Education - Singaporeans are losers !

[Grunt]

Education Double standards
Mainland Chinese students overwhelmingly favoured over others, including Singaporeans, for Science-Math scholarships. By Valentine Cawley
Mar 23, 2008

Singapore has many surprises for an attentive observer: one area that is rich in such surprises is Singaporean education.

Singapore is a country that prides itself on its uniformity and conformity. Thus one would expect that all within its borders would be treated in the same way, with regards to educational opportunity.

In an ideal world, everyone would have access to the opportunities they need. Yet, this is not so.

There is an educational scholarship scheme which many people may not be aware of. Its express purpose is to recruit scientifically and mathematically competent students from other Asian countries and bring them to Singapore.

The ones that I have taught are about 95% PRC (People's Republic of China) mainland Chinese students and the rest have happened to be Vietnamese. I haven't met one from anywhere else.

These almost entirely mainland Chinese students are given free education in Singapore. They are given free accommodation. They are even given a monthly stipend on which to live.

One particular group even had a paid holiday in Malaysia (probably to show them what a wonderful place Singapore was by giving them the contrast of poverty - since it was a poor area they went to), recently.

They basically have a free ride of it, for their time in Singapore. They are even given a choice of where they might like to get a degree out of a selection of overseas countries. Singapore pays for it all.

I can see why they do this. It is so as to recruit scientific talent for Singapore's tech and science industries. The idea is that many of these students will come to settle in Singapore and work here.

So, in that sense it is a smart move for Singapore. Yet, I am not particularly happy at this particular programme. Why? Well, because Singaporeans are not treated so well.

We have sought special provision for Ainan's scientific educational needs for over a year and a half, now. Long term readers will know that we have encountered a less than generous attitude in this area.

At various times, we have been told: "It is resource intensive to give him practical chemistry classes" and "There is no funding available" and "Why don't you go to a private school and pay for it yourself?"

(This last was said by a member of the Gifted Education Programme...a very unhelpful organisation, in truth.)

In that entire time, we have managed to secure six practical sessions for Ainan out of the education system (at Raffles Insitution and Raffles College).

We were also offered one hour a week at NUS High School of Maths and Science, last year, which we ultimately rejected, because it was of material (at early A level) which he had already covered - and they refused to let him take practical classes.

It simply wasn't worth going there, since nothing new would be learnt. All in all, it is not much of a response to Ainan's particular needs.

Now, Ainan was born in Singapore. His mother is a Malay Singaporean - so Ainan has Singaporean nationality.

Yet, the contrast between the way PRC science students are welcomed to Singapore and enticed by large bundles of money and educational freebies, and the way we have met obstacles and refusals of support, in Ainan's scientific education, could not be more marked.

I find myself puzzled. Ainan is Singaporean. These PRC imports are not. Ainan gets little support. The PRCs get everything.

Surely, this is strong evidence of double standards in Singaporean education? To get what you need, here, you have to be a foreign student on a scholarship. If you are a locally born Singaporean, you need not apply, seems to be the message.

Perhaps they take Ainan for granted. They think that, because he is local, that he is theirs already. The PRCs, however, have to be won over to Singapore's side.

The funny thing about this is that Ainan is much brighter than any of the PRC imports I have met and taught over the years.

He has much MORE to offer Singapore in terms of scientific talent, than any of these PRCs (or Vietnamese) students. Yet, except for a few token exceptions, Ainan's needs have not yet been met by the Singaporean education system.

Double standards are never fair - nor are they wise. In pursuing this course of action, Singapore will recruit some scientifically talented PRC students - yes.

However, they will also alienate LOCALLY DERIVED scientific talent - unless they SUPPORT THEM EQUALLY WELL.

The fact is, however, they don't. If you are locally born talent, you can expect no special support of your gifts - or very little indeed, certainly not enough to optimize your intellectual growth.

If, however, you were born in Beijing - expect every cheque book to be open. That is the clear message of this programme.

Ainan's education proceeds at home, with us. Were it not for our support, he would be receiving NO scientific education, at this time, from the Singaporean education system. Is that the way to nurture future scientists?

I am sure the story would be very different if Ainan was a PRC child showing the same gift.

He would be flown in, with his mother (probably), given a house, a scholarship at a good school, and money every month to pay his way.

Unfortunately, for Ainan he is locally born. What he gets instead, is a lot of bureaucratic delays and time-wasting from the educational establishment.

Far from receiving a scholarship, we are repeatedly told that "there are no funds available" and no resources, either.

So, the lesson is this. If you have a special child and they were born in Singapore, you should emigrate to China, at once.

There you should revoke your Singaporean citizenship and become Chinese - and then apply for the Singaporean scholarship programme. You will be welcomed with open arms and suddenly everything you need for your special education would be made available.

