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Officer, Infantry Brigade Commanders, Division Commanders, Chief Engineer Officer and
Chief Signals Officer, the nomenclature for the designations changing over time, e.g. from
Senior Artillery Officer to Chief of Artillery.
Given their educational profile, it is likely that the majority in the First Batch had not expected
to rise very far in the SAF. There was nothing to indicate that the SAF would become the
enormous organisation it was developing into at the stage of their careers when the more
focused among them were seriously setting some career goals. With National Service, a
paradigm shift had taken place. The leadership throughput had to be greatly accelerated, as
a disproportionate bulk of the orbat was not in full-time service. It also had to represent
current managerial principles and societal ethos compared with those of a traditional military
establishment, as the majority of the National Service leadership would be represented by
upwardly mobile private and public sector personalities, for whom the Armed Forces was
only part-time duty. Direct recruitment as career soldiers had been superseded by contract
and bond service. Officers coming in through this route, especially if they were highly
qualified, were quickly processed through the intermediate levels of command to take up
senior appointments commensurate with their qualifications. Before long, National Service
and scholarship schemes left many of the First Batch in limbo; though perhaps well within
their initial expectations.
The situation was formalised with the introduction of the Shell Appraisal System in 1980.
The annual performance ranking up till then was identical to the standard government
format that ultimately provided only a vague summary of how an officer had performed the
preceding year. It was then left to the Officers’ Personnel Centre to review previous records
and attempt to shortlist the individuals deserving of promotion, depending as much on the
assessor, as the assessed. With the Shell Appraisal System, which was borrowed from the
petroleum company, two elements were introduced: an estimation of the officer’s potential
(Currently Estimated Potential or CEP) meaning the position he was likely to achieve in the
organisation at age 45 and a formal rank ordering of all officers of the same rank collectively
by the assessors each year as the basis for promotion. The CEP not only provided the
standing of the officer among his peers, but also underwrote his career planning by OPC.
The Shell system resolved the arbitrary issues that had plagued the traditional performance
reporting, giving a sense of purpose to the charting of career paths in very large organisations
and forcing assessors to make hard comparative choices. But, with the best of intentions, an
assessor could not help being influenced by the educational qualifications of the assessed,
thereby favouring the higher educated and those with prestigious scholarships. It tended to
maroon the less qualified officer in the lower stratum.
Despite this, either because of the sound foundation of the First Batch officers or the
fact that in joining the SAF as careerists—and in some cases at least—both, they generally
took to whatever assignments were given them and did not disappoint. When the scholars