The need for tuition

This is going to be the hot topic for a while. It is the concern of every parent and their children. To have tuition or not to have. For those children who are better endowed, tuition may be just a little additive like chicken essence, a little booster to get that extra few marks. To some it is not really necessary. How fortunate for these parents and children.

As not every child is gifted the same way, some would really need that little help. Some are slower or develop a bit later. Some are just afraid to ask in class or not getting the attention of the teachers in a class of 40 children. Then there will be the teacher that may go too fast or just not getting the message across.

For the slower students or late developers, tuition helps a lot. Tuition becomes personalized and tailored to their individual needs and pace. Caveat, a good tutor is needed. A tuition teacher could give the personal attention to find out what really was needed to help a child to improve. The proviso here is that the child is willing to learn

But like all things, some children are just not gifted academically and tuition could not do much and literally a waste of money and time. Just hope no clever people will come up with a solution that fits all. It cannot be. There are so many variables that affect a child in his/her growth and acquisition of knowledge and information, the environment, the motivation and the nature of things.

This also applies to teaching, teaching methods and how to motivate children. Not everyone will be uplifted by the same approach. Please, no one size fits all solution. That is why there are so many variations of schools, Normal, Express, ITE, polys and universities. Different target at your own time, fire.

The problem today is that everyone expects every child to fit into one mould, or have an education system that fits every child. And no one is brave enough to say, look, we need to provide a big enough buffet spread to cater to different tastes and the likes and dislikes. For those who need tuition, let them have their tuition. For those who don’t, good for them.

One thing the govt can do is to provide the facilities and teachers to help those who need tuition at little cost, not affordable fees or more subsidies. Free would be better as this is an investment into our precious resources and you are talking about the young that needed help to make them better people for themselves and country.

How to go about it and how much would the govt cough out for this very important needs of the people? No hawker centre, foodcourt and restaurant analogy please. This is serious business.

My two kids were differently endowed. One was slower and needed a little help in maths. She flunked in her late primary class but enough time for me to repair the damage. All I did was to clarify her thoughts and mental blocks, explained the concepts to make sure she understood. And with some perseverance and motivation, she went on to ace her maths in O and A level. Without knowing her problems and lack of understanding of basic mathematical concepts, tuition would not help much. A tutor must know what is the problem or where is the problem.

The other type of tuition which is very popular is exam jamming, cramming to ace exams. This is only good for the exam but the effects are temporary, like an instant high but no residual or long term effect. My other kid is different, better endowed. He came to me only once for a maths problem in P6. I took too long to get the answer using the old method. Before I could complete he said he had worked it out and that was the last time he came to me. He aced his O and A level and aced his Masters with Distinction in Engineering in Imperial College.

Both my kids did not have a day of tuition. One just had 15 mins with me in his whole life as a student and never came to me again. They were lucky, or I was lucky. But not every kid is so lucky and has parents to guide or fall back on. Tuition is necessary to assist, to guide, to motivate and support a child. Showing them the way, opening up their minds and clearing road blocks are very important. That would pave the way for the child to find his own way ahead. Tuition to game an examination is another ball game.

The tuition woe or tuition blur

Parliament is debating seriously about the impact of tuition for school children and how tuition could create an uneven playing field with some getting a leg up in their academic pursuits. This is definitely unfair. Why should some students with parents having so much money be allowed to have the best tuition to score straight As and some got to struggle without tuition to just get by? Cannot right? Wrong?
 
And there is also a problem of good teachers quitting teaching to be tuition teachers for the monetary rewards. Like that also no good as the schools will be deprived of having good teachers. And parents are also spending too much money on tuition, another NG.
So, what is the problem? Dunno. So? Commission a study lah, or at least conduct a survey to know what is wrong and what are the implications then something can be done.
 
Ok, good idea. One finding I can guarantee will come out. Unlevel playing field. So? Level the playing field, so easy. One solution, tuition be banned henceforth, so every student will start from the same starting line. Or the govt will provide tuition, subsidized definitely, so that every child will have tuition. And make sure it is also compulsory. Like that the field will be leveled, surely.
 
As for good teachers leaving the teaching service, have a term included in the contract like those in the private sector. Teachers leaving the teaching service will be banned from providing tuition for 5 years. Like that good teachers sure would not leave. Not so good teacher can leave, never mind.
 
See, problem solved. No need to waste time and money to conduct study or survey. If the ministry is going to spend public money on such study and survey, they must be serious in what they want to do, to take remedial actions. It cannot be a look see, look see, and then nothing done. This is like sending them overseas to study what other countries are doing then come back and just make a report also can. No need any follow up actions or plans. But this also costs money and if it ends up as NATO, then what? Simply spend public money is very easy. But don’t forget money must be well spent. There must be clear objectives and follow up actions to improve something. 

Maybe institutionalized or nationalized tuition and tuition centres. Then it will be easier to level the playing field. Rich parents pay more, poor parents pay less or subsidized. Now I used the term subsidize like no body’s business. I am also getting used to the term compulsory with compulsory payments. No opt out.
 
What do you think?

Tuition, the silliness of it all

There is an article in today’s ST on tuition by Nirmala, ST’s correspondent. In the article she quoted a Professor Mark Bray on some of the characteristics of East Asian societies and the growth and importance of tuition. ‘These East Asian territories are highly globalised and competitive. They stress a need for workers to remain ahead in skills and for students to acquire skills relevant to the global economy….the Singapore education system is a good one that has delivered high quality output.’ She added, ‘But Singaporean parents, like those in many other cultures, are competitive, seeking what they perceive to be the best for their children in a competitive system, and thus are trying to add more even though the school system is already delivering much that is already very good, he(Bray) said.’
 
