Singapore
Retains Brand of Questionable Authenticity
Need
to Restore Authenticity and Integrity in Our Universities
Once
again, 2 of Singapore’s top 4 Universities are ranked among the global top 10
for 15 subjects, according to the 2016 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World
University Rankings by Subjects. The
National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University
(NTU) are at top 10 in the QS 2016 World University Rankings just-released by
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). And since only UK and US Universities were ranked
better, it means that Singapore NUS and NTU are the best Universities in
Asia.
The
other 2 Universities, the Singapore Management University (SMU) and SIM
University, did not participate in “The Big Lie” propagated by such annual beauty contests of
Universities.
And
yes, this is the same QS Ranker whose annual QS World University
Ranking was condemned by eminent Chicago University Professor Brian
Leiter, Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence and Director
of Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values, as
“a fraud on the
public”. Another scholar, Professor Simon
Marginson, an eminent scholar in international higher education,
had also criticized “QS simply doesn’t do as good a job as the other rankers
that are using multiple indicators”.
It is
common knowledge that QS methodology contains serious fundamental conceptual and
methodological flaws to render QS Rankings practically useless, irrelevant
and immaterial for any serious educational policy purpose. Under
scrutiny, the QS Ranking Methodology should have failed to withstand the
penetrative professional scrutiny of truly Top Academics and Research
Institutions like NTU and NUS, who instead now endorse the spurious Rankings
results so as to position themselves dishonestly in full knowledge of the lack
of validity and reliability of their proxy measures and methodology.
In
return for dancing and cavorting with bogus University Rankers like QS and THE,
we received for our legacy excellent Universities a Brand of Questionable
Authenticity. This is a disservice to Singapore and Singaporeans.
By
embracing misleading University Rankers like QS and THE, NTU and NUS
administrators, senior manager and Professors have been disingenuous and
unprincipled in conferring legitimacy on the meaningless results of what
essentially are bogus ranking standards of dubious University
excellence.
The
successful Annual seduction of NTU and NUS by “beauty contest” University
rankings can only be attributed to either sheer mindless stupidity, or the
abject ignorance of rigorous, sophisticated and transparent scientific research
methods.
In
fact, one of QS’ competitors, the
Times Higher Education (THE)
World University Ranker, had in fact pointed out that QS
employed a “very, very weak and simplistic methodology” to assess universities
worldwide.
According to THE, the QS’ “weak” methodology has actually ranked undeserving Malaysian Universities to be of
world-class status when they were “way off” from being so, and thereby
gave Malaysian education authority an “over-optimistic, distorted” idea of how
local varsities actually fare.
All the World University Rankers use different factors and criteria to “measure” University excellence. None has any scientific basis for their choice of proxies for University quality. None have in fact published their methodology nor subject it to the vigorous due diligence expected of a simple research paradigm.
No
wonder the United Nations education body,
UNESCO, concluded that “these rankings
are of dubious value, are underpinned by questionable social science,
arbitrarily privilege particular indicators, and use shallow proxies as
correlates of quality”.
Actually,
QS themselves have "been surprised by the extent to which governments and
university leaders use the rankings to set strategic targets. We at QS think this is wrong. …" And
added: "Ranks should not be a primary driver of university mission statements
and visions. …. "
NTU
became a full-fledged University in 1991. It is noteworthy that by April 2001, NTU's research had resulted in 20
spin-off companies with many funded by venture firms, with 150 disclosures, 76
patents filed and 30 patents granted. The research papers of its
staff and students in refereed international journals also won numerous awards
in international competitions and conferences.
In
the recent 8 years, NTU has re-directed its energy and resource to satisfy the bogus criteria/standard of dubious University
excellence purveyed by Rankers such as QS and THE. And as it improved on its meaningless Rankings on the
QS and THE, its earlier highly visible impact of entrepreneurship, patents and
innovations disappeared strangely from its list of true achievements. These
never returned.
The impact of NTU and
NUS on Singapore students and society cannot be measured by the degrees of newly
ascribed dubious proxies of excellence defined by bogus “World University
Ranking” Standards. It can only be measured in terms of their contribution to
the happiness and well-being of stakeholders and of the Singapore and global
communities to which we belong and serve.
It is more important
what we think of our own Universities and what they have achieved for our young
people, our communities and our nation. What foreigners think of us using
irrelevant and bogus criteria should not make us unhappy.
A University’s
contribution to society is its sufficient measure. The important thing is to let
other people think whatever they want, and not to lose one’s self-esteem by
letting others diminish the accolades of our genuine acclaims and true
achievements, so that we can lend them our excellent reputation of authenticity
and honesty to cover up their lack of credibility, validity and reliability.
We should stop
participating in any and all the fraudulent World Universities Rankings, so as
to stop endorsing such bogus standards of dubious quality
excellence.
Related:
I cannot understand for the life of me, why Redbean is always pouring cold water on our fantastic achievement in our top notch universities. Are you so anti.Singapore? WHY?
ReplyDeleteThe MIKOspace post, not Redbean, is actually very positive on Spe Universities.
ReplyDeleteThe only cold water is poured on the "bogus" ranking standards.
Agreed with post WHY should our great universities be ranked by "fraudulant" rankers???
WHY should we give the fraudsters credibility they do not deserve.
The embedded URLs are interesting; should visit.
My honest opinion is today engineering fresh grad is like fuck. Maybe just top 5% is good but I seen top 5% like fuck also.
