5/26/2007
UNSW students fight on
The students are fighting back. That is the spirit needed when the big boys washed their hands and packed up to go. The UNSW students met to demand that UNSW honours its commitment to them and keep the campus running, at least till they complete their courses. There is a contract, a social and business obligation once they admitted the students to a degree course. And they cannot walk away and offer whatever half bake measures and expecting the students to accept them. The legal route is an option.
Where is the professionalism, the integrity, the honour and responsibility to see through a commitment? An university is always highly regarded by the people as an icon of all the virtues of human endeavours. How could UNSW possibly get away with the fiasco by a shock pullout like this and think that its reputation will not be affected?
I do not know how much is our side's involvement and responsibility to the mess. But we cannot get away without some shit sticking to us. We will also smell as bad as UNSW. We may say and think that we are going ahead full steam to achieve our goal as an education hub. But will future students and their parents buy it after what had happened? To think that we have nothing to do with it and that our gleaming reputation is untarnished is like putting blinkers on.
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19 comments:
From the comments from our ministers after the event, it looks like this is just a small temporary setback. Nothing to worry, time will heal old wounds and people will forget, just like Singaporeans getting screwed after every election and when the next election comes, they will forget. It works everytime.
Ya fight and scream with your mouth till the cows come home; kids these days are full of nonsense you know
YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN.
Anyone foolish enough to believe that the nexus between 2 (or more) state agencies (funded by the extorted dollars of their respective taxpayers) crossing borders to "make something happen" in the field of education, deserves the lesson they've just been taught.
No Central Planner (i.e. government or state) can efficiently provide "education services", only private enterprise can do this job par excellence.
My hope is that anyone who has "lost" in this deal learns the lesson that "the free market is best". For example, if this happened in truly private enterprise, they could SUE.
Try suing the EDB or the UNSW — bloody good luck to you!
Summary— To deliver any type of "good":
Private sector — very good. Rocks steady.
Government sector — very fucking bad. Sucks Ass.
Redbean, have you taken a look at the Times good university guide ? UNSW is ranked lower than even aNUS. So, what reputation are you talking about ?
Yeah right, having spent $20K on their first-year fees, they're now itching to part with another couple of tens of thousands in legal fees so that they can recover the original $20K ? Those students will end up looking as even bigger idiots than the UNSW if they do go go down the legal route.
unsw may be ranked lower than NUS, but they are still a recognised good university in Oz. they are expected to run their operation with some dignity and decency. not like some fly by night organisation. just pack up and go.
and to be fair, they did offer the foundation students full refund of their 20k fee. but to the students, their hopes and aspirations and the opportunity cost and effort spent were flush down the drain overnight. it is quite a shattering event in their lives.
young people trying to chart their future and willing to slog it out in a university, having another go at it after fairing not too well in their A level.
not pleasant to be in their shoes.
As a bleeding Oz taxpayer and an ex-Oz STATE university lecturer, I can tell you the STATE-run universities in Australia suck more and more ass every year.
There are good tertiary institutions in Oz, but they are private.
Yes, I left the profession because I couldn't stand the government managers of the state-run universities. They are ALL stupid, and invariably will spend taxpayers money on shit, such that the students don' come out of their courses "enlightened" —— many of them are still unemployable after spending 3 or 4 years in uni.
Redbean, it is obvious you know nuts about universities in Australia. Even Sydneysiders don't hold UNSW in very high regard. They may be a G8 university but they are not in the same league as UniMelb or ANU. Next time, if you don't know anything about a topic, better to keep quiet than spew out crap through your rear orifice.
hi anonymous,
orifices we all have plenty. but important thing is to use them appropriately.
anu and melborne may be at the top of the league, ok you may be educated in oz so you know more than me, but how good unsw is is relative. just because some sydneysiders don't regard it highly does not mean that others don't regard it highly.
in the same vein, many who could not get into local unis here and went overseas do not regard local unis highly just because they returned with inflated grades from their average overseas unis.
it is all a matter of perception. which is good and how good are all relative and subjective. unsw is definitely not bad or below average. i think your uni days would have taught you that subjective matters cannot be as precise as objective matters and judgement on such matters varies invariably according to individuals. no absolutes. once you try to use absolutes to state your stand on such issues, you are trying to impress your personal view as the right view.
at least local uni taught me to be open to diverse views and accept that people look at things from their own prejudice experiences.