For true authenticity, you should speak English exceptionally badly for the first couple of years back in Singapore, just to make sure that you don't look out of place (just like all the other PRC recruits).

We have had to make our own arrangements for Ainan, since the educational system has proven unwilling to do so. Every other special child we have heard of, has run into difficulties too. They share one thing in common: they were born in Singapore.

It would be good to see a Singaporean education system that allowed all children to flourish - and aided all along the way, to reach their potential.

It is not enough to focus on grooming PRC children to become Singaporean: they need to give equally good opportunities and support to locally born talent too.

Otherwise a strange thing will begin to happen: just as the PRC "talent" arrives, the local talent will leave.

That is precisely what has happened to some of the Singaporean gifted children that we are aware of. They haven't received what they needed in Singapore - so they left for America etc.

Now, is that a smart education policy?

If Singapore did more to nurture its locally born talent, they wouldn't have to recruit PRC students to make up for the shortfall in talent. They would have created it in their own backyard, instead.

The next step for Ainan has been arranged, and will be announced at an appropriate time - but you know what: we arranged it ourselves.

Those in the education system whose responsibility is to attend to these matters did nothing to help us, at all. Were we less persistent, nothing would have happened.

The others that we are aware of did not battle on, to secure what they needed here: they just emigrated.

The priority should be: first look after locally born talent, then look to recruit overseas talent. They should not begin to do the latter until the former has been addressed.

Otherwise, the result will be that one's own people leave, never more to return. The foreigners who replace them, have no real ties to Singapore. There seems little wisdom in that.

gathered from : http://www.littlespeck.com/content/education/CTrendsEdu-080325.htm
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Comments:

shoestring said...

It would be good to share this article with the editors at TOC. I came from SD.

Singaporeans should know more about the plight of their own talents. It is not that we do not have talents, but that they have been slighted.
The government has no grounds to lament the lack of local talents, and use it as an excuse to bring in foreign ones, if the MOE does nothing about it.

You are right, citizens should be given the priority.



Valentine Cawley said...

Thank you Shoestring. I quite agree. The problem is if local talents are not supported, they will, in time, become non-local talents - ie. they will emigrate.

Best wishes to you.


Anonymous said...

Hi there, I am disturbed to hear that they are almost all from the PRC. Is the government specifically discriminating for PRC students in its recruitment?

Is it not allowing students from other countries to apply or is it just not advertising about its programme in other countries?

Given Singapore's multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, hearing that so many "scholars" are coming from a single source sounds very suspicious.


Valentine Cawley said...

Hi Anonymous,

I don't know how they promote their programme: I haven't been told. All that I am able to do is to observe the results of that promotion. The only ones I have ever met are from the PRC and Vietnam.

The Vietnamese are outnumbered by the Chinese about 30 to 1. I haven't met any (or heard of any) from Malaysia or Indonesia, or the Philippines, or anywhere else for that matter.

That is not to say that they don't exist: it is just that neither my wife (who teaches) nor I (who used to teach) has ever met any. Presumably, our sample is a fair one...so draw your own conclusions.

I am sure that statistics on these "scholars" will prove difficult to find. I have given you mine though. PRC: roughly 97%. Vietnam, 3%. The rest of the world: 0%.

If I ever meet any scholars from other countries, I will let you know.
Thanks for your comment.

http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2008/03/double-standards-in-singaporean.html

[Grunt]

March 25, 2008
COMPETITION FOR UNIVERSITY PLACES
Tackling the quality-vs-quantity dilemma

The 2007 Oxbridge Letter-Writing Competition, organised by the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Singapore, required participants to write a letter to a minister or civil society leader on an important local issue. The first-prize winner, announced last month, was Teng Ya Wen from Hwa Chong Institution. She wrote a letter to Minister of Education Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Your Excellency,

In June last year, the local universities' admission systems came under fire in The Straits Times' Forum Page. Many frustrated parents eagerly propagated the allegation that the influx of foreign students - some of whom receive generous government subsidies - had deprived local students of university placements.

Most Singaporeans recognise that inducting foreign students 'adds to the vibrancy of the universities' learning environment by providing diversity and alternative perspectives', as you have explained. But the recent uproar invites fresh consideration of the issue.

Is it due to competition from foreign students that some local students are unable to secure university placements? I think not. The number of foreign students is currently limited to 20 per cent of the intake. The overwhelming majority are Singaporean, amongst whom equally stiff competition occurs.

Rote learning has resulted in a great many local students getting straight As. Hence, some faculties reject students with a tad less than perfect grades. These students are admitted to their next best choices among the faculties, raising their benchmarks. As a result, average students find themselves facing higher barriers of entry across the board.