ReplyDeleteThe cut off point of engineering faculty like fuck, worse than Arts fac. I used to remember we engineering undergraduate time often despise the arts fac for going party and going to fuck. The girl all dress like whore, enticing people to fuck them. Meanwhile we stay in labs days and night churning out reports, pumping red bull during exam times.
Turns out, these whore and lazy pig ends up working in PAP INC as civil servant earning much more than us.
No one gonna study engineering today.
During the earlier days of my postings, I often fuck PAP FT policies destroying the entire engineering system. I wrote that the FT system basically obliterate corporate responsibility for hiring fresh, and provide trainings, as companies can hire experience.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for so many good young man deprive of jobs.
But now the cancer is so deep that basically good fresh grad are non existence. I would not want to waste my time on training moron and lazy pig. Also many of my colleagues in manager position told me that graduates nowaday cannot take those kind of technical rigor, and they will soon resign.
And our days of taking good FT are numbered. My older PRC colleagues are from prestigious PRC uni. Today, only fuck up PRC is coming.
Under fucking LHL, the entire engineering industries collapse.
ReplyDeleteI am not fooled!
Why read? Why read? Why ReaD?
Hahaha.......
Singapore universities rank high on international charts. Why are Singaporeans complaining? Prestige is very important to all Singaporeans. Singaporeans only care about face. They like to look good and loud. As long as they look good nothing else matters. Now we have an international survey organisation putting Singapore on top of the list and some ungrateful Singaporeans like Redbean complain and rubbish the survey. Why worry Singaporeans, as long as you look good and bright, who cares whether the survey is authentic or trustworthy. Be proud and vain Singaporeans.
ReplyDeleteRanking of university among 10000 in this world, is not important. As long as NUS and NTU are within 50, it matches Singapore s world standard among cities like Tokyo, KL, and Beijing HK. An university is a mass and not a micro organic. My measurement: how the products/graduates perform in their positions. Their quality thinking will reflect how good is an university over a long run.
ReplyDeleteExample: one woman from India published her master degree on her linkin. This woman working at IDA was questioned in parliament. The minister said, she was hired on mumbai university degree and not the fake master degree. Mumbai university is consistently ranked 2500-3000th among the top 10000 universities. The minister said this is a reputable university. Many will complain that nus or ntu cannot even smell the job in IDA, and this woman from mumbai university was able to sit there and supported by the minister.
So there is another measurement. Scholars when in minister position tend rate foreign universities as better than local universities. Even ranked at 3000th, it is reputable to the minister.
All minsters are foreign universities trained on scholarship. The results speak for itself.
The mrt accident, the ceo did not admit it was a safety lapse at press conference. Do you find his training, if a technical degree he got from foreign university, was a waste of time? My observation said so. Why? The moving train is a source of risk. Any engineer will be aware that the source of risk must be removed before technician is allowed to work on site.
The ceo said in press conference, it was a “standard procedure”. So mati is technician s problem? Train must move while technician repairs? This is a trained engineer s thought?
Together with the minster who said university ranked 3000th is reputable, and the mrt accident, i will recommend people to rank foreign trained graduates lower than local trained graduates. Its true. Local graduates are very pragmatic. They will not make this kind of mistakes mentioned above. Foreign trained graduates simply are not concerned about quality in work. They are concerned about ranking. One old man was like this: always introduced a candidate so and so was from Harvard. When i heard him saying this, i started to question his other logic. Poor souls of 70% still are sleeping and fooled by the ranking for the sake of ranking. Its time to look at performance quality at work.
Our universities are already very good before the rankers decided in 2005 to cash-in on the anxieties of low-esteem univ administrators and professors.
ReplyDeleteLike selling cosmetics, these rankers came and make us spend lots of money for them to make us 'beautiful' BUT without any real achievements other than a fake plastic tiara on our letterheads.
Are we truly so stupid? Then, we deserve to be fooled and cheated.
Rank so high so what? My degree from India or Ppines will get me a job but not your high rank one. My unranked degree got more value than yours.
ReplyDeleteSingapore culture is full of strange and hilarious neuroses...like "You die, your business!" and of course the defining the very culture in question kiasuism and kiasism...but none is more STRIKING than the dogmatic AFFECTATION of RANKINGS, of course anything Singaporean must be Number 1
ReplyDeleteSingaporeans like to construct hierarchies for just about everything: for e.g.: "Audi better than BMW", "Raffles Institution better than ACS or NJC or Temasek", "Geylang better than Desker", "Changi airport best in the world", "SIA best in the world"...all sorts of BULLSHIT arbitrary nonsense which in reality DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.
People are obviously too rich with too much idle time on their hands...๐
Ok lah, since you so unhappy, we will say Matilah is the best returned loser. Happy or not?
ReplyDeleteSingaporeans want to be first in everything. Are Singaporeans so insecure? All the molly coddling over the last half a century has resulted in this " kiasuism and kiasism ". So sad............
ReplyDelete@ "generous" 141
ReplyDelete» we will say Matilah is the best returned loser. Happy or not? «
What can I say...I'm stoked...finally, mediocre me has achieved notoriety! ๐ฏ๐ฏ Cheers!๐ป
@ "don't knock it" 323:
» this " kiasuism and kiasism ". So sad.... «
Sad? Are you sure about that? With several hundred supercars on the roads of a tiny island, I can tell you there are alot of very happy people.
Oh wait....there are people who believe "money can't buy happiness". ๐น๐น๐น Good, keep on believing that...
You became so stupid when you started believing that very sad man 50+ years ago, ha ha ha
ReplyDelete