His wish: for the country to reach the levels of Italy and Austria.

Speaking during a dialogue at the Silver Industry Conference and Exhibition (SICEX) on Friday, MM Lee elaborated on a point he made last Monday at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Iseas) 40th anniversary dinner.

'I said the other night at the Iseas conference that in 10 to 15 years we should be able to be at the level of Italy and Austria. So I got feedback: We already passed Italy and Austria,' he said to laughter, referring to how people thought he had meant economic wealth.

On Friday, he explained that he had actually been referring to the quality of civilisation in the two countries.

'If you go to Florence or you go to Venice or you go to Rome and you see their churches, their museums, and you see the number of sculptors, painters sitting outside trying to copy Leonardo da Vinci, you know that was the beginning of the renaissance. That is a great civilisation.'

On Austria, he noted how the nation was the centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is home to the famed, almost 500-year-old Vienna Boys' Choir.

'These are things which take a long time to nurture, and that night at Iseas we were nurturing some,' said MM Lee.

He was referring to homegrown troupes that had put up performances featuring traditional Indonesian and Chinese musical instruments.

However, the push for a cultivated society must be buttressed by economic growth, MM Lee was quick to add.

'You cannot have a cultivated society if you have an underclass sleeping under your bridges, in the (street) corners or in the parks, nor can you have your old abandoned. So these are problems that every society faces,' he said.

Singapore must also continue to work on becoming a society that offers people many paths to success, MM Lee said.

'What we have to do is to make the best use of the people we have and we got a heterogenous, a diverse group of people, maximise their value to ... the whole society and use them where they are capable of adding to our general well-being.'

One example of such diversity, he cited, is the academic differences between Chinese and Indians.

Mr Lee revealed that he studied the SAT scores of Singapore students every year. He found that the scores in Mathematics for the Chinese students were consistently in the 95th to 99th percentile but these slipped to the 75th to 85th percentile for the Verbal tests.

Indian students meanwhile had high scores for the verbal component of these tests that are needed to qualify for entry into American universities.

Mr Lee also highlighted the accomplishments of students from the Institutes of Technical Education or ITE.

He said most of them were from the bottom third of the school population in terms of their academic performance.

'But out of them, one quarter make it to the polytechnic and university because in the ITE, the teaching is different. It's hands on, it captures their interest.

'They suddenly discover they can do these things and in the end they make it to the top. So there are many roads to success and I would say for the next 10, 15, 20 years, our best extension of what we have done is to grow this sector,' he said.