Now what is so silly or sickening about all these comments? Did not our education system and the parents make them the best educated and skilled workers for the workforce?
 
It is not about the inequality that tuition will cause as this is a harsh reality that the poorer working class must get used to. The rich will pay for the best tutors for their children. You cannot ban tuition and tell them not to pay for tuition. Well, South Korea did ban tuition for 20 years, but has since allowed it to practice again. There were many ways to curb tuition to prevent it from worsening the inequality, which is absolutely a silly thing to do and to even think about for any govt. Forcing the people to level down is an idiotic thing to do, really, believe me.
 
Then what is so silly about tuition? With so much money and effort put in to develop the young, with such great education system and to quote, ‘They stress a need for workers to remain ahead in skills and students to acquire skills relevant to the global economy’, now can you see what is wrong or sickening?
 
Our workers lack motivation, lack drive, lack of skill, uncompetitive, lack of talent, that we need to bring in workers from third world countries without the competitive culture, without the resources and the drive to do well in education or a good education system to replace them in jobs here. They don’t even have competitive parents to make sure their children received the best education money can buy. Basically after all the stress and money spent, the startling result, our students turned workers are a useless bunch for the job market. Really, trust me.
 
What an irony? The less competitive societies and lesser equipped education system are producing all the qualified and skilled workers that our system could not produce. 

Shall I laugh or cry?
 
What is wrong, MOE, MOM?

Raising the quality of private tutors

 

Someone saw this coming. Since private tuition is so prevalent and necessary, let’s make sure that the standards are high and private tutors are qualified. For a start, all private tutors must be registered with a professional body and have their qualifications and experience certified. So we need a professional body or something like that to certify them.

Private tuition must be conducted in a proper and conducive environment, not below the staircase or in the void deck. Not in the homes also, to give an image of professionalism and respectability.

There must be some regulations or self regulating bodies to maintain a certain standard for the tuition giver. Not everyone can give tuition without the approval of these bodies or organisations. They may have to sit for a test to be issued with a certificate to tutor students.

Tutors are not allowed to anyhow paste little slips of papers on letter boxes or walls for their services like unauthorised agents. Not good for public image and professionalism.

See, we have a new industry in the making. And tutors, please declare your income and pay your taxes, and rentals and fees to your professional bodies, and the media for advertisements. Tutors will henceforth be known as professional tutors and can print name cards with PT added to their names.

This is a multi million dollar industry and deserves some recognition as many tutors are paid much better than school teachers, a choice profession that is highly regarded for the best in the industry. How about a specialist Tuition Centre like Mount Elizabeth equivalent for medical services?

A local story in the 60s/70s, 走江湖

Let me deviate from the norms of my Sunday postings and write something about life in a different time not too long ago. I am not sure how many parts I could write but this is the first introduction of Morgan's rite of passage into 'Jiang Hu".

The story of Morgan 白面浪子

He was very strongly built. His arms were twice the size of his contemporaries. This physical blessing came from a time when babies were fed with Milkmaid or Blue Cross condensed milk. The poorer brands were Lady General or something else. Morgan was luckier. Born a few years after the war, poverty was the norm everywhere. People were jobless or on call as odd job labourers, waiting in the kopitiam or ‘koolie keng’, a place where the coolies called home where all each had was a bed. The rest were common areas. Landing a full time job was a great contentment. Morgan had the good fortune of being breast fed. Mother was an illiterate immigrant from China, with bound feet and not the type suitable for labour intensive work. Breastfeeding a baby was not as easy as it looked. The mother must have at least decent meals to nourish the baby with enough healthy milk.

When Morgan arrived, the family fortune improved in a strange way. Mother was a ‘chap jee ki’ runner, collecting the bets for the syndicate. After a while she saw the trend. Most bets were losers. She took the risk by not submitting all the bets and pocketed the balance. With more spare cash, she started to plough some into bets of her own. And lady luck was kind. Enough food, lesser worries, Morgan was the ultimate beneficiary of the good fortune. He grew up a happy and boisterous child, fair and unusually sturdy. He was the apple of his mother. And the breastfeeding continued till he was 5 or 6 years old.

Morgan was in a way allowed to do as he pleased. From young he could tell Mother that he was not interested in schooling. And that was it. It was accepted and no pressure was put on him to walk the extra mile to do better in his studies. There was no tuition and no need for tuition. The hope was pinned on his elder brother to do well in school. The father passed away in a traffic accident when Morgan was only 8. His last few words, the brother could do well in school, and as for Morgan nothing was mentioned. It was kind of fatalistic, or the ability to assess the potential of the children and accept their fate. No need high education to know that. A child’s potential was well written before his teens.

The brother’s report card was all blue. That was a great credit and a great pride when the whole neighbourhood’s children were mostly a colourful mix of red and blue. Morgan was one of the statistics. As he advanced from Primary 1 to Primary 6 in Radin Mas, the number of blue marks got lesser while the reds got more. In his last few years in primary school, it was nearly all red. That was his life, his destiny. Mother did not go hysterical and rushed him for tuition classes. A young nonya girl a few doors away was giving tuition. She only completed Secondary Two and was good enough for the job where the rest were unschooled. Maybe money was also a problem by then when the coolie Father was gone. The selling of little satchets of opium as a side income was also sold.

