Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Brand name or quality education?
I read with great interest this article from New York Times. It talks about how smaller and lesser known colleges in the United States are better at providing a quality education and changing the lives of students compared to brand name schools. And, it got me thinking about my own university, NUS.
In all honesty, I think NUS has grown too big for its own good. It seems to me that there’s this idea that more is better, and the intake of students just grows each year. While there is nothing wrong with growing, the question really is whether such growth is healthy for the main group of people the university serves, that is, students.
It seems to me that while NUS is climbing the ranking ladders, sadly, the quality of education has dropped. Some lectures can be as big as 300 students. And, I’ve participated in tutorial classes where there are more than 20 students. How can students have a quality education if there are so many students competing for the attention of the lecturer or tutor? In the mega-sized lectures, students just passively sit there and listen. In the big tutorial classes, students get a maximum of a few minutes of talking time on average, unless a student is shameless enough to keep talking and deprive other students of a chance to talk.
And, the best part of it all is that with so many students, competition is intense. The net result is that some students adopt the practical way out. They will dig out past exam papers and study the lecturer to gauge his/her preferences and write to their tune. Of what value is learning then? As a senior, when my juniors ask me for advice on how to approach studies, I always ask them what they want. If they want to learn, just take anything they like. If they want to bag good honours, I tell them that they have to be more selective about their modules. It’s the reality of things when the competition is so intense (and especially when one is not a natural Einstein).
This is why I found the New York Times article refreshing. Smaller colleges might not be as well-known, but one gets alot more time with professors to discuss and debate. Thankfully in NUS, most of the professors (at least those that have taught me) are pretty obliging with after class consultation. However, if NUS continues to grow unchecked, I don’t know if the professors will still have the time to engage in after-class discussion.
Moreover, I understand that alot of NUS professors, especially those at the lower levels are saddled with plenty of administrative work. This is one thing I don’t really get. Professors are humans too. How do we expect them to be a good teacher, a ground-breaking researcher and an efficient administrator all rolled into one? We should really leave professors to do what they are supposed to do, that is to teach and do research.
Brand name or quality education? You decide.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 13/03/2007 at 11:19 am, and is filed under Perspective. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 3 years ago
Smaller classes means more expensive tuition. Until NUS can get endowments as generous as those of many US schools, it can’t subsidise students for the extra tuition needed for smaller classes. Many lower-income bracket Americans can afford to attend small colleges only because of financial aid. Since NUS is a public institution, it has a responsibility not to restrict enrollment only to those who can afford to pay, so either it finds some way to get rich, or it’ll have to stick with large classes.
about 3 years ago
The article is kind of misleading, since there are plenty of small liberal arts colleges (SLACs) that have brand names as powerful as the Ivies. Reed, Swarthmore, Smith, Wellesley, and St. John’s are SLACs that fall into that category. Employers and graduate schools know that graduates from those colleges are at least as competent as those from the Ivies.
about 3 years ago
maybe nus should create subdivisions:
1) students who are here to do well in exams and get their cert (assassins)
2) students who are here to learn and stretch their brains (warriors)
3) students who are here to get a cert and don’t want to be bothered with additional tasks
4) students who are here to get a cert, but be lemons in group projects (the thief)
a little more honesty is needed. i think that might solve the problem. but that’s an elitist solution.
about 3 years ago
Stibbons,
I don’t think majority of Singapore employers will even know of these SLACs. My impression is that everyone seems to be bowled over by names like Harvard and Stanford. It’s very much like how Singaporeans would make certain assumptions about you if you said you come from RJC or HwaChong JC.
With regards to cost, I think there’s a need to rethink that. It might be more costly to have smaller classes, but if we produce graduates that are not as competent as a result, wouldn’t the long term cost be higher? If our own graduates are not as competent, that means we have to scout globally and entice talents to come do the work that our local graduates are not competent enough to do. Maybe a little extra investment in the quality of education in local universities might be worth the money in the long run.
about 3 years ago
Sam,
Your characterisation is interesting, but I think you missed out one group, and that’s the “phantoms”. You only see these people in the first and last lecture, as well as the exams. I don’t know why they are doing in university.
about 3 years ago
Aaron,
Singaporeans have never heard of them. But Americans have, and that’s all that’s important in the context of that article.
about 3 years ago
Someone made a point in another comment thread about how NUS is designed to churn out efficient professional workers. I’m not sure that moving away from a factory-style production of workers would necessarily increase economic productivity.
about 3 years ago
Hi Aaron!
Here are is what I thought about after reading your post:
Whether you get quality education from a university is not as important as whether you work hard to learn the subject yourself. This is especially true in subjects with information easily available online, such as Computer Science or Mathematics. (I’m not so sure about the Humanities, though.)
So what if NUS is not giving high-quality education? The school is not important, as the playing field has been leveled with http://www.google.com . Anyone can research for information on her/his own.
However, a good brand name is not completely useless. Isn’t NUS the top 19th university in the world? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t employers favor NUS degree holders over potential employees with University of Chile degrees? (Assuming that both grads are exactly the same except for the university which they studied in.)
In contrast, even if someone were to study in a lousy university, he/she can still learn the subject on his or her own. For example, a budding programmer can even access tons of the free source code for computer programs from open-source projects and learn from them. (See http://www.koders.com or http://www.sourceforge.com .) Free reference books on programming languages number in the hundreds, and are easily Google-able.
The degree is just a piece of paper helps a tiny amount you to get employed to a good job. The skills that one learns is the main factor in determining whether one is employed. I feel that a good brand name is just a small bonus to help in employment.
The university is not important. It is the skills which are important. (lol I sound like that PAP MP)
michaelk
about 3 years ago
umm, Aaron, does your blog send long comments for moderation?
about 3 years ago
yes the phantoms are a mysterious bunch. some do pretty well actually. i know one “phantom” who was on the dean’s list. absolutely inspiring. he probably worked his socks off and was too tired to attend class.
any way, it takes all characters to be in the scholarship race.
speaking of scholarship, i think it has become a dirty word. what is seen in singapore as “scholarship” is actually a contract or a grant. but i guess it’s better to claim that you’re a “scholar” rather than to claim that “hey! i have signed a contract that gives me a grant”. in this case, i believe there are many scholars in NUS who do not have grants.
what’s a “scholar” who has little or no scholarly inquiry/interest but has the capability of securing contracts that happened to be called a “scholarship”?
i agree with you that NUS is getting too big, but that’s the problem with its attempts to being global. many the university should spin off another sister university. by the way, the “dragon” kids (born 1988) will be enrolling over the next 3 years. huge huge numbers. there are fears that the bachelor’s degree may be devalued.
about 3 years ago
micheal,
If there are more than 2 links, it’s sent for moderation. One characteristic of spam is multiple links, so requiring comments with more than 2 links to be moderated helps me to keep out spam. Don’t worry if your message goes into moderation status. I check my blog very often, and it’s usually a few hours before I retrieve comments from the moderation queue.
about 3 years ago
@sam
Yah… based on yours and Aaron’s observations, maybe the size of the student population is the difference between them and “N’US”.
Anyway, I think I need to mug like crazy in NP to get to an overseas uni, now that NUS doesn’t seem so good. Yay! I have a love-hate relationship with O-Level-esque exam stress.
about 3 years ago
Michael,
Don’t write off NUS yet. There might be more join degrees with overseas universities that can cut the cost of an overseas degree and yet allow you to enjoy benefits of overseas degree. Just watch things happen over the next few years before deciding.
about 3 years ago
You need to go back to basics and ask youself what is “education?” In the Greek, it simply means to “draw out,” but in the plural it, there is a “forcible” connation, that even implies discomfort or enstrangement.
Its got nothing to do with lecturers and even the ratio of student to teachers and even less to do with what someone may put stuff into your brain. Infact the best lecturer I had was one who regularly threw books out of his window.
You can teach a man to write alphabets and he can be proficient in fashioning a variety of shapes and sizes in whatever fonts.