Didn't local uni also teach you that if you don't know much about a subject, you don't go around making conjectures ? Times Guide to University is as objective a ranking as you'll get. They didn't rate UNSW very highly ? So, what makes you a better judge of their 'pedigree' than Times ?
any university that is recognised by the singapore govt is a good university. any university that is not recognised is a not so good university.
you got problem with that?
and what is this sydneysiders? a group of half baked people on the street or an organisation that takes a position? or is it some kopitiam chit chat that is authoritative to you?
even the Times report may ranked unsw but it would not say it is not good or good.
i need not have to do a study of unsw to comment whether it is good or bad. my position is based on its being accepted by our govt bodies. and i would believe that our govt bodies would make a judgement based on some rationales than the general remarks by undefineable sydneysiders.
Using your stupid logic, now that the gahmen say that opening casinos is good for the economy because it brings more toursit $, therefore gambling is now good and no longer a vice ? Really Redbean, you are losing it. On one hand you complain, the gahmen is making too many decisions for you, and now you blindly follow what the gahmen says ?
Oh, BTW, this whole debacle already shows what a half-baked organisation UNSW is. I don't give a damn the gahmen recognises their degrees. Which reputable organisation makes decisions involving hundreds of millions of dollars within 30 secs ? If you can answer that question, then I will admit that yes, UNSW is a reputable university. :)
unfortunately i have always been for casinos. in this case, before we take a position whether the govt is stupid on not, we must be clear what lenses we are wearing. if one is taking a religious view, then the govt is morally or religiously wrong.
if one is looking at the problems that it can cause to the habitual gamblers, then one can say that casino is bad.
but if one is looking from an economic point of view, it creates a lot of jobs, generates a lot of direct and indirect economic activities and many people will have a job and food on the table. that is good.
one can look at the casinos and anything from many perspectives. from a pragmatic and economic angle, you weigh the pros and cons and decide which is better, minus personal values.
arrhhh, is there a clear cut good or bad?
i may agree with you that the debacle of closing unsw can only showed that the thinking and planning for the uni here were quite halfbaked. that will reflect badly on unsw. yes i do not think highly of unsw from this episode.
then again, is it a good or bad uni? base on what?
but no matter how halfbaked we may think of unsw, we must not reflect that we are also halfbaked by taking an unyielding position and insist that that is what it is and the world must agree with us.
Casinos creating lots of jobs is purely speculative at this stage. Who's to say the two casinos won't end up like UNSW ? The UNSW affair shows the fallacy of making business decisions based on inflated sales projections. IN any case, gambling is universally acknowledged as a vice, no matter what your political or religious leanings are.
the constructions is on. contracts out and work has started. those are jobs already created. the architects, engineers, site managers, heavy machine operators and lenders, contractors, subcontractors, workers etc
the service staff will come in next. the f and b, the casino staff, the hotel staff, these are all real stuff.
oh, forgot about all the furnishing, the table and chairs, beds, electrical systems, sound systems, lightings, decor, etc and plenty more of supporting biz and workers.
these things cannot bluff one lah.
and i am going to set up a store to rent foreign passports for entry to the casinos, that's jobs for me and my runners too.
gsmbling is definitely a vice. and with the irs, there will be more associated vices, call girls, high class one, orgies, strip tease shows, illegal money lendings, etc etc.
can we live with them? we have live with them since civilisation begins. can it be erased? never.
we need to manage the vices and life goes on. it is like the devil will not go away. god and devil are complimentary. they need each other to exist. the ying and yang.
Redbean,
PUBLIC Aust universities are getting worse lah. It's gotten so bad no that John Howard has trampled over states rights to "reform" the tertiary education system.
There is a growing trend in Australia (amongst those who can afford it) to send their kids to the US or the UK for further studies.
However, there are still, in Australia, FANTASTIC private institutions like Notre Dame and Bond, to name a couple. But for the most part, the public system, like all public systems, are screwed.
And when the EDB — also garment dickheads — get together with a foreign state institution, bad things will happen.
As I said before: be THANKFUL for SMALL MERCIES. It failed in the early stages. Imagine if it had failed 2, 5 or 20 years down the track. How much money do you think would have been wiped out?
Anything to do with government — the sooner it fails, the better for all. It also adds more weight to the argument that government doesn't work
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Reference: Why Government Doesn't Work see "Education"
i have heard of anu, rmit but sorry, not bond or notre dame. but in general, the aus univ are never in the class of the top americans and the few top uk univ.
at best, just my personal opinion, the best aus univ are nus standard. but to many singaporeans, any overseas univ must be good, local bad.
looks like the aussie is suffering from the same syndrome too.
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