Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Does Singapore have world class universities?
As a final year undergraduate in Singapore’s oldest university, it has always been on my mind whether are our local universities truly world class.
Currently, we have the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University and SIM University. Based on the Times Higher Education Supplement rankings, NUS and NTU are the two local universities that made the cut. SMU and UniSIM are relatively new, so I suppose that it will take a while more for them to get on the rankings.
This year’s THES rankings puts NUS at 19th position, and NTU at 61st. I did an analysis of the rankings in a commentary on the Campus Observer and I think that the THES rankings are quite valid. If rankings are the basis for defining a world class university, then NUS and NTU can be considered world class.
However, rankings alone do not make a world class university. The obsession with rankings is perhaps peculiar to Singapore. Singaporean parents are always watching out to see which primary schools, secondary schools and junior colleges are number 1, and they will find ways and means to try and get their kids there. The Singapore media also likes to play up rankings. Just look at the amount of space given to stories on PSA and Changi Airport being number one in the world.
The pre-requisite for consideration as a world class university is probably academic strength. I agree with THES’s method of using peer review because those in the field knows best. My university, NUS, scores quite well in this area. The NUS president is adept at improving NUS’s academic strength because he has been in some of the finest institutions in the world and he knows the game well.
The pursuit for excellence is good. However, it has caused the university to alienate its most important stakeholder, the student. I had an opportunity to understand a little more about the workings of the university during my stint as a student leader. It really bothered me that some people in NUS’s administration think that the best gift that a university can offer to a student is a brand name degree. This probably explains why NUS is consistently ranked highly in THES. Plenty of effort and energy is spent on getting up there and staying there.
However, even if NUS has such good rankings, does that make NUS a world class university? If NUS is indeed world class, why are our brightest minds going abroad? Why is it that prestigious government scholarships are always for overseas study? Local scholarships are always second fiddle to overseas scholarships.
Of course, some people would argue that an overseas education is not all about getting a brand name degree, but to experience another culture and bring back alternative perspectives. Well, if that’s the case, then Americans and Europeans should be flocking to good universities in Asia. I don’t see that happening. What’s the point of being ranked 19th in the world if Singaporeans and the Singapore government don’t think that the local universities are good enough?
Local universities may be good, but it’s not world class yet. The true indicator of a world class university is not rankings, but the quality of the intake of students. Yes, we do attract foreign talent, but even talents can be classified into different tiers. We are not attracting tier one talents. Our universities cannot claim to be world class if we cannot attract tier one talent. And, before we can attract tier one foreign talent, we need to attract our tier one local talents.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 26/10/2006 at 2:46 pm, 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 5 years ago
“If NUS is indeed world class, why are our brightest minds going abroad?”
This reminds me of an earlier post you wrote about the political price of educating Singaporeans. Education allows people to spot flaws in the government here, such as the poor press freedom, which ranks 147 in the Global Press Freedom Survey,(slipping three positions).
http://www.asiademocracy.org/content_view.php?section_id=1&content_id=37
Unwilling to stay, and also unwilling to risk taking action to change the political situation, some grads may leave the country to work in countries which are more open.
Additionally, the cost of living is very high in Singapore. This is probably another reason for the grads to emigrate.
about 5 years ago
I think you might have misread what I was trying to say. The context of the article was that NUS is trying to market itself as being world class, and our government continues to send our best talents abroad for education. Is there not an inherent irony here?
about 5 years ago
Maybe its just that not many students from U.S.A, Europe, Canda, etc etc, have really heard much about Singapore. Even when they study geography, they can’t see us on the map! (sorry lame joke).
Also by world standards Singapore is still a ‘developing’ country. Some Singaporeans will be surprised at this,afterall Singapore is the epitome of urbanisation. We have technocrats, great medical facilities, superb educational facilities and our nation’s skyline is a nice fusion of granite, glass and concrete. (although our lawyers seem incapable of winning any cases against DPPs)
I don’t know about you, but I’ve read heaps about Chicago, New Jersy, New York, Monarco, Marseille, London. I have SOME knowledge of these cities and their famous universities. Its so tempting to go to these places you’ve only read about, or just heard about.
