Mr Ong Ye Kung is the Minister for Education. He was elected Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC in Sep 2015, and appointed to the Cabinet of Singapore on 1 Oct 2015. He had held the positions of Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) and Second Minister for Defence. He is concurrently a board member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Chairman of the Chinese Development Assistance Council. 

Prior to his Cabinet appointment, he held the position of Director of Group Strategy at Keppel Corporation, overseeing long term strategic planning of the Group’s activities. 

Before joining Keppel Corporation, he was the Deputy Secretary-General of National Trades Union Congress, overseeing the Labour Movement’s employment and employability programmes. 

He also held various positions in the Government earlier.  These include the Chief Executive of Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA), during which he spearheaded many initiatives to build up the Continuing Education and Training infrastructure. 

He was the Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong from 2003-2005, and Press Secretary to Prime Minister Lee from 1997-2003.  Mr Ong was also the Deputy Chief Negotiator for the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.   

Mr Ong graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) with a Bsc(Econs) First Class Honours, and holds a Master of Business Administration from the Institute of Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland.