DPM Heng guided Singapore through Covid-19 pandemic as economic czar

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, who guided Singapore through the Covid-19 pandemic as finance minister, is retiring from politics after 14 years.

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Mr Heng, 64, who is also the current chairman of the PAP, was not on any constituency's slate on Nomination Day on April 23.

In a Facebook post after nomination proceedings concluded, he said: "I believe now is the right time to make way for a new team of capable individuals who are well placed to serve Singapore." DPM Heng entered politics in 2011 in Tampines GRC, as part of a cohort that would form the core of the PAP's fourth-generation (4G) leadership. Other candidates introduced in the general election that year included Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.

A Singapore Police Force overseas scholarship holder, Mr Heng joined the police force after graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in economics and rose to the rank of assistant commissioner.

He joined the Administrative Service in 1995, and was principal private secretary to then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew between 1997 and 2000.

Mr Lee later called Mr Heng "one of the best" principal private secretaries he ever had.

"He's the man who saw Singapore through the financial crisis and we recovered faster than other countries," he also said.

FROM ECONOMICS STUDENT TO CZAR

Within days of being elected in 2011, Mr Heng was made a full minister with the education portfolio.

A major move early in his tenure as education minister was to cease the banding of secondary schools, ending a 20-year practice of spotlighting academic performance ahead of other indicators.

In 2012, he also did away with naming the top scorers in the Primary School Leaving Examination. A year later, the ministry went a step further by not disclosing the highest and lowest scores, which had been listed on every pupil's result slip since 1982.

The policy of not naming the top scorers also extended to other national examinations: the N levels, O levels and A levels.