Sadly, people from these places don’t feel the same way about coming here. Lets not kid ourselves.
1) we get alot of negative publicy (IMF)..
2) we aren’t as well known as we think we are.
3) There aren’t any cultural landmarks here to cultivate interest from overseas students to come ‘feel& experience’
4)Wee Shu Min
5) Haze (lets not kid ourselves..every year got)
Ok the last two were jokes..pls remember always laughter is good for fighting heart disease
about 5 years ago
Hmmz … we do attract foreign students. Juz look @ NUS… So many China & Indian students .. and they are very very hardworking ..
Most of these foreign students ( i wouldnt call them talent ) , will probably leave SG once they have enjoyed enough of Singapore’s benefits ( in terms of Singapore Dollars , enjoying our Strong currency & stability @ our expenses)
to rub salt in our wound , lets not forget some who even cursed & swore @ Singapore in the past .. ( remember not long ago , the issue of the China Student going back China & laughing @ silly Singaporeans & our system )
To those who stay , the Gahmen term them as “foreign Talent” , try to offer them Permanent residence & try to make them feel Singaporean , when their heart is with Motherland .. These “foreign talent” also create what i call the Cheaper-worker Phenomenon” …
So who suffer ?? Non-elitist Singaporeans who have no means to go overseas to study or get into our TOP Unis ( thanks to those talents who managed to climb/claw their way in ) …
Juz my ranting .. its late in the night ..and I am boggled by exams … damn ..
about 5 years ago
Hey Chris,
I don’t deny that we have foreign student and that they are mainly from Asia. However, their motivation for coming to Singapore is not because Singapore universities are world class. It’s because it’s cheaper to come here.
For those who are from developed countries, they can definitely afford to come here. 1 pound is 3 Singapore dollars. They can live like a king here. Why are they not coming here, if we are truly world class. They get a “brand name” degree and get to live like a king.
about 5 years ago
Hi Marcus,
I had a friend who went to UCLA for a semester. He came back and told me that the foreign talents in NUS are second rated. He was relating to me how he met some PRC undergrads who spoke and wrote better than him. And, they were extremely knowledgeable and don’t behave impolitely.
Contrast this to the PRC students that we attract. I won’t generalise, but I have seen many of them whose English are terrible both in speech and writing (I wonder how they passed the Qualifying English Test), not knowledgeable about the world other than the stuff in their books, and they talk very loudly, don’t queue, rush around etc.
If you ask me, the truly elite foreign talents are not in Singapore, despite claims that we are attracting foreign talent. Best of all, to add salt to injury, our best government scholars are sent overseas.
about 5 years ago
I studied in Australia for 3 years, and in my time there, you see people from all races and walks of life. In fact, all the foreign students added together are probably more than the local students themselves.
Its the way Australia is being marketed to the world, its not really a uni thing. Singapore isn’t marketing itself well enough. Of coz, people will argue that our unis score well on the rankings. (I assure you this obsession with ranking is quite a Singapore thing)
Aaron, I’ve come into contact with plenty of Westernern students and its not hard to see why they won’t come to S’pore and live like kings. Actually to be honest, I found that they were a lot less materialistic in that sense than I expected. These young students don’t want to live like kings, they want an experience.
Sad to say, educational opportunities elsewhere are simply a better propostition. Alot of Singaporeans think that their degrees in NUS/NTU are worth a lot. (no offence, jus giving a worldy insight). The truth of the matter is, if you have a degree from NUS now and you go to Sydney to look for a job, you’re going to struggle.
But if you have a degree from Sydney and you come to Singapore to look for a job, would you face so much difficulty? Think about it.
Foreign countries don’t hold Singaporean degrees in THAT high regard because we’re still a developing country, not only that, 10 years of working exp in S’pore is nothing compared to 10 years working exp in a metropolitan state like sydney. (Sydney is just an example, works for many other cities)
about 5 years ago
If NUS is a world class university, then why are so-called Ivy League professors given preferential treatment?
