Editorial

In 2005, I was invited by the Civil Service College (CSC) to reconceive ETHOS, then an internal newsletter circulated among Administrative Service officers, as a practitioner-oriented professional journal. Geared towards a readership of decision-makers in the Singapore Public Service, as well as their international peers, the journal’s mandate was to promote deeper thinking on prevailing topics related to governance and public administration, and to showcase Singapore’s own advances in addressing these areas. 

Over the next 20 years, a small editorial team reached out to senior government officials, distinguished scholars and other thought leaders for their insights. Cabinet ministers, Nobel laureates and heads of civil service have shared their original ideas generously with ETHOS readers: some of these views have been debated in Parliament; others have been shared well beyond our shores as useful case studies, intriguing perspectives, or inspirational possibilities. 

The journal’s guiding ambitions reflect both the growing confidence of Singapore’s Public Service, increasingly recognised as among the world’s best in the field, and its developing thoughtfulness about the work ahead. Iterations in ETHOS mirror the evolution of its publisher, CSC, in grappling with a governance environment much changed in the past two decades. 

Aptly, this final issue of ETHOS commemorates the 25^th anniversary of CSC, an institution that has played a key role in readying Singapore’s public service corps for its vital work amid rising public expectations, rapid technological change, polycrises, and shifts in the nature of governance. 

Continual learning and development have long been seen as strengths in our public service arsenal, accounting for our ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. With volatility and complexity, rather than coherent stability, becoming the mainstream in public affairs, active and effective learning should be regarded as part of the core practice of governance — the iterative cycle of sense-making, policy design, implementation and review — rather than as an add-on or remedy for unsatisfactory performance. An example of proactive learning and development that have paid off down the line is CSC’s own digital capability journey, in which early experimentation laid the groundwork for the subsequent mass digitalisation and AI push in the public sector. 

At the same time, there is now greater appreciation for learning approaches that centre workplace outcomes rather than theoretical frameworks, and that keep the human subject in mind — participants have an energy budget; they want to see the relevance of workshop activities; they learn differently in groups than by themselves; they need to take charge of their own development. More nuanced human-centred strategies are also crucial to cultivating the next generation of public service leaders, who will need steadfast values, backed by strong reflective and relational capacities, to build the successful institutions of tomorrow. 

CSC has been at the heart of the Public Service’s learning and development not only because it hosts a multitude of training programmes, talks, fora and other activities. It also convenes public officers across government to meet, chat, exchange notes, building bonds and a shared ethos that will stand them in good stead long after the courses are over. The College is a living laboratory for forward-thinking ideas about public administration and governance in practice. It also serves as institutional memory for the work of government, broadening and deepening our hard-earned professional repertoire of public service tradecraft. As a veteran contributor reminds us, amnesia hobbles informed, decisive action; the costs of forgetting can be steep, and may only show up down the line. 

ETHOS has always sought to be a platform for new thinking, and a chronicle of significant strides, in addressing some of the most pressing public concerns of our time — even as CSC has strived to prepare our people to meet these challenges on the ground. I hope this vital work will continue in other forms, so Singapore can benefit from a Public Service that is ever more able, agile, canny, and wise. 

Thank you for your many years of support for ETHOS. 

I wish you, as ever, a thoughtful read.

Dr Alvin Pang
Editor-in-Chief, ETHOS

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