ON THE day he received his third honorary doctorate, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong cast his mind back to the days he spent with classmates at the Williams College in Massachusetts in 1967.

His class of 20 was a melting pot, with students from Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, Tanzania, Uganda, Pakistan, Colombia and Yugoslavia.

All young government officials from the Third World, they were sent to the US to pursue a masters degree in development economics, Mr Goh said.

He was speaking at a ceremony held on Saturday at the National University of Singapore, where he was conferred an honorary doctorate from South Africa's University of Pretoria (UP).

It honoured him for his leadership role in the economic success and prosperity of Singapore and its strategic role in Asia.

In his speech, Mr Goh recalled that he and his classmates, many of them African, were eager to learn ways to solve the economic problems of their homelands.

'But forty years on, many of my classmates never had their dreams realised. For some of them, their hopes were shattered very early on.'

The reason was simple: War and strife.

He gave the example of his Egyptian classmate whose country had engaged in the six-day war with Israel just before his graduation.

The Senior Minister recounted the different destinies of his classmates to drive home one point: Peace and stability are essential for growth and prosperity.

Read the full story in tomorrow's edition of The Straits Times.