If NUS is a world class university, then why do honours students in certain disciplines find that there is insufficient choice. And hasn’t the syllabus stabilised (i.e. there is a list of modules that are always offered)?
I’m not sure if this is true but I’ve also heard that in certain departments they prefer not to re-employ their own PhD students.
And there’s one more thing that makes a world class university: a comparatively (to other universities) efficient & pleasant school admin. Which I’m afraid we lack. (With apologies to members of the school admin who are nice but are really the minority).
about 5 years ago
haha sounds like you met rude & inefficient school admin ppl, they’re everywhere, trust me. Not just in Singapore
about 5 years ago
Well Chris, it takes only a person who has been out of this Singapore well to know what it is like out there. The reason why I am bringing this issue out is simply because our government leaders and the media are lulling our citizens into a false sense of security. I really don’t think my NUS degree is worth anything outside of Asia. That’s why I hope to eventually end up in a top US college for my PhD.
Until we are really that good, we should stop blowing trumpets to soothe our egos.
about 5 years ago
I think One thing abt Private uni is the Admin is Not too bad .. they are quite Customer Oriented . I am from SIM … the service they provide is really quite good , although my gf ( NUS ) thinks its abit spoonfed …
Aaron , you addressed another issue in my heart , abt the 2nd class foreigners … I guess the bad publicity that covers the PRCs in Singapore is clouding my judgement … plus Seeing is believing .. Cant blame me when EVERYWHERE I GO .. i hear LOUD China men & women yakking away … the way they behave , the way they think that their motherland is GREAT … is still too “commie” to me …
I believe even with our government granting these Foreigners PR status with them having our “1st Class” degrees .. they will still do the job for lesser pay … And their Loyalty will still be towards their Motherland … And the same question goes .. Who SuFFer ?? Singaporeans ..
I have heard many NUS students lamenting ( my gf included ) … there are too many foreign students in there … I am not saying we do not admit any foreign students … but to deny local students of entry , while letting nearly half the lecture hall be dominated by non SGreans … i think its ridiculous …
in this sense , i think Malaysia’s policy of protecting sons of the soil is better … @ least they let people of THEIR OWN have priority in the unis.
Juz my 1 cent’s worth …
about 5 years ago
Hi Joey,
There are lots of other issues to think about. I’ll raise some in future, such as alumni donation. World class universities have strong alumni support. They’re so good, their students love them to bits. Even when the students graduate, they contribute back tremendously.
Some statistics for you to chew on. Harvard has alumni giving rate of 49%. Princeton has alumni giving rate of 61%.
about 5 years ago
Hi Marcus,
As you said, seeing is believing. I don’t generalise or discriminate, but I see so many that I am inclined to believe that my observations are true.
In principle, giving preferential treatment to our own people is not a good idea, not for us. I agree that we need to attract talent because we are too small. The top 5% of PRC people will beat our top 5% anyday because of the sheer difference in population size. However, the question is, are we attracting the top 5% from other countries, or are we getting those at the 25% range? If its the latter, then I think it’s better to give priority to our own people. Makes no sense to me to feed others if they are not worth their salt.
about 5 years ago
Malaysia’s policy is very different and quite discriminatory. Malaysia’s policy favours a malay student to a chinese student. Even if the chinese student has better grades, they have their quota to upkeep. This is a gross injustice, I’m sure you won’t want that in Singapore.
There is a difference between being 2nd class citizens and being 2nd class citizens in your own country. Its quite an exageration to say that local unis are dominated by foreign students lah, look around you, everywhere is PRC meh? Then maybe you’re sitting @ the wrong canteen table.
In Australia, there are ALOT ALOT more foreign students, such to an extent that they sometimes overshadow the locals there. And all they have to do is get mediocre grades and some pay some money to get in.