But Aaron, I want you to read very carefully, bc this is the important part: if you ask him to think about why he is writing all those words, he fucks up – 9 out of 10, he mangles it up – 9 out 10 the U becomes a V, but despite many having said you have done nothing other than to confuse this poor wretched soul – you have given him the power of being, his work is now a thinking thing imbued with a philosophy. You made him into a human being.
Before he was simply a parrot, a monkey trained to pick coconuts, a machine.
Thats education Aaron in all its terror.
Darkness.
about 3 years ago
Well, well.
That’s not education in all its terror. You must remember too that education is not just about empowerment, but also an exercise in power…
‘a thinking being imbued with a philosophy?’ Education shows more than that…how about a thinking being imbued with ‘someone else’s philosophy’? Which is what is being taught in most schools to differing extents around the world.
Meritocracy and our performance-worshipping lifestyles are prime examples of that. Philosophy can be dangerous, yes, but being parrots or monkeys with a philosophy to base their beliefs – is that not worse?
Anyway. Aaron, brandnaming is becoming of the utmost importance…people haven’t heard of my uni in Germany and so, people assume my uni is screwed up. It happens! So i guess i can see where NUS is going by trying to bolster its numbers, etc etc. The sad part is that quality of education decreases, but i don’t think that’s the primary concern of the school administration now…what with the foreign talent craze…
And as an afterthought, to sam: we’re a human-resource based society. The Bachelor’s is already worthless…what devaluation are you talking of? Unless your degree is in a really seriously niche degree (with people being conned time and time again by our Gahmen – Life Sciences!) you will find that a Bachelor’s is…i don’t know.
about 3 years ago
education exercise in power? thats like saying masturbation takes you from here to the moon and back again. Right? No? Maybe? Perhaps?
What is the reality of power? Or is it the illusion of power? A caged bird asked a free bird, what gives? Is it really better out there? Free bird says, the bars are just thicker here and the cage is bigger. We are in the same cage you and I, thats really what power is – a cage, only with different strokes.
about 3 years ago
haha…no…those who have power use education to control their power…oh well.
about 3 years ago
On the subject of brand name education. Although I agree some of the brand name SLACs mentioned above are very well respected in US and less known in Singapore, I wonder if it is a function of the insular nature of our Singaporean society and ignorance of most of our Singaporean employers. Those schools mentioned like Wellesley are very respected in the large respectable firms here in Hong Kong. On that note, despite the climb of NUS ranking, does the NUS degree carry any weight beyond the shores of our tiny red dot. I myself graduated from NUS with 1st class honours but doubt I will ever get a chance to work in some of the firms in the investment banking/finance community if it weren’t for my second graduate degree taken abroad. Then again, this could be an isolated case, so maybe I should not generalise. It would be interesting to hear from others with NUS degree and whether they got positive response from employers beyond our shores. Anyone?
about 3 years ago
Not to create a tangent on the discussion of the value of education at brand versus good schools… but a lot of the times the success of graduates of universities, be they Ivies or Oxbridge or SLACs, has a lot to do with how well established the alumni base is. Graduates from whatever schools who have paved the way in top organizations create a reason for continued recruitment at those same schools.
about 3 years ago
With regards to the local v foreign education issue, i always had the impression that local education is rather restrictive in the sense that everything seems to be geared towards the results rather than the process. It appears that in a Singapore Education system, people do stuff not because they want to do it but because they want to get the top grades. I always felt that an overseas education allows more space for one to develop in other areas. However i could be wrong (as i have not gone for an overseas education) thus i stand corrected.
about 3 years ago
For I have a cousin who teach in Australia. What he feel is that Singapore education system tend to spoon feed the student on these and that. In Australia the lecturer tend to make sure the student are independent. There are no guidelines and what the right or wrong way to do a project. Give the students the full power to do whatever they need or want to get finish the project. They believe more in creative thinking I suppose. We, Singaporean believe in data feeding.
about 3 years ago
@Ned Stark
“With regards to the local v foreign education issue, i always had the impression that local education is rather restrictive in the sense that everything seems to be geared towards the results rather than the process.”
I agree- when I started my Sec 3 education, PM Lee’s Teach Less Learn More policy was promoted by teachers. However, the only thing they did to implement it was to cancel one test each for some subjects, and replace it with project work. In the end, prep for the O levels was in no way true TLLM.