The good part about the educational system then was that one could either get promoted to the next level or be advanced, ie failed but still moved up to the next grade. Morgan was posted to a new neighbourhood school in Queestown, Newtown Secondary School, probably without passing his PSLE. The only thing that he excelled in school was ECA, the official and the unofficial kind. ECA did not carry any weight in a child’s school performance and was incidental, something that was just part and parcel of school. His athletic built and prowess made him a champion in field events where might was an asset. For that, the school was kinder to him and did not really put him under a short lease. He was mischievous but did not get overboard. The disciplinary master, a black belt judoka, the father of a future national swimmer, was watching and assessing Morgan’s every move. Many boys that crossed Morgan’s path were chased and beaten outside the school. Often they were chased all over the school’s neighbourhood and up into the flats across the road. Morgan did not do the chasing. Neither did his sidekicks in the same school. He would call on his support from nearby schools to do the hunt. That kept him from trouble with the school.

He was not entirely an angel though. In the science lab and a lesson in biology, the science teacher was doing a dissecting on the table. The eager students were gathered closely to watch the demo. Many were good students and still wanting to study and do well, unlike Morgan. There was no purpose in him being in school. He was bidding his time and waiting for destiny to unfold, to take him on a path he had to travel. It was he and his life and his life to deal with.

‘Kock’, a loud noise was heard. In full concentration and the quiet of the lab, the knock was a sudden interruption. Everyone lifted their heads wondering what happened. The male teacher also stopped what he was doing. He lifted his hand and started to rub the back of his head. No one said a word. The teacher did not ask either. Then it was back to business. The lesson continued. Teaching in new integrated schools had their little risks and challenges.

The angst and pain of being Singaporeans that assholes cannot understand

Below is a post by a commenter called Tham in TRE.  If you can’t feel the pain and the frustration of this Tham, and the many filial children that shared the hapless feelings of Tham’s son knowing the financial problems they caused to their parents, you are inhuman. Read on to share the plight of being average parents in this extremely expensive city and trying to make ends meet. I just have to share this post to let the world know what the average Singaporeans are going through. This is the norm.

Tham: Readers out here, do share my grief; do share my agony; do share my anger; do share my frustration, when :

My son was graduated in NUS in year 2012 and the graduation ceremony was held in middle of July 2012 whereby more than 700 fresh graduates were waiting for their turns to be given the University Degree Certificate on stage…!!!!

As parents, both myself and my wife attended the grand convocation together with my daughter on that very evening.

There were thousands of parents serving as audience attended to this event held on that very day’s graduation apart from the volume closed to a hundred of convocation ceremonies held before this said date and immediately thereafter.

From the mother tongue these huge pool of audience attended to this ceremony alone, more than 70% are from PRC…!!!!

As a matter of courtesy and carried with joy witnessing the graduation of our children is something great…!!! We did not hesitate chatting freely with all these PRC parents who were there as audience giving their cheers and support to their children…!!!!
What really frustrate, angered and antagonized us is that parents of these PRCs were saying :

1) Ooooh, this Singapore PAP Government is very kind and generous in giving out FREE EDUCATION, FREE TUITION FEE, FREE LODGING & FOOD AND EVEN MONTHLY POCKET MONEY FOR THEIR CHILDREN TO STUDY HERE WHICH THEY CAN HARDLY FIND IN THIS WORLD….!!!!

2) Even a BOND is required to be signed as a formality so that after their children are graduated and comes out to work, they will have this revenue source to repay back whatever Educational Loans so far extended to them BUT AT ANY TIME THEY CAN FLED BACK TO CHINA WHICH IS VAST ENOUGH FOR THEM TO TEMPORARILY HIDE THEMSELVES UP AND THEREAFTER GO TO OTHER COUNTRIES TO SEEK FOR A HIGH SALARIED JOB WITH GREAT PROSPECTS…!!!!

From here we need to ask ONE VERY BASIC SIMPLE QUESTION :
Why aren’t our own True Native Born Singaporeans being privileged with all these Benefits when they are eligible to enroll for a seat & their parents have been all along over the past contributed towards the building of this Nation…???

My son, a True Native Born Singaporean; served the two & a half years of Full Time National Service in the Army; his parents are both also True Native Born Singaporeans who have contributed for the past decades in serving this Nation and myself too served the Part-Time National Service for 12 years with 5 years in the Army and 7 years in the Police Force…!!!!

WHY ARE WE NOT PRIVILEGED WITH THIS BENEFITS FOR OUR OWN CHILDREN TO OBTAIN & RECEIVED THEIR TERTIARY EDUCATION FOR FREE WHEN OUR CHILDREN ARE ELIGIBLE TO ENROLL THEMSELVES FOR A SEAT IN THE UNIVERSITIES…????

As a filial piety son, he was reluctant to take out borrowings from my CPF money to pay for his University school fees and tuition fees in view of my health & age, among others…!!!!
My son worked full time during the day as a simple technician and with his lean income, he saved hard to ensure he can afford to pay for his semester fee and tuition fee when falls due during his course of study at NUS…!!!!

Far 5 years back when my daughter studied at NUS, she borrowed from my CPF to pay for her semester fees and tuition fees…!!!!

AND THERE WAS COMPULSORY NEED FOR HER TO SEEK FOR A GUARANTOR WHO MUST BE A WORKING SINGAPOREAN BEFORE SHE IS APPROVED TO TAKE UP THE BORROWINGS FROM MY CPF ACCOUNT…!!!!

