As Minister for Interior and Defence, Goh's main objective was to strengthen the country's military and domestic security capabilities after the British had withdrawn its troops from Singapore, which made the newly-independent nation vulnerable.

A key policy was the creation of National Service (NS), a mandatory conscription system for able-bodied young males.

Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had mentioned that he had wanted a conscription consisting both men and women similar to Israel.

At the time, it was unprecedented for a non-commodity-based economy to have such a sovereign wealth fund, and was initially seen as a risky venture that eventually paid dividends.

During his time in London, Goh met fellow students seeking independence for British Malaya, including Abdul Razak, Maurice Baker, Lee Kuan Yew and Toh Chin Chye.

[8][10] Goh graduated in 1951 with a first class honours in economics, and won the William Farr Prize for achieving the highest marks in statistics.

In 1952, together with fellow civil servant Kenneth Michael Byrne, he formed the Council of Joint Action to lobby against salary and promotion policies that favoured Europeans over Asians.

As a budget deficit of S$14 million was forecast that year, he introduced stringent fiscal discipline which including cutting civil service salaries.

As a result of these measures, he was able to announce at the end of the year when delivering the budget that the government had achieved a surplus of $1 million.

[5] Goh initiated the setting up of the Economic Development Board (EDB) which was established in August 1961 to attract foreign multinational corporations to invest in Singapore.

[8][16] The next year, he started the development of the Jurong industrial estate on the western end of the island which was then a swamp, offering incentives to local and foreign businesses to locate there.

Divisions existed within the PAP as well, with a pro-communist faction working to wrest control of the party from the moderate wing, of which Goh and Lee Kuan Yew were key members.

In July 1961, 16 members of the pro-communist faction broke away from the PAP to form the Barisan Sosialis, and captured control of the main trade unions.

He was described as both a key political and strategic leader responsible for the transformation of the system over 30 years from "fair" to "great", according to a November 2010 McKinsey report.

[22] He set up the Curriculum Development Institute, and introduced key policies such as religious education—subsequently discontinued and, in 1980, the channelling of students into different programmes of study according to their learning abilities, known as "streaming".

[8][10][15] In a tribute to mark the occasion, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew wrote: "A whole generation of Singaporeans take their present standard of living for granted because you had laid the foundations of the economy of modern Singapore.

Originally part of the Ministry of Defence, the organisation became a non-profit corporation called DSO National Laboratories in 1997.

[28] He backed the construction of the Kreta Ayer People's Theatre in his constituency as a venue for Chinese opera performances.

[31] According to Goh's daughter-in-law Tan Siok Sun, the medical condition caused him to be withdrawn and became introverted.

[8] Goh was also Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Institute of East Asian Philosophies between 1983 and 1992, which was founded to study Confucianism.

[33] On 14 May 2010, Goh died in the early morning at his home in Dunbar Walk off East Coast Road in Siglap, at the age of 91.

[8] Following his retirement from politics, in 1985 Goh was awarded the Order of Temasek (First Class), Singapore's highest civilian honour.

[8] During the National Day Rally on 29 August 2010, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the Singapore Command and Staff College, where senior officers of the Singapore Armed Forces receive training; and a complex to be constructed at the Ministry of Education's North Buona Vista Road headquarters for specialist teacher training academies in English language, physical education, sports and the arts would be respectively named the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College and the Goh Keng Swee Centre for Education.