Foreigners who come here to study, lets put it this way, need some standard lah. Its not like they just pay money and come in, they still need to qualify. The situation is not as bad as u think. I don’t think Singapore favours foreign students over local students unless there is a great disparity in results.
about 5 years ago
i agree with your point abt our govt and students viewing NUS/NTU/SMU as second-rate cf to an overseas experience. when I was in JC, saying you didn’t mind going to NUS earned u a quizzical look from others who were all fighting to get a prized overseas scholarship, and thought you were a cop-out.
another pt to raise is that because s’pore best students are largely abroad, it leaves behind the more mediocre students (a generalisation, of course…), allowing the PRCs and Indians to top ranking boards and worse, have a skewed impression of s’porean talent. (they don’t understand that this doesn’t represent our best). as a result, i believe some have low respect for our workforce and become very arrogant viz-a-viz their local counterparts.
about 5 years ago
Hi Shawn,
I really wish that our government stop their double standards. On one hand, the most prestigious scholarships are reserved for overseas study. On the other hand, the government tries and promote Singapore as a hub for quality education. We don’t practise what we preach. Who will believe that our education is really top notch?
And yes, precisely because most of our smartest students are overseas, foreign students dominate in terms of grades. It contributes to the perception that Singaporeans who study locally are second-rate.
about 5 years ago
I was reading some of the MPs CVs, almost all of them studied abroad at prestigious universities. Ironic huh.
about 5 years ago
Its really refreshing chatting here with you guys … gives me a better picture of the current Situation in SG unis ..
Well .. maybe to clarify, I am not really advocating giving Singaporeans TOP priority even if they have only mediocre or pathetic results .. Its just that with the large influx of foreign students into local Unis .. I am given a ” false” sense that they are denying many of ABLE singaporeans of a chance to be in our Unis ..
Resultswise … its also scary to know that these students generally do better than the SG ones … apart from those *crows* who register with the Uni juz to have a chance to hook some Singaporean Uncles with Spare cash …
to put it in a selfish way , I feel that my chances of earning a decent living in Singapore is greatly reduced , with a large portion of my “thank-yous” going towards these foreign talents …
about 5 years ago
It’s nice discussing with you too, Marcus. I agree that we should practise meritocracy. However, it should not come at the expense of us Singaporeans.
There’s a chinese saying that goes åƒé‡Œçˆ¬å¤– (translated: to eat at home and then crawl out. Meaning to receive benefits from someone and then not repay the debt.) The PAP has received the mandate of the people for 40 years and our taxes gave them the capital to develop the country. By promoting foreign talent at the expense of Singaporeans, they are not being fair to those who worked hard and supported the PAP.
about 5 years ago
Hello, new to this site after surfing around for a bit.
Is NUS world class? Yes, from a national perspective on the undergraduate program; No, at the individual level and certainly not from a liberal education perspective. If you look at NUS as an important cog in the fabric of Singapore’s economy then the school definitely achieves those goals extremely well. On average, NUS churns out graduates that become very useful contributing members of society in the sense that they are for the most part armed with useful, albeit maybe somewhat narrow, skills.
As a true center for learning for the enlightenment of the individual however, local universities are constrained by a lack of diversity, limits on expression, and weaker research/post-undergraduate depth. For the most part, most students are relatively similar in that nearly everyone is a product of the local JC system. You do have a greater level of foreign students but it’s primarily regional, unlike top U.S. and European universities that tend to attract from a much wider pool. While the difference may not seem all that important, the significance of it is that university is also an experience where cross fertilization of backgrounds and different views amongst students is a direct contributor to the richness of the overall learning process… and one that cannot be inculcated in classrooms.
And culturally, Singapore/NUS has still not cultivated a real acceptance for plurality of views and opinions, whereas in a lot of the more established western universities practically encourage and celebrate dissent.
about 5 years ago
Hi Francis,
A warm welcome to you! Thanks for dropping by my humble site.
I think you are spot on about NUS being like a factory. I think NUS is growing too big for its own good. Class sizes are humongous. You can get 300-400 people in a lecture theatre. Tutorial numbers can go as high as 25 – 30 people. How does one develop depth if the teachers can’t give enough attention?
By the way, were you from NUS?
about 5 years ago
No I’m not from NUS.
