Education v Industry: March 9 2014 Go to the website of any university, you will find almost all of them are staffed with their own nationals and ll of them have the management team consists of all nationals. The rationale should be obvious to those in the Government, if not they have no right to be there. Ironically Singapore always like to claim best and first and in this respect, Singapore does indeed holds the first and there is no second, third or the nexts to have all its universities and institutes of higher learning to be staffed with almost completely with foreigners right from the top downwards. It would be interesting and relevant to ascertain how many citizens applying for academic positions in these institutions have been rejected and how their resumes compared with the foreigner staff at the time of their recruitment. The loyalty to the student population and to the nations of foreign staff are indeed questionable as most of them are here when they cannot secure position in good reputable university or remuneration is far below that of Singapore. NTU and NUS like to claim world ranking but only those favorable for them in which some highly reputable universities are placed well below the scale by virtue of the ranking criteria. If university education falls short of industrial expectation (except for industrial experience) for their introductory/in-house training in their own specialization, the industries should feedback to allow the institutions seeing their true worth and not blabbing on ranking! It should not only used it as an excuse to employ foreigners. Industries have the obligations to train local graduates to as proficient to both the employers and the employees. This is a global norm in any nation in which they operate. Universities should also not just sit back with staff yielding to the fancies of the students in order to obtain good teaching rating for better bonus and prospect but at the expense of the students and the nation. Foreign staff usually have no such national spirit as citizens would be and talking about loyalty and national obligations is a joke to them. True, there are some very dedicated academicians, but the number is negligibly small. Many in the public often ask “how many university staff, cabinet ministers, president, MPs and those affiliated to these groups send their children to the local universities?” Try to take a survey and it would not be different from the general perception, The reason is why since the local universities are so highly ranked! However who can trust a university which condones free riders in publications especially when it exempted those who were found on fraudulent publication from liability and keeping them in top management? As the Chinese famous saying goes: if the top is crooked, the bottom will be so too. It is imperative that since an industrialist has spoken, the Government owes the students and the citizens the responsibility/obligation to carry out an independent review and assessment of the universities.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:06:54 +0000
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