Many Forum writers were sympathetic to these students, some of whom may be academic late-bloomers. They surmounted a steep learning curve to achieve grades barely adequate for university admission, only to be deemed mediocre compared to those who were lucky enough to have been admitted to the fast (through-train) track of education.

To resolve this matter would require us to slaughter a sacred cow - meritocracy in education. That would open a can of worms. Hence, people find it far more convenient to play the blame game.

Universities have offered an amicable solution: increase the number of places available. But herein lies a contradiction in policy.

Ideally, universities with the capacity and resources to admit a larger cohort should do so to allow as many students as possible to access higher education. Yet the need to maintain the universities' reputations compels them to keep their admission criteria stringent. Ironically, while we take pride in having a National University of Singapore (NUS) that is nearly comparable in quality to America's Ivy League colleges or Britain's Oxbridge universities, we expect NUS to function like a state university in accommodating as many students as possible.

The real constraint in improving both the quantity and quality of higher education in Singapore is in fact the country's modest population size. Our education landscape is unable to sustain demand for a range of academically-differentiated universities, such as are available in the United States and Britain. Thus, most of the local cohort who qualify for university end up streamed into one of the three local full-fledged universities where student aptitudes can vary widely across faculties. Perhaps, the university administration's unwillingness to admit any particular local student has chiefly stemmed from its desire to pursue quality, rather than its partiality towards foreign students.

Why is it that most Singaporeans' knee-jerk reaction in the matter has been to censure our foreign guests? It seems many grudgingly accommodate the government's efforts to encourage diversity and competition in education and employment, only to bristle with hostility when the reality of being outdone sets in - for nothing is more embarrassing than being struck out despite a home-ground advantage.

Our cultural roots as an Asian society, the Confucian emphasis on preserving a cohesive community unit, may have contributed to shaping an 'us versus them' paradigm in our society. Despite Singapore's immigrant origins and open economy, locals appear somewhat reluctant to embrace other nationalities. A mindset change is necessary. We should examine current foreign-local student interactions at various educational levels.

At the same time, the problem of university placement shortages needs to be addressed squarely. If the number of students unable to meet minimum entrance requirements is set to increase, the Ministry should check on the adequacy of other higher learning institutions to ascertain if they can serve as viable alternatives to local full-

fledged universities. This issue calls for a considered treatment. Singapore cannot afford to have students who feel they have been rejected by the education system to become disillusioned with the country.

People seek affirmation in their citizenship. If one were to hazard a guess, the 'stayers' of the next generation would be those who have been convinced enough by the country's commitment towards developing her most valuable asset - her people - to reciprocate in kind.

Our well-oiled educational system would do well to pay special notice to each of its divergent tracks: Singaporean students studying at elite universities abroad and those at home; maximising resources for quality university education for the majority of university-bound students as well as for those enrolling in alternative education institutions.

The writer will study liberal arts at the University of Chicago. She is currently in the MOE Teaching Internship Programme.

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/Review/Others/STIStory_220169.html

Most Singaporeans recognise that inducting foreign students 'adds to the vibrancy of the universities' learning environment by providing diversity and alternative perspectives', as you have explained. But the recent uproar invites fresh consideration of the issue.

What vibrancy and alternative perspectives can there be when the whole
class make-up does not has even 1 single local ?

Kindly refer to my prior above post.

Is it due to competition from foreign students that some local students are unable to secure university placements? I think not. The number of foreign students is currently limited to 20 per cent of the intake. The overwhelming majority are Singaporean, amongst whom equally stiff competition occurs.

Believe the figures are much higher than that.
The 20% as given in Parliament was only for paying students.

Currently, foreign students pay 10% more in tuition fees than local students.

http://www.moe.gov.sg/parliamentary_replies/2004/pq20042004.htm

Those under scholarship and bond they forgot to include.
Later when pressed they explained that :

20 percent of Foreign students who applied were successfully accepted into local universities- 2007 ......

The Ministry explained that the 987 figure only referred to foreign students who had obtained GCE 'A' level or polytechnic qualifications in Singapore.

http://edunet.sg/content/view/57/


Think, if they were to include all, the figure should be close to 35% or
more.

How convenient .................

It's trully comforting to know that we are paying 10% lesser than our
foreign academia.

And pleasantly this year all the 3 Universities will be raising their fees
by 4% and some more ........ in 2006/7 it was something like 3% ...

Most of the schools in National University of Singapore (NUS) will also limit the fee increase to about 4%. However, the Law and Business faculties at NUS will raise their fees by a higher amount.

[Grunt]

Stanford waives tuition if income under $100,000
Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:04pm EST

STANFORD, California (Reuters) - Amid calls by some U.S. lawmakers for wealthy universities to lower tuition costs, officials at Stanford University said on Wednesday they would no longer charge tuition to students from families earning less than $100,000 a year.