We (our whole family) together with our relatives, friends and colleagues whom are acquainted with us do share this : UNFAIRNESS AND ABUSIVE POLICIES OF THE PAP GOVERNMENT OVER ON HOW THEY HAVE ILL TREATED ALL OUR TRUE NATIVE BORN SINGAPOREANS….!!!!

Least but not Last or Last but not the Least, rest PAP can be assured that from all those within our known circle who knew about our predicament will NEVER VOTE FOR THIS PAP FROM THEREON IN EACH GENERAL ELECTION…!!! Thank you very much…

Petrol price up, GST up, what else is not up?

Our Current Situation:
March 25, 2022 at 3:04 am (Quote)


I am 72 years old and have been unemployed. My elder son completed his University degree and also have not been able to get employment for the past two years. My younger son who completed his Polytechnic diploma is also unemployed but now trying to get admission to the local University.

My wife who is going to retire soon is doing clerical duties and is now supporting the four of us with S$3,000 salary.

My family is a good example of a local family in deep shits because of our government FT policy. Really disappointed.

Above is a comment from a reader to an article in TRE about the out of touch PAP Minister by a Prabu Ramachandran. Contrast this guy's pathetic situation to those that are claiming to be earning $10k pm or more and the ministers million or more annual income. What is real or what is fake? Both are equally real, depending on what you want to see and want to know and what you do not want to see and do not want to know.

To the 72 year old guy, every small increase in prices of anything, transport fare, kopi, chicken rice etc etc, is going to be very painful and unaffordable. To those high earners, what is $50, or what is $10m?

It is all relative depending on where you are and how lucky or unlucky you are, or like some like to boast, how smart or not smart one is.

The 72 year old guy is lucky that his two sons have completed their studies and not having to pay with the high tuition fees for our excellent quality education, the more you pay, the better the quality of education. But not necessary when applying for jobs. In the latter, the lower you pay for tuition fees, very likely it is easier to get a job in Singapore, but not in the same third world country they came from. 

Funny isn't it? Our first world country, producing A grade students and getting the best and most expensive university or polytechnic education, cannot compete with third world graduates from funny universities with tuition fees that cost only a fraction of ours, and according to our standard of measurement, lower tuition fees mean lower quality of education, but these graduates from funny universities that are supposedly lower in quality according to our definition, are the preferred and choiced candidates for employment here. And our university and poly graduates are mostly spending time tweedling their thumbs at homes, CANNOT GET A JOB! 

Whose fault is this? Anyone should be responsible for the shit that our young are facing and suffering? No, no one is at fault. If there is, it is our young, that they should not be wasting time getting that piece of paper call degrees. They should just go out and look for a job, like a food delivery boy, or guarding the entrance to a shopping mall or office tower, or if their daddy happens to own a car, go and be a Grab driver. Do not apply for permanent jobs. Those jobs need qualifications from funny and cheap universities from the third world countries.

Vote for the best political party and pay them millions, and everything will be fine. Continue to get your world best degrees and stay at home tweedling your thumbs. You are well taken care of, very well taken care of.

And do not any how spend, save for the rainy day, provided you are working and have a income to save, in this most expensive city in the world. It is a miracle how Singaporeans like the 72 year old guy could manage to survive with two graduate unemployed children. This is Uniquely Singapore, which can afford to bring in half a million foreigners, give them good and permanent jobs, but could not give jobs to its very own citizens with university and polytechnic degrees.

What the fuck is going on? Who cares? Why should people earning more than $10k or in the millions be caring when they are gloating about how lucky or clever they are? And if they did not get their million dollar salary, their lifestyle would be affected.

CCA, the one thing Singaporeans bestest over third world students

7 Reasons Why It's Worth Investing In Your Child's CCA
By Priyanka Elhence, 27 July 2020 10195
 

What is a CCA?

Co-curricular activities (CCA), also known as extra-curricular activities, are an important part of a child’s holistic development and growth. Research and scientific studies have repeatedly shown that if children are to develop into well-rounded individuals, then CCA has to be regarded as being just as important as academics. Through CCA, students can discover their interests and talents, develop their character, learn how to appreciate values, and pick up important soft skills such as leadership to prepare them for future challenges in life.

Benefits of CCAs on your child

1. Better time management and other essential life skills  Other essential life skills that CCAs help children develop include:

- Leadership
- Communication & public speaking
- Event planning
- Teamwork and relationship building
- Goal setting
- Prioritisation
- Problem solving
- Analytical thinking

2. Improves self-esteem
3. Teaches the importance of commitment
4. Broadens their experiences & views
5. Provides opportunities for social networking  

6. Develops children into being more well-rounded individuals  

7. Gives kids a fun way to beat stress

Investing in CCAs is important as it can help children connect to different communities, form different groups of friends, and build relationships that go way beyond the classroom, giving them a good social circle, while keeping them mentally and emotionally healthy. 

 

The above is from a INCOME insurance promotion. This CCA thing is probably the only thing that Singaporean students could be better than third world students. This is a privilege that only rich countries and rich parents could afford to pay to give their children better education in being developed in all aspects of their growing up and development. With this kind of extra education, there is no way our students would be worse off than third world students, at least on paper, theoretically speaking.  The more you put in, if good stuff, the better will be the student.

The only shortcoming in this push and force feeding to our young is that every child has only 24 hours a day. Take away sleep and rest time, take away time for food and travelling, all will have only X hours left. If our students are going to be fed with their school works, home works, tuition and all the CCAs, something must give. Not many children are super fit or super gifted to be able to do so much within a fixed time available.

