NUS ranked 94th, NTU unranked in Reuters ranking of universities

The timing of this ranking by Reuters cannot come at a better time when some were drunk by the QS rankings believing that NUS and NTU were really top universities in the world. And Times Higher Education ranked NUS at 25^th and NTU at 61^st.  On the other hand the Academic Ranking of World Universities put NUS at 101 – 150 band and NTU at the 151 - 200 band. The differences in rankings were due to the factors used.

I would believe if there is a ranking based on gaming ranking systems, our universities would surely be ranked 1^st and 2^nd or some where up there at the very top. If the ranking is based on having the most modern infrastructure and modern equipment and facilities, NUS and NTU would rank ahead of the best in the UK and USA. The same too if the ranking is based on having the most foreign academic and administration staff in a local university.

But if the rankings would to be based on skill sets of graduates and employability of graduates, and the ability to produce top quality finance and banking professionals, NUS and NTU would rank somewhere in the 500s or 1000s. Hundreds of universities in India, China and the Philippines and other 3^rd World universities would rank higher than NUS as their graduates are much sort after here with the right skill sets for employment. Maybe some degree mills would also rank higher as their graduates are also accepted without checking by some organizations, and probably with NUS and NTU graduates working under them and reporting to them. I said, probably, as I have no data to support this. Please feel free to disagree.

So what is so good about rankings? One thing, if there is a lack of substance, go for the superficial. As long as it looks good, sounds good, it is worth the money spent, event at the expense of getting rid of Singaporean academic core and sacrificing places that should go to our children but go to foreigners.

What do you think?

Should Singapore emulate the USA?

‘Governing a country is not simply a matter of circulating the same amount of wealth between the rulers and the ruled. If Americans had insisted on a America only for Americans, it would not have become a superpower. Replenishment of talent is necessary, he who is not working for us is working against us.

Thankfully, the minority faces among us do not fancy the concept that they are competing against the majority. We are all competing against the rest of the world.

China only for Chinese, or India only for the Indians may be workable, but Singapore only for Singaporeans would be a joke.’  Today forum writer Ee Teck Ee

I quoted the above from the Today paper column Voices on 18 Sep.. I wonder how many of you out there subscribe to this mantra. If Singapore is not for Singaporeans, then is Singapore for everyone? We know who have been spreading this mantra and many have been sold without thinking how relevant or irrelevant it is to us. It only requires a little thinking to know that we are not USA the continental America. We are not even the size of a big American city.

The rise of an American superpower is not as simple as what the above writer puts it. The USA was an American Indian country, conquered and taken away from the American Indians, and the people of the land decimated to near extinction. Non Europeans were tolerated not because they were valued as talents and welcomed. The Africans were imported as slaves. The Asians were imported as exploited labours, not allowed to engage in any professional enterprise worthy of the word talent, except as labourers, cooks and laundrymen.

The USA was already a superpower with their own brand of European talents. The Asian and African talents came in only in the late stages of the American history, mostly post WW2. And not to forget, the USA is a continent that can accommodate hundreds of millions of human beans, like Australia. Even today, immigrants are selectively allowed into the USA. In Australia, they don’t need to have more immigrants for economic growth. They are still guarding their immigrant figures very carefully.

The density of this island is already exceeding the most densely populated American cities. Do we need to keep pouring endless human bodies into this island for the sake of economic growth? Can this be sustainable? Economic growth is not the end alls of life. There are many other considerations that are just as important or more important than economic growth. And adding population is not the only way to achieve economic growth. Even Hsien Loong has admitted that we have maxed out in terms of adding bodies into the island. Why are people still flogging this crazy mantra of importing the whole world to our shores?

We cannot compare our little island with the USA. Neither can we compare it with China or India. We have to look at our own characteristics and limitations. Every country should draw on its people for organic growth. Some foreigners can come in to compliment the needs of the island. But to allow them in indiscriminately to eventually replace the original citizens is madness. We don’t owe the foreigners a living, we don’t owe them anything. But we owe it to all Singaporeans and their children a good life. It is treachery and treason to bring in foreigners to replace them and at their expense. What is the point of National Service and a strong defence force?

It is very difficult to explain stupidity to daft Singaporeans. Like some said, Stupidity is incurable. Other countries are out there seizing every little bits of land or island as their own, for their people. We are begging to give our little island we fought for and built to what it is today, to everyone what wants to be here. There are at least 100m people out there that want to be here. And we are picking up the rubbish instead of the diamonds. We are a dumping ground for human waste.

Why turn our country into a rubbish dump?

A Parliament of millionaires

With the new Parliament getting ready to do business, many have taken for granted that practically every member of the Singapore Parliament is a millionaire. The PAP ministers and office holders are many times a millionaire, with some likely to be billionaires or near billionaires. The rest of the PAP MPs are also millionaires after serving several terms.

For the new MPs, many are already millionaires before joining politics. As for the first term PAP MPs, they are on their way to become millionaires when the offers of directorships to public listed and govt linked companies come their ways. And they could be millionaires after serving a year as an MP or less.

In the case of opposition MPs, they are not so lucky and would need to serve one full term before making it as millionaires unless they are already millionaires on their own. And since most of the opposition MPs are serving their second term, with Low Thia Khiang serving many terms, all of them should also be millionaires by now.

This must be another record worthy of the Guinness Book of Record, a Parliament of millionaires, one of its kind in the whole world. And this kind of record is really unbeatable.

