In a letter to the ST today, Han Liang Yuan, Director, Corporate Communications of MOE gave another figure to state that 67% of foreign scholars scored high honours or better than the 45% mentioned by Sim Ann. The latest number is based on the 2011 graduating cohorts. It also said that Sim Ann will be making a clarification in the next parliament sitting.
What we would like to know is how Singaporean scholars performed in the same cohort of 2011 compared to the foreign scholars. The comparison must be apple to apple. Also, the statistics given should cover at least 10 years or more to give a better reflection of the situation. Statistics of just one year will only tell the picture of just one year.
But the real issue is not how well the foreign scholars are performing. The claim that foreign scholars are doing better and thus deserving of the scholarship is the same trend of thinking as as that of Baey Yam Keng, that our taxpayers money should be given to anyone anywhere, based on merits, or as long as they can do better than our children.
I am sure the statistics will show that there is very little difference in the performance of our local talents and the foreign talents as far as scoring high honours is concerned. There could be a few exceptions. Generally, our local scholars will also be able to get as many high honours as foreign scholars, proving that the foreigners are not that better. But this argument is superfluous.
I may only be guessing. But given the thousands of straight A students in every cohort of local students, plenty of them will be able to get high honours, and plenty of them are deserving of scholarships based on merit from our taxpayer’s money.
We can do some charity and share some goodwill by giving scholarships to deserving students from other countries. But we must not forget that our taxpayer’s money must primarily used to benefit our own children, or the bulk of it should go to our children. Another data that Sim Ann may want to provide is the number and sum of money given in scholarships to our local students and to foreign students in our local universities.
The govt is accountable to the people on how it spends our taxpayer’s money. Anyone who wants to give his money to support foreign students in their studies is most welcomed to do so. Please use your own money to do it. Do not use the taxpayer’s money as if they belong to your grandfather and do as you please.
11 comments:
Just this once, I agree with MoE -- one agency which I've criticised heavily over the years.
It's great that they've revealed the numbers too.
Ayaaa, if we want to practise the ultimate meritocracy in awarding scholarships to the brightest students in the world, then there are more qualifiers available wordwide than we can set a quota for them. In that case no Singaporean students, except with one or two exceptions, can hope to qualify for our own scholarships. Meritocracy should be practised to benefit our people first and foremost; it is plain stupid to do so to benefit foreigners to our own detriment.
Some people, when they see that their own children are not up to the mark, they will choose the easy way which is to abandon them and shop for kids from other places to replace their abandoned kids.
Even animals wont do that
The social contract is broken
DOES THIS MEANS THAT THERE MAYBE SOMETHING NOT RIGHT WITH OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM ?
it is emmbrassing Parliment is convened only few time a year and yet figures cannot be given correctly.WHY WE PAY THEM SO MUCH to gives us little info
surely the question to be asked in the light of all this is: How is it our so-called top-class education system cannot produce students who can trump kids from other parts of the world, including developing countries? what is wrong with the edu system here?
after all, those foreign kids come from schools which do not have the high standards, edu methods and facilities that spore schools do.
then, many of these high performing foreign kids' english is supposed to be far worse than that of kids here. so they are supposed to be at a disadvantage. but it would seem they are not.
on top of that, do all these wonderful foreign kids have graduates for parents? there is a very good chance they don't. so it would seem that the claim that graduate parents produce academically superior kids does not hold.
one also has to question why MOE and baey yam keng feel it is quite ok to abandon sporeans in favour of foreigners when it comes to scholarships. all tt stuff about meritocracy is absurd. because at the end, one is only putting down one's own in favour of outsiders. where then is the so-called inclusiveness? in what way do sporeans matter in this sitn?
at the same time, we have on the one hand, pple saying one thing, and on the other hand, these same pple are doing something quite contradictory. what word does one use to describe such a sitn?
if the govt finds sporeans so ordinary, then why encourage them to have kids? shouldn't one stop them from producing more mediocre offspring instead of trying to get them to produce?
how did this sitn arise in the first place? what was done wrong in the last 46 yrs that we have reached this sitn?
and, in the spore way, who do we blame for this???
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - GE 2016
-----------------------------
Dear netizens
Your mission if you choose to accept;
Is for each of you to convert one PAP voter;
Into an Opposition voter before GE 2016.
Hit them where it hurts.
At the ballot box in GE 2016.
Don’t get yourselves into legal trouble.
Almost no Singapore lawyer will take up your defence.
And not easy for foreign lawyers to get permission to come here and defend you.
If you agree;
Please post this message in other blogs.
And e-mail it to all your friends.
No first class not better than Singaporeans. What is so meritocratic about getting second uppers when so many Singaporeans can do it if given the scholarship?
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