The third world students would probably be spared with such CCAs.  Their parents could not afford to pay for them. So their X time would only be for school works. They are likely not going to have tuition.  Most of them could not afford tuition too.

This may be the reason why our super trained students, jammed with school works and tuition and CCA could not compete with third world students that only have to care about their school works. They do not need to have all the CCAs to be the all rounded and well educated student that ended up with many becoming half past six as they just could not cope with so many things within a fixed X hours.

So you can see why all the third world students are stealing our lunches, better qualified for jobs that our half past six in everything students, with a bag full of papers and certificates but good for nothing and ended up doing part time jobs or food delivery boys and girls.

Do I make sense? Too much of the good stuff but unable to digest would end up as diarrhoea, just go in and out of the system, nothing much retained.

There are so many reasons why having children in Singapore is losing traction

There are so many reasons why having children in Singapore is losing traction.

There is the education system minefield that keeps changing every now and then. Even teachers themselves have lost their expertise trying to keep up and needed upgrading to do so. And parents could no longer act as tutors to their kids unlike my generation.

Then there is the cost involved in bring up a child. A tin of baby milk powder costs an arm and a leg for low-income families, on top of shrinking contents. A kilogram tin has now shrunk to 800 grams; a half kilogram is now 400 grams. This is just based on my outdated quotation, as my children and grandchildren have all grown up. I still remember paying S$15 for a kilogram tin of baby milk powder in early 1980s, if I remember correctly. Now this is what the Chinese used to say - paying more money for less ingredients.

The milk powder manufacturers keep telling consumers that this and that has been added just to justify the price gorging. Some even claim that their milk powder improves intellectual competence. Can I just ask, what intellectual competence if the child is born without the brain capacity to study? Can just drinking the milk do the job? The generation of LKY and GKS did not have to rely on such baby milk powders to nurture them into such outstanding thinkers. They probably grew up on condensed milk, nothing fanciful.

This same argument can be applied to the elite schools chalking up accolades for stellar performances over decades. How can that not be so when they have the choice of the cream of the crop, leaving other normal schools to try their best with mediocre students. If students from such elite schools cannot produce stellar results based on their cream of the crop intake, something is seriously wrong somewhere.

On top of that parents have to contend with after school tuition fees in order not to land in ITE, although that route is becoming more conducive rather than a university education that is losing traction in the jobs market with AI doing the thinking. I am amaze at the number of young graduates doing hawking today, which is unthinkable in the past. However, it is quite apparent that tuition centers are a lucrative business, with even students from the elite schools needing to go for tuition and giving tuition centers the opportunity to boasts about having such elite students in their midst.

Another factor is that nowadays both parents need to work to make ends meet due to the high cost of living, thereby leaving the kids to the maids and that is another added cost that poor parents can ill afford. Not all maids are reliable and may impart different upbringing mindsets in kids. Complaints about maids can be heard more frequently than praises.


Anonymous

NUS is going to raise the quality of its degrees

It was only a couple of years back when NUS raised its tuition fees. Today there are calling for another raise. And since the quality of education is closely related to the quality of tuition fees, the percentage of fee hike will see an equivalent improvement in quality. As they said, cheap is never good, and you want quality you will have to pay for it. At the rate NUS is improving its standard, soon it will be among the top 10 universities in world rankings.
The only thing that I am concerned is the daft sinkie students. Would they be able to move up together with the university rankings? If the university goes to the top 10, would the quality of Sinkie graduates also go up to the top 10?
NUS is now ranked among the better half of the top 100 universities in the world. Unfortunately the employers are still looking to hiring better graduates from lower ranked universities elsewhere. Are our students getting a good deal, paying too much for too little?
I still think value for money will be to send our daft Sinkie students to India and Philippines for their university education. Cheap and good and they will all turn out to be top management material. Pay less for more. The Indian and Filipino graduates are in demand and will beat any NUS graduate hands down when employment suitability is concerned.
Sinkie parents must think about the rate of returns before paying their children’s tuition fees.

How much did we subsidise tertiary education?

In my article yesterday, the British universities are charging EU and their own citizens a flat fee of 3,290 pounds and international students at 21,400 pounds. In our case, we charge our citizens $7000 against $11,000 for international students. Two points to make from this comparison. The cost of education in British universities are much cheaper than ours as relatively their cost of living are higher. The second point is that they make international students pay 7 times what their citizens paid. This means that if the cost of education is double what their citizens are paying, guessing only, then each international students could be subsidizing 50% of the tuition fee of 5 UK/EU students. It is a case of looking after their citizens first. Let's take a look at the tuition cost and subsidies as published by the NUS website. For an Arts and Social Science course, the grant or subsidy is $19,000. This plus the $7,000 fee the students are paying will make up the full tuition cost, ie $26,000. And if we apply the same formula for the cost of education in the UK, the British are actually charging international students the full fees, with practically no subsidies. What about our international students. If the full cost is $26,000 and our international students are paying $11,000, then they should be receiving a subsidy of $15,000. According to the NUS website, the full fee for international students is $30,000 and they too get a $19,000 grant. I am not going to quibble why the full fee between citizen and non citizen has a $4,000 difference. But why do we need to offer international students a $19,000 grant? Could we charge international students a little more to subsidise our local students like what the British are doing? Of course we can't charge them the same 21,400 pounds or about $42,800 pa. We may also be world class but no foreigners will want to pay the same for a Singapore education if they could get a British one. Still we could raise it to maybe $15,000 or $20,000 if our education is really world class, and at a 50% discount to what the British universities are charging, it must still be a bargain. We could then charge our citizens much lesser, subsidised by international students instead of the govt subsidising international students to a tune of $19,000.

