7/17/2013

Scrap university education

What is education for? Is education for the sake of education? Or is education about equipping the student to participate fully in life, in the economy, simply about getting a job to earn some money to provide for himself and his family should he decide to have one? For the elite and the gentry class, the royalties and aristocracies, education is just for education, to learn to read and write. The need to get a job or the need for an education to equip the student to be gainfully employed is not necessary in the lives of such privilege classes of people. Contrast this to those who need to work for a living, an education is seen primarily as a means to a job. Of course one does not need an education to get a job. A fisherman, a butcher, a boxer or a golfer or a tennis player, they don’t need an education to earn a living.
 

Putting aside those that don’t need to work, and those jobs that don’t need an education, education is the acquisition of a piece of certificate, diploma or degree or the acquiring of a passpost to a job. Several of our wise leaders have spoken many times to encourage the young to get a good education and advocating how important education is to a good job and a good life. Education is the leveller for all to compete on equal grounds to material success. And the Govt spent hundreds of millions annually to provide an excellent and world class education system for the population. And the universities and colleges all strived to be the best, to produce the best students for society and the economy.
 

Then out of the blue we heard two ministers in a matter of days said these. Khaw Boon Wan: “You own a degree, but so what? You can’t eat it. If that cannot give you a good life, a good job, it is meaningless”. He later went on to encourage people to become crane drivers when there is a great demand for it and the pay is good. Then Heng Swee Keat followed up a few days later by saying that ‘beyond providing students with a good education, he wasn’t sure or neither would he be responsible if these students could not find good jobs after graduating.’
 

Could you believe it, that two ministers in the same breath told the people that our world class education could not guarantee them a good job and maybe they should consider becoming crane drivers or take on other jobs that don’t require a good formal education? What the hell the Govt set up all the good schools, colleges and universities for? The students in these institutions are mostly from the working class that need to work for a living. They are not children of royalties or aristocrats or the super rich when working is an unnecessary chore, and if they choose to work, it is to kill their boredom. Why encourage the parents to send their children through the system, invested time and resources when it can be all for nothing?
 

Does anyone think that this is strange? Would the NTUC, the super advocates of training and the organisation that has been sending hundreds of thousands of workers for training, tell the workers that the training would not guarantee them a job? Then why waste their time and money?
 

The sick part of this conversation is that the country can provide a few hundred thousand jobs to foreigners who came from less prestigious or even doubtful institutions of learning with great jobs and good paying jobs. And we are telling our children that despite the fact that they have gone through one of the best education system, they may not get a good job here.
 

I think this must be the joke of the century. Now who started this joke and set the whole world laughing? Education, and expensive education, stressful education, is not ‘main main’ ya. Who in his right mind would tell the parents that this gonna be the case, that their children with good grades from this expensive and world class education system may not find a good job while the questionable students with questionable grades from questionable education institutions could be in a better position to get good jobs? Is there someone suffering from bipolar sickness but is not detected? Did someone say bird talk?
 

And there is the acting Minister of Manpower, Tan Chuan Jin, scurrying around like a bull arse fly shouting discrimination by employers, both locals and foreigners, against Singaporeans in employment. Now, what is that all about? Maybe have to wait for people to clean the hawker centre first before they have time to explain what is going on.

17 comments:

  1. Goo article. I think we get many things in Singapore in the reverse. For example for workfare MOM ask people to study/take up courses and they give a subsidy. This is stupid especially for the older graduates who are already highly educated but cannot get a job.

    What needs to be done is to get the old folks jobs first and then send then for training. At least the person know what he is training for.

    It is very discouraging and time consuming to send the older workers for training and then after they complete the course, they are still unable to get a decent job. It is a waste of people's time and money. The only people who benefit are the course provider, our government (GDP), bus and train operator all at the expense of the worker.

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  2. /// The only people who benefit are the course provider, our government (GDP), bus and train operator all at the expense of the worker. ///

    What is the political party affiliation of the course provider (if any)?
    Enquiring minds want to know.

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  3. "Could you believe it, that two ministers in the same breath told the people that our world class education could not guarantee them a good job and maybe they should consider becoming crane drivers or take on other jobs that don’t require a good formal education? "

    But it still better than saying "You pay me a million dollars and I can't do shit to improve your lives".

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  4. No, cannot scrap university education. Because some, like those million dollar ministers and top civil servants benefited a lot from a university education, tio bo?

    And those who got degree but cannot get a job with good pay (say at least $3K per month starting fresh) should just tear up their degree cert and vote opposition come 2016.

    Money may be no enough but got enough votes to vote PAP out or not?

    What do you think?

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  5. “You own a degree, but so what? You can’t eat it. If that cannot give you a good life, a good job, it is meaningless”.

