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Western universities…
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American universities……….what next?
As proven by the late Dr Goh KS [LSE] and the late LKY [Cambridge Uni], they came back well educated/trained by the West and combining it with Eastern values, they beat the West at their own game by transforming this barren rock of 713 sq km into an economic powerhouse and successful financial miracle in less than 30 years [1965 to 1995].
Now, Trump is shutting the American uni doors on PRC’s students. Where should they go to?
The brilliant young students need Western education but from Trump’s action, he is not promoting universal uni education for the sake of all mankind due to his selfishness and his mission to make America Great again.
I hope red dot will become the centre to attract bright students from Asia and the world to study in red dot.
It is time to allow in more unis to set up their branch unis here be it Harvard Singapore, MIT Singapore, LSE Singapore, Cambridge Singapore or Princeton Singapore. It is time to build upward not to say digging deep and building downward too.
There must be a market in uni education for red dot to capitalise on and prepare for greater things to come post-COVID-19.
This is a new niche education-business that red dot must not miss this once-in-a-life time golden opportunity.
This is ‘a uni-industry’ that will require both hard and softwares that Singapore must capitalise on to attract many of the best unis to set up shop here with win-win arrangements for both the Eastern and Western civilisations to establish a progressive and yet challenging 21st century.
Are we ready?
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Be the next Hub in red dot? What? How?
Will Singapore be able to encourage and attract some 10,000 top richest multi billionaires to bring their wealth and reside on this rock of 713 sq km with 5.5 million people.
We wait.
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Why university rankings are pointless exercises for students in Singapore
A number of prominent universities have spoken out against such rankings, which cannot measure the multifaceted goals of higher education.
Jason Tan
A number of prestigious US university law and medical schools have withdrawn from the US News & World Report ranking tables. PHOTO: AFP
UPDATED 30 MAR 2023, 4:24 PM SGT in Straits Times.
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A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail asking me to participate in an academic reputation survey for an organisation producing international university ranking tables. Soon after, The Straits Times reported that the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) had been rated the top universities in Asia based on the QS or Quacquarelli Symonds rankings by subject areas involving 1,594 universities in 93 countries and territories. A similar report in 2022 recapped how both also ranked well in the QS World University Rankings.
There are several other international ranking tables – like those published by Times Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and US News & World Report. A key claim made by these organisations producing such tables is that they serve as guides to help students select universities and courses.
Many universities around the world await the publication of each round of ranking tables anxiously. They know the results come with high stakes, and may serve to boost a university’s international standing and inform its strategic goals.
Prospective employers may watch these rankings closely as they make hiring or deployment decisions. They may also shape some prospective students’ decisions over what and where to study.
These choices are increasingly vital as universities compete for students in the lucrative international student market. Market intelligence firm HolonIQ estimates that six million to nine million international students will enrol in foreign higher education institutions, with spending amounting to US$433 billion (S$575 billion) by 2030.
Move to jettison international university rankings
Yet in more recent years, a number of prestigious US university law and medical schools – like those at Harvard (both of which ranked among the top 10 in their respective fields) – as well as a few undergraduate schools have withdrawn from the US News & World Report ranking tables.
The ranking system simply ran against key institutional values, including a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, they argued.
Professor Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former president of George Washington University, was also cited in a 2019 CNN report as saying that “schools feel pressure to game the rankings”.
How international university rankings are conducted
The reality is that such rankings are rarely scientific studies drawing clear conclusions. The trouble lies with the computation of scores.
Most focus on broadly similar performance indicators, albeit with differing weightages being accorded to the various indicators.
The QS 2023 rankings used indicators relating to academic reputation (teaching and research quality), employer reputation (how well universities prepare students for successful careers, and which universities provide competent, innovative and effective graduates), faculty/student ratio, academic citations per faculty member, international student ratio and international faculty ratio.
Part of this rankings data is also obtained through potentially subjective surveys based on sentiments or incomplete knowledge. The QS academic reputation survey is sent to thousands of academics around the world each year. Respondents are asked which country/territory and geographical region they are most familiar with.
They are then asked to provide, among other things, their individual nominations of top domestic and international institutions they think produce top research in their faculty area.
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Such international ranking tables have attracted a great deal of criticism from academic researchers and universities in recent years.
In 2020, Malaysian academics Muhammad Ashraf Fauzi, Christine Tan, Mahyuddin Daud and Muhammad Mukhtar Noor Awalludin demonstrated how the methodologies employed in ranking exercises can be prone to flaws, in a journal article in Issues In Educational Research.