Erotica - A case of mindless defiance

The case of Alvin Tan and his girl friend’s demonstration of how creative they were in bed is not simply a lifestyle choice. It was, until he followed up with several defiance statements regarding his benefactor country and institutions. His tuition fees and living expenses in Singapore were all paid for by Singapore taxpayers. The scholarship includes $50,000 in tuition fees and $6,000 in living expenses yearly and could have be given to children of Sinkies.

I do not have to pay a single cent in Singapore, bond free.
‘When asked if he is worried he may get expelled from NUS for his ‘exploits’, Alvin Tan said:
I don’t really care if NUS take action against me. I am prepared to be expelled. Anyway, I have set up my own company here (in Malaysia) and is financially secure.

When it was suggested that he will need to pay back his tuition fees if he is expelled, Alvin Tan retorted:
I will not pay a single cent to NUS if I am expelled and what can they do to me?’ Quoted from TRE.

This is the kind of retort from an ingrate. He is totally unappreciative of the money and hospitality showered on him by the Singapore Govt. He is as good as telling the Singapore Govt go fuck off, I don’t need your money and I don’t care a hoot who you are. What is more sickening is that he could be sneering at the Sinkie Govt all the while for its silliness in offering him the scholarship. This is the ugly truth about the sincerity of foreign scholarship holders. Are our super talents so daft not to see this?

His attitude not only antagonises the Sinkie taxpayers, it will make them blooming mad with their Govt for wasting their money on such fools. There will not be more calls for the withdrawal of scholarships to foreigners. The money will be better spent on the children of Sinkies. The Govt must take note that the people are unhappy with them throwing money away to ungrateful and unappreciative foreigners. This is not an isolated cases. Only unqualified fools will keep repeating the same mistakes.

It is about time the govt rethinks its policies of throwing away taxpayer’s money to foreigners and depriving the children of the taxpayers from them. I can sense the anger boiling.

And the collateral damages will be those deserving foreign students that need such scholarships and are appreciative of them. On hindsight not many will be appreciative of our Govt’s generosity. I support the cancellation of all scholarships to foreigners and to throw the money to our children.

No one should waste his time trying to argue for the merits of such scholarships to foreigners.

Tuition grant, how much did we give away?

Png Eng Huat asked in Parliament and the MOE gave its reply. $210 m were given to international students as tuition grant annually. Presumably or assumingly this is the average sum, so in 10 years it will be $2.1b and 20 years it will be $4.2 b.
 
There are several questions to this figure. Is it just for tuition grants and excludes living allowance and others, or is this the total package given away? Also, how much was given to PRs? PRs are not citizens mind you. What is the amount, can any tell?
 
As for the number of students receiving the grant in polys, it was 1,700 for year 2011 which is 6% of the cohort, lesser than the 9% in year 2010. Similarly 2,200 grants were given to university students in 2011, or 13% of the cohort instead of 18% in 2010. The combined number is 3,900 for 2011 and much less than in 2010. All the data do not include PRs. And the data are only for two years, 2010 and 2011.
 
How many of our own children, the children of citizens, were deprived of a place that rightly belonged to them but went to foreigners and PRs? Seriously, what is the objective of throwing so much money to foreigners and not giving uni and poly places to our children? I can understand that it is good to do it as a charitable act to help other countries. The question is how far should this go and how much should we compromise or deprive our children in so doing?
 
I don’t thing there is another country in the world that gave away so much to foreigners and hurting the children of citizens so much in doing so. What is the return for all these money and places for foreigners?
 
This is not your grandfather’s country you know. The money does not belong to your grandfather too.

Is it Singapore's responsibility to solve India's unemployment problem and also to provide education to Indians?

Below is from an article posted in www.theindependent in Dec 2019.

'Indian nationals who were awarded scholarships advertised by the Ministry of Education (MOE) are set to arrive in Singapore in the December-January period, in time for the next school year. The two scholarships that are administered by the MOE are the A*STAR Youth Scholarship and the SIA Youth Scholarship.

Both scholarships are open to Indian nationals only.

The A*STAR Youth Scholarship is one that allows youth scholars from India to study in selected Singapore schools from Secondary 3 to Pre-University 2, until they earn the Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE ‘A’-Level) (or equivalent) certificate. The scholarship is renewed annually, subject to the satisfactory performance of the scholar.

Applications were accepted from 24 June to 28 July this year and had to undergo a selection test in Delhi in September, followed by a round of interviews in October. The scholarships were awarded last month and the scholars are expected to arrive in Singapore this month and begin Secondary 3 next year....

Earlier this year, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung revealed that MOE spends about S$238 million a year on scholarships and tuition grants for foreign students studying in Singapore. S$108 million out of the S$238 million is spent on tuition grants and the remaining S$130 million is spent on scholarships.

In response to questions by Workers’ Party (WP) politician Leon Perera, Mr Ong assured that foreign students are admitted into institutes of higher learning (IHLs) only after “all Singaporean students who meet the standards have been admitted” and that “No Singaporean is ever displaced from institutes of higher learning because of an international student.”....

The ruling party politician added that annual government spending on scholarships and tuition grants for foreign students has fallen by about 50 per cent over the past 10 years.

