’s a certain pragmatism — maybe even a pragmatic ideology — that going to university is about getting a good job and progressing in life. And given the amount of urbanisation and rapid changes in the workplace, young people can very easily feel displaced or disenfranchised because the world of work is changing.
They may have been studying a particular subject when, suddenly, the world of work has shifted, and the career they’ve been working towards is no longer there by the time they graduate. And so how do they create meaning when the world is changing so rapidly?
In an age of AI, perhaps what is even more important in our education is to cultivate and strengthen those human dimensions in each of us. The technical skill sets can be learned, and indeed they will need to be relearned, because the shelf life of knowledge and skills is going to be shortened ever more.
But what is going to stay with us are our human qualities, and they will be helpful in the workplace as well. These qualities are what make us stronger, better, more empathetic people, who can step into someone else's shoes, walk around in them, and see things from someone else's perspective.
The qualities of being human are what’s going to stand the individual in good stead in our changing world, because then they’re centred, have a strong set of core values, and this sets them apart from what AI can do.
It's a question that we’ve discussed quite a bit for both students and our faculty.
For our students, AI is certain to impact their work. Whether you're a lawyer or an accountant or someone in the marketing department, AI is already making a massive impact. In many fields, students will need to have the ability to use AI to create first drafts by framing their questions in the right way, which is a skill that can be learned. But beyond that, how do you evaluate a first draft and improve it? And that's where critical thinking comes in. To be good at your job, you must be able to create an ideal final draft. Graduates must also work with clients in ways that resonate with them, like knowing how to read a room or how to negotiate. AI can help with some of that, but at the end of the day, human qualities must shine through.
And for our teachers, there are many aspects to this too. One is for those who are going to be the creators of future AI. How do we train them for that? For undergraduates and postgraduates studying computer science, what should they be learning? I'm not an expert in this area, but we've been having conversations about how the next generation is embracing what is now being called post-quantum computing. We need, through our research, to be at the frontiers so we can bring it into the classroom for students who want to make it their career.
I’m optimistic. With the right mindset and values, young people will thrive.
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