Historically prestigious universities such as Cambridge and Oxford tend to have higher ratings. Western universities operating in English tend to receive higher rankings than their non-Western counterparts – even domestically prestigious institutions such as the National Taiwan University (ranked 77 in the latest QS tables) – reflecting the possibility that survey respondents tend to think of the more internationally prestigious universities that teach in English as superior.
A second problem arises because these tables do not reflect the varied purposes of higher education. Differences in each university’s key objectives in research, teaching and community service, and the great diversity of programmes offered in universities worldwide make it a pointless exercise to compare apples with oranges, durians and tomatoes.
A more poorly ranked university – such as Universiti Malaya – may excel in teaching or in other qualities contributing to nation-building compared with universities with higher rankings. Yet, such rankings compare different types of universities as though they are identical and accord equal weightages to all of their functions and educational offerings.
Even if we assume they are directly comparable, making the composite score meaningful, the nature of ranking tables magnifies minuscule differences in scores and separate institutions with similar scores by many numerical positions in the tables.
A third issue is that the tables fail to adequately indicate the processes and outcomes related to quality teaching and learning, and that students’ opinions are hardly, if ever, solicited in this regard.
A fourth major criticism is the heavy weightage accorded to research and institutional reputation rather than focusing on teaching quality. Academic Woo Jun Jie argued in a 2018 CNA commentary that this skewed emphasis on research may come at the cost of teaching quality as universities seeking to ascend the ranking tables are incentivised to devote extensive resources towards boosting research outcomes at the expense of adult learning.
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askST: How can I make use of university rankings?
Some perspective on university rankings
Such rankings are rarely helpful for prospective students. The process of selecting a university, course of study and concentration, whether local or overseas, depends on a complex mix of factors.
Besides examination scores, personal interests and passions, parental aspirations and the amount of comprehensive information about the range of available options both within and outside of Singapore, other factors may include financial circumstances, family circumstances and peer influence. Some students may also consider fields that they believe are emerging areas of demand in the job market.
Much also depends on a prospective student’s life stage and purpose in pursuing higher education. Individuals with full-time jobs deciding whether to embark on a degree programme might likely give more consideration to the pros and cons of a full-time versus a part-time degree, in view of the opportunity cost involved in forgoing their income, compared with students fresh out of junior college or polytechnic.
Adult students must think more carefully about the implications for their families and financial commitments in giving up a job for a full-time degree programme.
And what are students to think of those among the six publicly funded autonomous universities, as well as the programmes in the autonomous universities, that have not been highly ranked, vis-a-vis those that have? It would be patently ridiculous to assume that those in the former category are somehow inferior and not worth serious consideration on the basis of this one point.
In their 2017 CNA commentary, academics Pang Eng Fong and Linda Lim highlghted the lack of empirical studies linking university rankings with student outcomes such as post-graduation job placement or salary rates. They also noted that international students did not appear to prefer the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to the Singapore Management University (SMU) and other unranked universities, choosing their universities instead for a range of other reasons including costs and scholarship availability.
Singapore’s varied university landscape
University rankings are also less useful in aiding Singapore students to navigate the diverse local university landscape.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) website indicates that these six universities can be grouped into two categories: more academically focused, research-intensive universities (the NUS, the NTU, the SMU and the Singapore University of Technology and Design, with the first two being comprehensive and the next two being specialised) and those that provide applied-degree pathways, with more hands-on experience and industry exposure (the Singapore Institute of Technology and the Singapore University of Social Sciences).
In addition, there are also a number of programmes by private educational institutes such as the Singapore Institute of Management and Curtin University.
The diversity of providers within Singapore in terms of their institutional missions and programme offerings cannot possibly be captured in the ranking tables.
Thankfully, the QS website acknowledges the rankings are merely a starting point that cannot replace individual decision-making based on further research and information-gathering through exploring university websites, speaking to alumni and attending open-day events. Students should do their own homework rather than rely on ranking tables to light the way for them.
Similarly, employers today consider a range of other factors besides these institutional rankings when assessing the merits of job applicants and current employees. A range of non-academic skills and attributes – such as leadership qualities and communication abilities – not covered by the ranking tables matter.
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How many uni places are there for S’poreans? Is there a quota for poly grads?
8 tips on how to get the most out of university life
Growing emphasis on upskilling and mental health
These ranking leagues are even less useful for local autonomous universities, as the educational landscape evolves to embrace larger goals of creating more pathways to success and empowering individuals to reach their fuller potential through upskilling.