Responding to Mr Ong’s revelation, another WP politician Yee Jenn Jong pointed out that this means the Government used to spend about S$476 million on foreign students in the past:'

 

So much public money have been used to provide education to foreigners. $476m a year, now $238m a year and thinking this is small change. Spend OPM damn 'tua kang'. Why aren't such money be used to support our very own children? This is like coveting other people's wives. Trying to snatch other people's children and hoping that they would become useful to us. This kind of mentality/policy is nothing to be proud of. Morally not very right. Unethical, and unfair to our own people and our own children.

What do you think? Thou shalt not covet other people's children.

Charity begins at home

'Amid calls by some US lawmakers for wealthy universities to lower tuition costs, officials at Stanford University have said they will no longer charge tuition to students from families earning less than US$100K (S$140K) a year. For students whose families earn less than US$60K a year, Stanford will not charge for either tuition or room and board.... Stanford is now among a small string of top tier schools, including Harvard, Yale and Pomona College, that have taken steps in recent months to help middle class families and, in some cases, households with incomes ovr US$150K.... "We will continue to evaluate international applications on a case by case basis."....' Reuters, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Straits Times. How would these compare to our policies on education? Oops cannot compare apple with oranges.

nus/ntu -another mrt in the making

the corporatisation of the two universities, autonomy, merger and acquisition, to be the best we can be, to generate revenue as a business organisations...are these the goals for the future? are we taking the same route as the privatisation of our public transport system and our health services? i hope i am wrong. that we are not turning the two universities into private organisations for more efficiency and better results and profit generation. if these are the goals, we can expect the universities to embark on a trail of acquisition and expansion, recruiting the best among the professors, acquiring the best facilities that money can buy, to make the two universities a brand name, to attract more paying students to generate more profits. look at the busines model. where are the sources of income to support such a grand design? raising funds from the public/shareholders, selling bonds, joint projects with commercial enterprises etc etc but finally up tuition fees. an ambitious plan to be the best would demand a very big appetite and big funds to keep it going. raising funds from the public has its limits. selling bonds is a debt that must be repaid. commercial projects, selling books, publications, research works will not be enough to sustain a branded organisation that wants the best in everything. ultimately the tuition fees must go up. just like the mrt. the commuters, in this case the students, will have to pay. which student is going to pay and carry the burden? foreign students would be given scholarships. the super rich students, no problem. the bottom 10 to 20% may have grants and subsidies. it is the middle crunch. depending on the financial ability of these parents, the lower half will bear the biggest brunt of ever increasing tuition fees. the squeeze will always affect the neither here nor there families. fees will be increased but affordable. affordable to who?

How much is our world class education?

Singapore citizens pay about $7000 tuition fee per year at NUS for year 2010/11. International students pay about $11,000. We consider ourselves very lucky to receive a tertiary education in one of the top universities in the world. The tuition fee for Imperial College of London, the top 3 university in UK and ranked 5th in the world by Times is 3,290 pounds for UK and EU citizens. For international students the fee is 21,400 pounds for an Engineering course. Am I right to say that a UK or EU citizen is paying lesser for a world class education in Imperial College than our citizens in NUS? The exchange rate is S$2 to a pound. In fact practically all the universities in UK is charging the same tuition fee for UK and EU citizens.

MOE 'long standing practice' must be good, sacred, cannot anyhow change

When this issues was first surfaced by Gilbert Goh, MOE held on to its “long standing practice” reasoning. To any layman, such an action by MOE was unkind and indefensible with no sense of empathy for the poor PSLE girl whose original result slip was withheld because her parents owed a fee of $156.

Why didn’t Minister Ong Ye Kung immediately step in to save his ministry the embarrassment?
Instead, MOE issued a strong statement later, saying that “MOE’s consideration stems from the underlying principle that notwithstanding the fact that the cost of education is almost entirely publicly funded, we should still play our part in paying a small fee, and it is not right to ignore that obligation, however small it is.”

 Now that Minister Ong is going to review this issue, can we conclude that the “long standing practice” is wrong in principle in the first place?

Similarly, when Minister defended the granting of $238 million for scholarships and tuition grants to foreign students, I have argued that such decade-old practice of providing taxpayers’ money to educate foreign students is wrong in principle and should be terminated immediately. It seems clear that he didn’t agree when he ordered the issue of a POFMA Correction Directive to Lim Tean to correct his posting to reflect that MOE is spending more than the $167m for grants and bursaries to Singapore students....

Kok Ming Cheang

The above article of Kok Ming Cheang posted in TRE takes the position that things that are not right or good must be changed. And the outdated victimising of 12 year olds is now being exposed and aired very negatively and no one I know so far has anything good to say about it. But from the officialdom, the first reaction was not to do the thinking but to defend fiercely this policy like any unthinking civil servant would do. How can they accept the criticism in the first place? All govt policies are carefully thought out by the most brilliant civil servants and must be good, especially when it has been in practice for decades. So defend they did and got to look more silly and evil by the days.

Ong Ye Kung must have many earfuls and finds it unbearable and unreasonable under any circumstances to explain this away.  So decades old policies can be bad and should be reviewed and then scrapped. Sorry for the unthinking civil servants that stood up to defend the undefendable and now would have to swallow their arrogance and non thinking mindset, defend first at all cost.

Actually I have a different take. Decades long policies, long standing practices, must be good, cannot be bad and must be defended or else look silly.  The punishment of a 12 year old child was not meant to be. It was meant to punish the parents. The little glitch is that this is not explain to the little child who, if he/she has a little intellect and a bit sensitive, would have felt it quite badly.

