Family Matters:Dr Goh Keng Swee was born in Malacca on 6 October 1918 into a middle-income Peranakan family. He was the fifth of six children. His father, Goh Leng Inn, was a manager of a rubber plantation, while his mother, Tan Swee Eng, was from the family that produced the Malaysian politicians Tun Tan Cheng Lock and his son Tun Tan Siew Sin.
When he was two years old, his family moved from Malacca to Singapore where his maternal grandparents owned several properties. The Gohs later relocated to the Pasir Panjang rubber estate when his father found work there and became manager in 1933. Like many Peranakan families, the Gohs spoke both English and Malay at home.
Academic Matters(1):
After studying at the Anglo-Chinese Primary School and the Anglo-Chinese Secondary School between 1927 and 1936 where he was second in his class in the Senior Cambridge Examinations, Goh went on to graduate from Raffles College in 1939 with a Class II Diploma in Arts with a special distinction in economics.
Early jobs:
He then joined the colonial Civil Service as a tax collector with the War Tax Department but, according to his superiors, was not very good at his job and was almost fired. Shortly after the start of World War II, he joined the Singapore Volunteer Corps, a local militia, but returned to his previous work after the fall of Singapore. Goh married Alice Woon, a secretary who was a colleague, in 1942 and they had their only child, Goh Kian Chee, two years later. In 1945 he relocated his young family to Malacca, but they returned to Singapore the following year after the Japanese occupation ended. That year, he joined the Department of Social Welfare, and was active in post-war administration. He became supervisor of the Department's Research Section six months later.
Academic Matters(2):
Goh won a scholarship which enabled him to further his studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). During his time in London, he met fellow students seeking independence for British Malaya, including Abdul Razak (later Malaysia's second Prime Minister), Maurice Baker (subsequently Singapore's High Commissioner to Malaysia), Lee Kuan Yew and Toh Chin Chye. A student discussion group, the Malayan Forum, was organized in 1948 with him as the founding chairman. He graduated with first class honours in economics in 1951 and won the William Farr Prize for achieving the highest marks in statistics. When he returned to the Department of Social Welfare, he was appointed assistant secretary of its Research Section. In 1952, together with fellow civil servant Kenneth M. Byrne, he formed the Council of Joint Action to lobby against salary and promotion policies that favoured Caucasians over Asians.
In 1954, Goh was able to return to LSE for doctoral studies with the help of a University of London scholarship. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics in 1956 and returned to the Department of Social Welfare, where he served as Assistant Director and then Director. In 1958 he was made Director of the Social and Economic Research Division in the Chief Minister's Office. He resigned from the civil service in August that year to work full-time for the People's Action Party (PAP).
Source: Wikipedia
