Madam, every year, International Students receive about $12,000 to $75,000 each to study at our Institutions of Higher Learning. In total, the Government dispenses about $210 million in tuition grants per year to these students. This is not a small sum of money and the only requirement the Government asks of these International Students is to work for a Singapore-based company for a period of 3 years upon their graduation with no other strings attached. The grant application is so easy that even the sureties required to complete the application need not be Singaporeans nor reside here. And to fulfil the 3-year employment obligation agreement, the foreign student can work full-time or part-time, locally or overseas, give tuition at a tuition centre, and even be self-employed. If the same student wishes to pursue a full-time undergraduate programme at our local tertiary institutions, he can defer his existing grant obligation, get another subsidy with another 3-year grant obligation, and serve both his obligations concurrently upon getting the undergraduate degree. After pulling out all the stops for these foreign Students, how many of them took advantage of our generosity and left Singapore without serving a single day of the 3-year grant obligation? MOE is currently unable to provide a definitive answer to this question. Even among the current group of International Students who had not started work upon graduation and/or who have not sought permission to do so, MOE did not want to reveal the number of defaulters in this group. I understand the ministry is tightening its tracking and enforcement efforts for bond fulfilment and I hope we will have a clear answer one day. - MP Png Eng Huat
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 13:54:36 +0000
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