However, Republic Poly is an example of TLLM in action. I heard that some students were once given this assignment- “An aeroplane is flying overhead. Calculate its speed.”
about 3 years ago
michaelk:
I would say that NUS’ 19th ranking must be taken with a pinch of salt. The ‘rankings’ were compiled by a British-centric institution and their criteria was quite problematic. As a matter of fact I do know a couple of people from the University of Chile who have done exceedingly well in my academic field. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for NUS alumni.
Employers in the know, especially those in larger companies and MNCs, can definitely appreciate the value of a ‘brand-name’ university degree even if it were not from the conventionally famous ones.
As for the quality of education: I have to say that having passionate teachers is a big bonus, but one of the biggest factors (if not the main factor) that makes a university truly a place of higher learning is the campus environment. By this, I mean the attitude of the students– towards learning, towards sharing ideas with other students, and definitely towards independent problem-solving and research. Unfortunately I don’t see the academic climate at NUS and NTU extending beyond that of grades and rankings, which may be the reason why it still lags behind many other overseas institutions in the overall “quality” of education provided.
about 3 years ago
Dear Mr Darkness,
“the reality of power? Or is it the illusion of power?” Now thats in my head, there is no getting it out, is there? I have been thinking about it the whole morning. Everytime I push it away, it comes back stronger. I even said to myself, I will only think about it during the break, but it keeps coming back.
Are you trying to say the reality of power is the illusion that we even have power to exercise control over ourselves and others? Thats why its an illusion. Am I right?
That is why the difference between the free and the caged bird remains only relative. Or are you saying the free bird isnt really free, but rather only thinks it is free.
So what are you saying in the context of education? The more I study, the more power I have right? I free myself from the bondage of ignorance? The less I know will have the converse results. Is information = education? Is education = knowledge? Is knowledge = power? Was that what you were trying to say.I do hope you will come back here to answer my questions. Have a very nice and pleasant day. Bye Bye.
about 3 years ago
“As for the quality of education: I have to say that having passionate teachers is a big bonus, but one of the biggest factors (if not the main factor) that makes a university truly a place of higher learning is the campus environment. By this, I mean the attitude of the students– towards learning, towards sharing ideas with other students, and definitely towards independent problem-solving and research.”
@TTW
Hi,
I feel that it is not the environment of a school that is significant in contributing to learning; it is merely a small bonus. (However, when one is desperate for such an environment, I becomes very useful.) So what if one is not surrounded by people who are passionate “towards learning, towards sharing ideas with other students, and definitely towards independent problem-solving and research”? It doesn’t mean that he/she can fire up Google and learn independently.
Thanks,
michaelk
about 3 years ago
I actually agree quite strongly with TTW’s observation that a campus student environment makes a huge difference in the learning environment. I just would not limit that concept to passion about learning/academics. Oftentimes, a rich and diverse student body alone makes for a fantastic university experience because everyone comes from very different backgrounds – countries, socio-economic, personal interests, political leanings, religions, etc. – that you can only benefit from being around such diversity even outside of strict academic regimens. In that regard, it’s a big plus for the larger schools that draw students from a wider pool.
about 3 years ago
So what if one is not surrounded by people who are passionate “towards learning, towards sharing ideas with other students, and definitely towards independent problem-solving and research� It doesn’t mean that he/she can fire up Google and learn independently.
That is very different. I’ve learnt a lot from Google, but Google cannot give me feedback on my work. Google cannot tell me when I’m barking up a wrong tree.
Now, with blogs, there is more scope for discussion-based internet learning. But a search engine alone is not going to help you learn. Learning is not about absorbing information from textbooks. It’s about acquiring a method and habit of thinking. I feel that Singaporean educators got hold of the wrong end of the stick: they teach students what to think, but a proper education teaches you how to think. It’s the difference between reading a book on how to ride a bicycle and actually trying to ride one.
about 3 years ago
as one of the two who started this ‘power’ thing, polly, perhaps i should chip in first…
information is NOT equivalent to education…the news doesn’t educate us every day. education is not equivalent to knowledge too, because knowledge is, from my viewpoint, what we know and what we can apply.
