Key skill for graduates – adaptability

My gosh, what, adaptability is going to be a key skill to be taught to the undergrads? After teaching them how to get all the As not enough and must teach them how to be adaptable? When one is growing up, is there a need to teach anyone how to eat, how to sleep, how to make babies? Isn’t adaptability the oldest life skill that allowed man to survive the millennium and the trials and tribulations of life? Adaptability is instinctive.
 
Now to think of it, it is necessary. Our brilliant jokers just cannot think other than aceing their exams. You even have to teach them how to find a boy friend or a girl friend or they would not know how and would not make babies. This is expected when you have a production line producing machine, aka robots. Unthinking but very efficiently programmed to do what they are made to do. Anything else, they are blur like sotong. They may not know how to eat and drink too.
 
Why is adaptability so important today and must be taught at university level? Oh while teaching this skill, make sure it is graded so that they can get an A for it or they would not bother to mug for it.
 
I can only think of one reason for teaching adaptability. In the past our graduates were only competing with the same people coming out from the same degree mill, all honest, straight thinking, no bullshitting, no cheating, no copying or buying their degrees. A CV submitted is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
 
In today’s context, life is much more complicated with the influx of foreigners with their queer degrees and CVs. Our graduates are to compete with these clever specimens from all corners of the world and apparently these newcomers have a string of scintillating degrees and CVs to match, much better than the straight As of our best graduates. Of course the strings of degrees of our graduates are nothing when the foreigners can buy as many as they want, of their own choosing, to be better than our locals. You just can’t beat them on papers.
 
Now what is this adaptability thing? Come on, don’t be stupid. If you want to teach our graduates life skills, survival skills, you much tell them the truth. It is not adaptability skill that is needed. It is called cheating, dishonesty, bluffology or whatever better words, but not adaptability. When everyone is cheating their way through and our naïve and innocent graduates still thinking going straight would get them the job they want despite not even being called up for interviews, you are telling them they need to be adaptable?
 
Please, the Singapore of honesty, integrity, accountability is long gone. The Singapore of today is all about cheating and fakes. To survive, you need to cheat your way through. Cheating is the new virtue, and stop calling it adaptability. You are cheating our graduates by telling them to be adaptable when others are cheating their way through. When cheating is fair game, our graduates, steep in honesty or simplicity and ignorant of the new realities, cannot compete fairly if they did not know others are cheating and do not know how to cheat. It is very unfair to them to think that being adaptable is the solution.
 
Get real.