Lecture sizes per se shouldn’t be a big distinguishing factor. Even Harvard, Penn, Stanford, etc. all have lectures that hold hundreds, especially at the lower undergrad levels. I truly think that vibrancy of a campus makes a world of difference. Beyond just the strict university curriculums per se there’s a lot ore that students can learn from beyond the strict lecture hall – NUS can replicate Oxford’s or Princeton’s academic schedule to the letter, and students can even perform better in exams, it still does not make up for this aspect. When you step out of a regular class at an Ivy university for example, you can sit in on a talk by Kofi Anan in the campus green, or take part in student protests about the inaction of the international community on the plight of refugees in Sudan, or listen to a reading by a Nobel prize-winning poet, or attend an open lecture by a CEO of a Fortune 100 company, or enjoy a string quartet performance, etc. In many ways, you get LKY Distinguished Speaker quality talks happening at least weekly that people take it for granted. Socially, you can end up hanging out with a fellow students from any of over 100 countries and the experience and ties you’ll attain are priceless. When a university gets to the point where top leaders in various fields – political, social, arts, academic, business, research, cultural, etc. – find it beneficial or even prestigious for them to speak or participate in a school, then it’s a clear sign that that university has arrived.
Not to knock NUS at all. Over time it can only improve and has already achieved a lot for it’s relatively short life. But grasping at rankings to justify one’s excellence has an ironic feel of insecurity and rationalization.
about 5 years ago
I suppose you are from and Ivy League institution? You seem to have seen alot, and it puts me and my relatively poor knowledge of other universities to shame. The only knowledge I have about other universities is a week long student conference to the UK.
about 5 years ago
Francis obviously has many pertinent points for discussion. But I think what he said, is already subconsciously known for anyone who has studied overseas. I just couldn’t phrase it as well or give so many good examples =(
Its true that Singapore Unis attract mostly regional talents and Unis in America for example attract talent from everywhere in the world. This point is already a dead giveaway that the proposition of an education on this little island isn’t as attractive.
I reiterate that the image of a country and its multiracial diversity affect how it pulls foreign talent. If I were to go to University of London, I would definately be able to locate some Singaporeans for easy fitting in (if not ,Malaysian Chinese are close enough). Imagine if a student from Croatia were to come here, my gosh, he would be a lonely person.
I’m not saying NUS is bad or whatever, I’m just saying we lose out on many other factors, so many that ranking becomes redundant. Would you want to go to the best UNI in the world, if it was in the antartica? I think not.
about 5 years ago
Hi Aaron, FY recommended your blog to me and I think I know Clarence Tan as well. I’m the publications secretary of PSSOC, and I have put in some thought about NUS and the quality of education here.
I believe in the role of the university, especially the top university in a country, to shape and mould citizens to become leaders in society. Whether its starting businesses that will eventually lead to job creation and better welfare, spearheading new forms of art and increasing the cultural diversity in a country, engaging in public discourse, or even taking up office in the higher echelons of power.
But with the idea of the university as a factory to add use-value to the only resource available to Singapore, i.e. labour, there is no incentive to socialise undergraduates to become better people, only better workers. Hence, it falls to the students leaders to make the difference in increasing student unity, student interaction, student activity that binds students as a whole, and helps them understand the role of the citizen beyond his daily routine.
Campusobserver.org helps to make a difference. It is what we need, almost exactly. However, my main criticism is that it needs to have more “hard news” stories, which I understand is due to a lack of manpower. Stories such as “Distasteful posters turn students off” while useful and has that controversial edge to sell stories and gain popularity, are more in line with the “60 minutes” kind of reporting, and not “8 o clock News”.
Then why hard news? We need hard facts about how many activities are going on in campus, how many people turn up, which societies are active. So that we can accurately gauge trends in student society, and gain proper mental picture of student society. That means that we need hard stories both in bulk and in quality.
Not many people are going to read them, and its going to be difficult work trying to get information, but eventually the knowledge will eventually trickle down to everybody, so that people know that things are going on. While we lack sufficient quantity of events, awareness should temporarily make up for it. (unless you want to count the countless bazaars in the forum an “event”)
Then we need to put student leaders, who are really up to making campus life more vibrant, in power. We need to make sure that the vision is shared among other students. Currently, its just not the thing to do, to sit down and talk about ideas with some people you only marginally know, or to just walk into talks. We need to put that into society, and student leaders need to inculcate that into their friends and juniors to do so.