For students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year, Stanford University will not charge for either tuition or room and board, officials at the prestigious university near San Francisco said.

Harvard University, Yale University and Stanford have the three largest endowments among U.S. universities. Some lawmakers want universities to use investment gains in endowments to make college more affordable.

Tuition costs at leading U.S. universities have soared in recent years to levels that can leave students and their families tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt at graduation.

In December, Harvard overhauled its financial aid system so that families earning up to $180,000 a year would pay only as much as 10 percent of their income on annual tuition and fees.

Yale announced last month it would spend roughly 37 percent more of its own money from its $22.5 billion endowment on financial aid for students and scientific research in 2008-2009.

Stanford has an endowment of about $17 billion, which it plans to tap to pay for its new financial aid program. The university also plans a $200 million fund-raising effort to bolster the program.

Stanford University projects its undergraduate tuition for its 2008-2009 year at $36,030, with room and board an additional $11,182.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin; writing by Jim Christie, editing by Todd Eastham)

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2041220220080221

Citizens do have priviledges .... except ours of course !

We pay lesser by 10% but must meet the highest of As' and a need a high
degree of the the English language to be considered plus to queue behind
the foreign scholars who may not be comprehending too well the Queen's
language.

Great huh !

[greatknowledge]

rigid education system.... whose fault?

[harry]

belive me the b****y PRCs will take over us in everything... and the singapore family unit will be broken as the PEI DU MAMA .. become PEI SEX MAMASAN to our local married man!

[wilswong]

belive me the b****y PRCs will take over us in everything... and the singapore family unit will be broken as the PEI DU MAMA .. become PEI SEX MAMASAN to our local married man!

Harry: Can get to the point of what is being discussed...this has nothing to do with the subject.

[panter92]

Look here. What was written on the first post have no evidential support, and what's more, it came from an unreliable website.

Singapore is attempting to recruit PRC Chinese because we want their talent. Singapore needs more talent. Our economy is booming. We have lots of jobs available, but not enough people to work. That's why we need to encourage these PRC Chinese to learn here and hopefully work here as well in order to contribute to the economy.

As for the case on Ainan, there is showing that she is indeed a hardworking boy. A Singaporean Malay, not Malay Singaporean anyway. Singapore's universities cannot afford to accommodate every single Singaporean or give every one of us a University certificate. If they do so, no dount it will be a popular move, but the long term results will be nothing but adversity as quality of workers drop.

Of course, I may change this mindset as I age, but we'll have to see..

Competition encourages people to work hard.

[Grunt]

Dear panter92

What was written on the first post have no evidential support, and what's more, it came from an unreliable website.

You look here ... who are you to question the validity on your advice
then, furthermore using a pseudo nick how enlightening and genuine
can that be ?

The story had been carried and published by quite a few numbers of
newspapers, bulletins and blogs, much better than what you had
achieved till date I presumed else proof me wrong and I would
apologise.

Secondly, knowing Singapore strict regime the good University
should sue the writer if it was false, why the silence ?

Thirdly, you admit Ainan case as true and yet giving push over excuses
on a wide basis and at the same breath trying to discredit the writer's
story, how persuasive is that ?

Fourthly, your :

A Singaporean Malay, not Malay Singaporean anyway.

is alittle amusing cause :

there is showing that she is indeed a hardworking boy

and

no dount it will be a popular move

how can a she become a boy and what on earth is a dount ?

Infact, one can find more mistakes in the local MSM on both grammars,
typographical errors and wrongful quotes ......

So why are we not hearing from you on those ?

Then again if competition is so good then why not your parents not
adopt more children to challenge you in the home ground as well ....

[wilswong]

Harry,

really out of point...

So to be fair to panter92..

"The story had been carried and published by quite a few numbers of
newspapers, bulletins and blogs, much better than what you had
achieved till date I presumed else proof me wrong and I would
apologise. "

Quote the newspapers, bulletins that carries this article.

"Secondly, knowing Singapore strict regime the good University
should sue the writer if it was false, why the silence ? "

Very good question. Perhaps they are like all of us, will have to find the source and make good the evidence before any lawsuit? Is there impropriety? Perhaps but one article, one witness. it is pretty biased for now...

Mas Selamat escape makes good conspiracy theory as well as this...Harry may feel that it is not a theory but a fact...but to convince people that it is not a theory, the best start is NOT to belittle people.

And I find taking other people's english standards as a weapon to strengthen one's argument is extremely unnecessary and certainly in poor taste.

Harry...this is the 2nd post I see that you are being abusive unnecessarily. You are been warned.

Good arguments are to be based on content and it is where it should be, keep it that way...

[harry]

My anger at PRC is justified s I see them stealing our jobs and singaporean men and breaking up families.. surely some form of tolereence can be practiced?