The SDP team that could not have lost

The GE is over, the results are cast in stone. Should have let it to rest and move on. I just want to make a last comment on the SDP’s Holland Bukit Timah team that I wrote earlier that could have taken down the PAP team. Not only that they did not, they fared worst than the team in 2011 and that made the result so much more disturbing. Technically, the SDP team had all corners covered, a medical professional in Professor Paul Tambyah that was a head above Vivian, a woman candidate in Chong Wai Fung to match Sim Ann, a most feared opposition candidate in Chee Soon Juan and a Malay candidate in Sidek Mallek.

The SDP team was carefully crafted to counter the PAP team. With Vivian and his political bloops, he would not be able to stand up against Tambyah, at the very best they would both split the votes evenly. Sim Ann had an edge for being the known factor but many voters were turned off by her antics during the rallies. She too could not gain much advantage over the SDP candidate for the female votes. And Sidek Mallek would have made a clean sweep of the Malay votes as none in the PAP team could be picking them up. Chee Soon Juan’s return would be well placed to increase the anti PAP votes. The SDP could not fall lower than the 30% hard core opposition supporters. How could the team get only 33% of the votes, 6% lesser than the 2011 team?  It just did not make sense. There was no weakness in the team unlike in 2011.

With a hard core of 30% as base, just the Malay votes would take it to near 40%. All Chee Soon Juan and Tambyah needed to do was to bring 5% each and they would be neck to neck with the PAP and likely to win.

The 33% meant that practically all the Malay votes went to the PAP. It also meant that Chee Soon Juan and Tambyah could not convince the voters to give them any vote and actually lost more votes to the PAP team.

I have discussed the reasons for a 10% swing votes, 4% due to new citizens and 6% due to the goodies handed out and changes in some govt policies. The 10% swing would mean the PAP team adding on 5% to the 61% in the last GE and the SDP losing 5% from its 39%, ending with 34%, still one 1% more than the final 33%.

If the demographic distribution of Malay voters was even, there should be a 10% Malay votes in the GRC to square off the 10% swing, and the result should be more or less the same as the last GE.

The final result was just too incredible and unbelievable. This must be the biggest mystery of this GE. It was like a strange event in the Bermuda Triangle that defied all logic and reasons. How could a SDP team that was technically superior or at worst equal to the PAP team lost so badly?

Call it a miraculous win for the PAP team. The other mystery must be the near loss of the WP team in Aljunied GRC. The voters could not switch camp just like that, and without a big crisis. The AHPETC was no crisis but a red herring. The voters of Aljunied were not so daft not to see it to affect their voting decision.

Yes, the truth is stranger than fiction.

University rankings good but not the key objectives

Hsien Loong said this at the Nanyang Technology Institute’s reunion dinner, ‘The key performance indicators (KPIs) of universities in the Republic should not be about how high their rankings are, but how well they serve Singapore.’ This is like what is so good about high rankings if they did not serve the interest of Singapore and its people? And what are these interests, jobs, skill sets, building a Singaporean core in all fields and industries.

What if high rankings lead to a hollowing of the quality pool of Singaporean academics and university students? What is the point to providing so many good paying employments to foreigners at the expense of Singaporeans, of providing good university places to foreigners instead of to our children? A good comparison is the ranking of our media by foreigners. Never mind if we are ranked 146, a few notches from the bottom, if the media are serving national interests, the good of people and country.

He then reiterated the importance of university KPIs as: "Rather, the KPI should be how well the universities serve Singapore. Whether they are academically and intellectually rigorous and vibrant, yet develop an authentic Singaporean character. Whether they give Singaporeans a good education, not just academically but holistically, building skill sets relevant to the economy so that people can get good jobs and fulfil their aspirations….’

It is sad that the Prime Minister had to say this to remind our supposedly very intelligent academics in the academia not to waste money on superficial rankings, on providing good jobs to foreigners and hollowing our academic talent and resources. Isn’t this a crime against the people? Using public funds to feed foreigners and replacing our own academics in the universities? Get your priorities right!

Would Tharman stand up and say ‘Cheap, we have no local talents in the universities and we need 30 years to get it right again like not Singaporean bankers and finance talents?’ Shit, I shouldn’t use the word ‘local’. It should be ‘Singaporeans’ and not meant to include PRs. We need to grow our own timber if we are going to survive as a people who called ourselves Singaporeans and this island home. If not, yes, we would be just a hotel for foreigners and we become the prostitutes servicing them and saying thank you to them for patronising us, and we pay them for it.

Is this not what Hsien Loong meant when he said, and I quote: “(While) at the same time, imbuing in students and alumni a sense of loyalty and belonging to Singapore, a sense of purpose in their lives, so that people are rooted here - with networks, friends and family - and want to give back to Singapore." You don’t expect foreigners to sink roots here and be one of us, to give back to Singapore when they are here for the good time and waiting to make their pile to return home. A few foreigners would be good, but we can’t expect too many to stay, and it is also no good if we have to depend on foreign talents to stay. This is an easy way out to increase our talent pool but would discourage the growing of our own talents. And what is there then for our own people if this is the case?

Don’t give me that globalisation and borderless shit. Treason is the word for these naive terminologies. The quitters and nomads like to use them to rubbish the citizen’s right in their own countries. If not careful, and still blindly going down the road of bringing in more foreigners, one day the daft Sinkies would be like the refugees marching to Europe, people without a place called home, kicked out from their countries they once called home.