Knowledge may be power, but there’s a type of knowledge which tells us how to use the knowledge we have and make it into power…that’s the knowledge we have to be afraid of.
about 3 years ago
I’m not sure whether it’s really NUS thinking that more is better or if it’s simply a matter of the gahmen’s aim to have more graduates (like 25% or something?)
It’s indeed a problem though if the amount of resources don’t match the rate of growth. Things do seem to be getting worse in some ways. And it’s not just a matter of student : teacher ratio, but a matter of other resources – library resources, etc.
about 3 years ago
whoops.. I think ” he/she can fire up Google” should read “he/she can’t fire up Google”. Sorry!
about 3 years ago
well. imagine how crowded the uni’s will be by the time singapore hits 6.5million people. why is singapore pushing so hard to sell themselves as an educational hub when obviously we do not have the capacity to handle the numbers effectively and efficiently. there will be a point when the returns will be diminishing. that is, the more students, the less quality in education. why? student to lecturer ratio will be far skewed than what we see today. along with the other possible lack and shortfall of resources that some posters have mentioned above.
about 3 years ago
Hi Poly,
No worries, no one understands darkness 99.9% of the time. But it sticks in the head right! I know that feeling only too well.
I remember having a similar conversation with him some years back ago in Bukit Timah mountain trail, when I kept falling off my bike. He came over to chat with me. In this conversation, we touched on education and he went on to say, it was just a “process.†He said you may have a lousy, mediocre or even excellent process, but at the end of the day whether you are in the University of Baghdad or MIT. We all eventually go through the same “process,†to learn to do only one thing again and again: construct hypotheses, test them, reject the good, throw out the bad and that is how we all define progress. But he capped it off by saying something really weird, true progress requires a man to search out where “the terror†lies.
When I asked him, how so? He mentioned some clap trap about a cat jumping on a hot stove. He said, If the cat did it even once. It would probably learn never to jump on a hot stove again. So I asked him, what’s so bad about that? He replied, it also means, the same cat wouldn’t jump on a cold stove either and that’s the great lie abt education. He did something very strange after that, he asked me very politely whether we could change bikes.
When the group started off again, I realized his bike didn’t have any brakes! There was no way to control the descent, you just had to hold on and go with the flow. And its no joke I want to make that clear, not at 60 mph, a man can die on the trail. I remember everything suddenly sharpening, the whole experience was like I was ridding a bike for the very first time. Even the trail, I had ridden for a hundred times was new. Through it all as I tore down the trail, I realized what he meant when he said, “the terror of it all.â€
I really don’t know if this goes to clarify or confuse, as for me, it fixed my problem. I never fell off my bike again, not even once since then.
about 3 years ago
@Francis,
What if someone is not surrounded by people from diverse backgrounds? Or lacks access to a good learning environment? It does not mean that he/she can’t do well. Furthermore, one’s attitude towards learning makes all the difference. If someone had no interest in her/his studies, and just dug up past year exam papers to barely pass, even the most fantastic, condusive and diverse leaning environment cannot help him/her.
@Stibbons,
I realized that you are right about the need for peer review… in fact, that’s relevant even in programming. But online communities exist in the form of forums, IRC and blogs. If one lacks access to a good learning environment, perhaps those communities can fill the void. If one is determined, one can find people to do peer review with.
about 3 years ago
Michaelelk,
You are inferring singular opposites from my general perspective on campus environments and missing the point. Of course one can succeed and enrich themselves even if he/she does not have access to a diverse campus environment. And of course one can also not be prepared to take full advantage of a great life/learning experience that can be offered with a vibrant unversity.
That said, such situations or exceptions still do not detract from the fact that MOST people would benefit from a richer and more diverse campus environment than one that is not. That is the point of my perspective when I agreed with another poster’s similar observation. More specifically, even the ones who thrive in staid campuses (as you cited) because they are self-motivated will probably do even better if they are placed in a more vibrant university.
about 3 years ago
@Francis,
Yes, I was talking about the few special people who are self-motivated.