    Huh? Tot our education system world class? Got degree cannot find job in Singapore understandable lah. Small economy and swamped by cheaper foreigner terror. But tot the leederskn past say go overseas network bring benefits back to Sinkapore? World class degree cannot find jobs overseas too?

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  6. I think those who find their university degrees useless in getting a good job are a minority of graduates. Because you cannot expect 100% of graduates to be able to find good jobs what, tio bo?

    Just like you cannot expect 100% of voters to vote PAP what. Just 60% is very good already.

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  7. Singapore is gooooooooooooooooood!

    Just look at the latest property launch at sengkang....... oversubscribed......

    Just look at COE/car prices...must be CHEAP.... because people still buy them .......

    Many Many Many examples.......

    HA HA HA !!!

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  8. A Chinese SingaporeanJuly 17, 2013 12:57 pm

    We have this education minister who cannot speak his Chinese language properly. It is obvious that he is the wrong person for such an important role in our society. I felt really shameful to hear him speak in public in Chinese as our top man in charge of our edn. We are paying all of them super top of the world salary and they gave us sub-par performance in their work. Is this fair? Our PM should explain the why and how?

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  9. A Chinese SingaporeanJuly 17, 2013 1:26 pm

    I would suggest that leaders of our nation better look at our current 3.2m + 2m population mix and think hard to improve their skills and real income before importing more people. If our current leaders do not have solutions to improve and raise our real income level besides their own; then they are just adding more people to get a bigger GDP number but in the process the real income level of the 5.2 m is actually falling and not rising. Leaders of a nation should look at raising the standard of living of the people and not just the nominal GDP numbers that are achieved by simply importing more people. The standard of living of Singapore is actually falling now and it is getting to be worse and not better if we continue this way further.

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  10. "The standard of living of Singapore is actually falling now...."
    Chinese Singaporean July 17, 2013 1:26 pm

    But the standard of our opposition is also not rising what.

    If strongest opposition is not even ready to be govt, where got standard, tio bo?

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  11. LKY - race to the top, from third world to first
    LHL - race to the bottom, from first world to third, this guy should be sacked.

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  12. Gong jiao way. Still think got 60% support u? Xiao ah? Tio bo?

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  13. >>1:44pm

    and you think standard of pap is sooooo good?

    and you think the readiness of pap is sooooo high?

    if your answers to the above are yesses, you are suffering from severe brainwashing.

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  14. 'We have this education minister who cannot speak his Chinese language properly'

    - we also have this health minister who does not understand any medical terms. Ready to be gov? Just send some monkeys to fool the people.

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  15. What this cow really means is uneducated people are more easily controlled, more easily buy into the bullshits sold by them, more easily conditioned to vote them.

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  16. The PAP government is doing a populist policy(to gain votes) to increase university graduates but knowingly the market does not need so many vacancies for university holders.

    So the two ministers speak out to buy politic points and protect themselves from future backslash.
    They notice the trend that most of job created around the world belong to top end and bottom end while mid range lose the most.

    Just like the foreigners
    policy, the number already exceed what infrastructure
    can take. But they still continue the policy.

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  17. ProSustainableSgJuly 17, 2013 9:23 pm

    Constructive Suggestions For Sustainable Sg Part 1/5

    RB and all readers here:

    Frankly, at this very moment, the job market scene in Sg generally seems to be the opposite of what is described here. Talk to 100 HR managers and executives and likely at least 90 would lament how difficult it is to find replacements for vacant or new positions. No?

    The crux of the problem in Sg right now, in my humble understanding, analysis, synthesis and evaluation, may not be exactly the two scenarios put forth by two of our heavy weight ministers. We are in a full employment or near full employment situation right now. There is another long term fundamental problem facing us and we should use the current position we are having now to tackle it with our full might. Use whatever bazooka or shock and awe formation within our resources to reverse the situation.

    The current price mechanism constructs in present day capitalist societies were the findings of classical economists such as Adam Smith in the 18th century. The rapid transformations in our economy in the last two decades especially since 2005 had accentuated the severe and acute shortcomings of the free market price mechanism externalities.

    As many would have known, no system or ism in this world at this point in time is perfect or even near there. Since the early 20th century, the failings and limitations of the free market price mechanism system had been counter balanced by government interventions. Whether in the US or even UK, the birth place of modern capitalism, large scale government interventions took place to correct extreme free market failures. A most recent classic example is that of the flag bearer of the capitalist world which is none other than Uncle Sam. During the 2008/ 2009 financial crisis, Uncle Sam undertook extreme socialist interventionist measures to rectify failings and externalities caused by the free market price mechanism system, measures that looked even more socialist than policies and practices in communist China.

    The developments in the last two decades especially the last few years had created and resulted in several serious externalities in our society, one of the most serious and urgent ones being the low birth rates among the Singaporean citizens.

    By (PSS) Pro Sustainable Singapore

    PS To be continued Part 2/5

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