That means, for the moment, that intersociety cooperation must increase. There are three societies which are directly related to politics in NUS, a well-funded Political Association, a struggling Political Science Society and the fledgling Democratic Socialist Club. We need student leaders from each society to work with each other, get each others’ members to attend each others’ events. Then we build a culture of discussion and activity.
My ideas are mostly here.
AAAANNNDDD i need to get back to my books.
about 5 years ago
Hi Jian,
Thanks for popping by. I appreciate your view on student politics and Campus Observer. I do agree that we need more hard news. However, I hope you can understand that a newspaper cannot make news. We can only report them. And reporting means people must be willing to allow us reporters to be observers and write our observations. However, we have been facing numerous obstacles because students and administrators are afraid of us. They are afraid because we refuse to compromise editorial integrity and let them read stories before we publish. We strive to provide real news, but people are so conditioned to ST style that they don’t want to talk to us because we do not bow to them.
This aside, the main point of that entry was about whether we are indeed world class, because even our own leaders don’t regard us as being world class. That’s something baffling, and I think that it’s something that’s very sad. Maybe you would like to respond to this.
about 5 years ago
Then I think that it falls on us as the students to make it world class. We can’t wait for them to change, and frankly with the whole paternalistic PAP-domination of parliament, its going to take more than we can chew.
I see several ways to act to try to make structural change to address: we need to address corporate NUS, and political NUS. That means we need to get somebody on the board of directors of NUS on our side and fight for us. Otherwise politically, it means something on the lines of getting a new education minister. We need a way to change policy, and that’s biting off a lot more than we can chew.
If there was a concept of “World class university” that could be measured like democracy, then the dimension of “public student life” would probably be the lacking factor.
Therefore the argument for more hard news reportage and student leaders exists. Sorry for not showing the link. Well, I think at least in the social sciences a good public student life helps ideas breed among students, and sooner or later that produces more people with better, and even original ideas. That’s why its hard for NUS to lead in the advancement of the social sciences and humanities. And if we’re spearheading in both global social research and in the humanities, then isn’t that world-class?
But I don’t see the need for understanding NUS as a world-class university except for PR. I’m here now, I’m not going elsewhere, so I’m going to do my part for this university no matter where it ranks on THES, or any other survey, or how much a world-class university it is, or how much the system regards us to be. Sure, they want to make money out of my effort trying to improve it, but hell I’d rather have more intelligent and truly educated people in the world than not.
about 5 years ago
Yo Shawn, Aaron..
PRC/Indian don’t dominate the top students list for our batch (2001-2005).. Singaporeans eventually ended up being in the top 10-20 of the cohort!
about 2 years ago
It is the people that makes an organisation tick and so it is in the local university. Unless we make it happen collectively it is not going to happen overnight.
The UK and USA and even Australian University system are far more established and have a long history. They went through many pitfalls like what we are experiencing. The fundamentals and key is you are not going to hang your degress round your neck and say I am from Oxford, UCLA or NUS. It is your contribution that comes from a deep seated conviction that we can make it happen.
I often tell my students when I was teaching in the Polytechnic that the most important thing to do is to assure we aspire to make things happen and often quote a statement which was often repeated in many a valedictorain speeches that my students gave and that is 10 percent make things happen 20% watch things happen and 70% do not know what happened. Most university students do make things happen but they are not the only ones. Even one without even a uni-education can be someone.
So let us not quibble over minor issues like this university is world class and ours is not. What is important is have you a deep conviction and the inner reserve to make things happen. A univseity degree is nothing more than a entry ticket to a job. What you do and contribute thereafter is a combination of human values, the ability to get along and motivate and many other soft and intangible values that are seldom found in books.
So do cheer up and remember nature has a way of balancing things up.
To one and all do your best and leave the rest. University education and whether it is world class or not is not the issue – how to see things in perspective and with a deep conviction and belief make it happen and that is what you have to contend with.
life is short. Live it to the fullest. All the very best.
about 2 months ago
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