It is so easy to remedy this. Get all the school principals to explain this in the morning assembly, tell the children, affected or not affected, that this policy is only to punish the irresponsible parents, not the innocent children of the irresponsible parents. And also produce more media material for the press, TV and social media that this is the real reason. No one should look unkindly at the affected children of irresponsible parents. See QED. And the long standing policy can stay. No fake news.

The same applies to the annual $238m tuition fees and grants for foreigners. This is also decades long standing policy and must be good. To stop this generosity would be a slap on the face of silly civil servants that approved this policy and also an admission that so many billions of public money have been wrongly spent. This case has better merits to defend like mad, and quoting that it is decades long policy would make good sense in every sense.

In conclusion, good policies that have been implemented for decades must be kept, die die must not change. If not, some people will look very silly for the unkind policy to 12 years old, and in the case of using OPM to give to foreigners would, yes, look damn stupid and irresponsible.

So, what do you think? Civil servants always make good policies and such policies should be defended at all cost if they are long standing, or, civil servants can be very silly and stupid and unkind in making stupid policies?

PS. Just think of all the good long standing policies that would have to be scrapped, eg high HDB prices, high water prices, high school and tuition fees equal good quality education, CPF money retention and shifting goal posts, more foreigners as new citizens, CECA already more than 10 years, must be damn bloody good, millionaire ministers, millionaire civil servants and CEOs of GLCs .....

What is the problem with SMRT?

I think I know the problem why so many train breakdown problems. The service quality is going down. And if the commuters want better quality train services they must be prepared to pay more. Did not the commuters know that for so many years the fare has been going up and the quality improving all the time, better and betterer. Everytime there is a fare hike, the quality improved or at least the commuters believed so. Paying for quality is the way to go.

Now suddenly got fare decrease, 1.9% some more. Lower fare price means lower quality lah. Tiok boh? Pay less how to expect better quality? When good quality means must pay more, now can pay less, please accept quality must come down lah, at least a bit.

Just look at the universities, every year hike and hike tuition fees. Now the fees so high, and the quality of university education also go up. Now our universities are among the best in the world. Thanks to the high tuition fees. Another few fee hikes they will be better than Harvard and Cambridge and be the best of the best.

SMRT must learn to hike fares to improve the service quality. Want good quality must pay good price lah. How can cheap be good?

So, you want train service quality to improve or not? So simple!

The day when Singapore implodes

 Who would ever think that Singapore would implode when it is now touted as one of the most successful and richest country in the world? Everywhere you turn is success in Singapore. The pay of all the elites is in the millions, multi millions just like model USA. Singapore is like a miniature copy of America in everything, following America, imitating America in practically all its policies for economic development.

When the Americans switched from a manufacturing nation to focus on the service and finance industries, Singapore followed suit. When the Americans started to sell junk bonds, introduced computer assisted trading in the stock market, derivative trading, Singapore did the same. When the Americans started to pay their CEOs in the millions, Singapore could not resist and did the same, now even chicken rice businesses also pay their CEOs in the millions. Everything the Americans did must be good and just follow blindly. When the Americans started to bring in foreign talents in droves, Singapore did the same and forgetting that the USA is a continent size country with more than 330m in population while Singapore is but a little piece of rock with barely 5m population. This did not stop Singapore from wanting to import more foreigners to make it 6.9m or 10m or 15m, as if it is of continental size like the USA, unlimited land.

America is now imploding. The facade of growth is hidden by its ability to print free money that Singapore could not. The unrestrained rise of cost of living, high property prices, high medical cost, high insurance, high legal fees, high education fees leading to students ended up in debt just in paying tuition fees, high taxi fares etc etc are now the norms in Singapore. Trump is now kicking out as many immigrants as he could for robbing the jobs of the Americans. Singapore is still sleeping and did not see that this is the same problem that would be politically very costly to Singapore. Instead of following Trump to kick out excessive foreigners, Singapore is asking for more.

Singapore is not the USA and is foolish to follow everything the Americans are doing without thinking and not looking into the mirror. The problems and crisis the Americans are facing would be repeated in Singapore. Singapore does not distill or filter out American policies that may not be beneficial to the island, and some are obviously harmful and damaging. 

China learnt from Singapore. China also learnt from the Americans and the rest of the world but very discriminating in picking only those that are useful and applicable and discarded those that are harmful. China is very conscious of keeping the cost of living low for its people, keeping the salaries of political leaders and CEOs of private companies within reasonable limits, keep transportation cost low, medical fee, tuition fee, housing low to be competitive in the world market. There is a lot of wisdom in how China embraces, follows, learns and adopt American and Singapore's ways of doing things. China is moving very fast in its competition with the Americans but would not suffer the same kind of problems the Americans are facing. The experience of Americans in their exchange with the Chinese in the RedNote app is very telling.

China is keeping the pay of CEOs and political leaders very lean vis a vis the Americans. This in a way allows the Chinese to price their products and services very competitively in the world, and keeping the cost of living low and bearable to its people.

America is imploding though they keep telling the world that all is fine, their economy is rock solid. If that is so, there would be no need to make America great again. If that is so, there would be no need to lie to the American people about how good their life is and China is collapsing, the Chinese people are suffering and having a hard life, under an oppressive regime.

When would Singapore implode under the weight of high cost of living and high cost of everything, and the load of providing good jobs and everything to foreigners and new citizens, like the USA?