A prominent theme emerging in recent years in Singapore discourse is that of broadening the definition of success, and moving away from a meritocracy of grades towards a meritocracy of skills.
There is an official drive to encourage multiple entry points to study for Singaporeans from varying ages and backgrounds, while making sure that a university education remains accessible and affordable. MOE has encouraged universities to provide students with options to customise degree programmes and expand the range of modules for adult learners. Another theme is the need for individuals to take charge of their learning.
In addition to the need to promote an understanding of, and interaction with, the world beyond Singapore, other issues include the encouragement of interdisciplinary learning and the need for universities to nurture graduates who define success in terms of their contributions to the wider society.
For this to work, cooperation rather than competition among the local universities is needed.
Speaking at the Straits Times Education Forum in February 2022, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing urged the six autonomous universities to operate as a single team, collaborating with one another and building on one another’s strengths. His remarks contrast with the tendency for the ranking tables to engender a zero-sum game mentality, where one university’s rise is accomplished only at another’s fall.
On another front, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has brought into focus the importance of addressing issues related to students’ mental well-being. The pandemic has also left in its wake questions about the adequacy of home-based learning as an alternative to face-to-face instruction, thus highlighting the importance of examining the merits of diverse instructional modes.
The autonomous universities have to, therefore, move beyond the limits imposed by international ranking tables, pursue their distinctive educational missions and find fields where cooperation with the rest is of mutual interest.
While the results of ranking exercises may prove helpful in the short term in terms of boosting institutional prestige, attracting research funding and attracting prospective students, it makes more sense instead to set independent priorities in the light of more pressing national priorities.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Columbia University drops from second to 18 in influential US college ranking
Demand in Singapore for overseas studies starting to pick up as border controls ease
A Singapore ranking table?
Some have asked whether MOE should devise its own ranking tables for the autonomous universities based on criteria more attuned to the Singapore context.
An immediate question would be the extent to which these desired outcomes can be quantified, when such ranking tables have proven poor in lending themselves well to quantification and measurement.
A related question concerns the desirability of subjecting the universities to yet more ranking, a practice likely to leave universities, students and employers grappling with yet more issues related to the adequacy of the ranking tables, at a time when secondary school and junior college rankings have been abolished.
In the final analysis, it is probably time for all of us to break the habit of reading more into the international ranking tables than they can tell us about what really matters in higher education.
This includes higher education’s primary functions at both the individual and collective levels: as a means of personal growth and development, a vehicle of social mobility and national prosperity, and a driver of service for the wider public good.
Jason Tan is Associate Professor in Policy, Curriculum and Leadership at the National Institute of Education.
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Is it all about money…even for educating the super smart?
Why are are SWOTs of both: Yale-NUS to be closed by 2025; and the new College with Yale yet to be named?
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A story undone: Yale-NUS and the future of liberal arts in Singapore
A response to NUS president Tan Eng Chye, from three Yale-NUS alumni.
Tee Zhuo, Melody Madhavan and Ng Yi Ming
Yale-NUS College will be shut down when it is “merged” with NUS’ University Scholars Programme.ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
PUBLISHEDSEP 11, 2021, 8:49 PM SGT in Straits Times.
SINGAPORE – In 2008, a Ministry of Education (MOE) committee proposed a bold experiment: To create the first liberal arts college in Singapore.
In a report aptly titled “Greater Choice, More Room to Excel”, the committee noted that such a college should have a small cohort size and be autonomously governed. It would offer a “broad-based, multidisciplinary undergraduate programme” to help Singapore develop well-rounded, versatile individuals with a passion for inquiry and knowledge.
More than a decade later, that dream is a reality – Yale-NUS College (YNC).
Excelling across multiple fields, employed at top organisations, winning coveted postgraduate scholarships, and flying the Singapore flag high wherever they go, its graduates have surpassed the aims of the experiment. In the words of National University of Singapore (NUS) president Tan Eng Chye himself, the college is “without equal” and “a great success”.
Despite this, in a shock announcement made two weeks ago, the school will be shut down when it is “merged” with NUS’ University Scholars Programme (USP).
Last Saturday, Professor Tan, in a commentary for The Straits Times, reiterated that the main aim of the merger was to expand interdisciplinary liberal arts education and make it more inclusive for the rest of NUS. But he also pointed to the college’s finances. Yale-NUS, he said, had not met its endowment targets, and was expensive to run. In other words, closing Yale-NUS is not just a noble move to increase access to education, it is also a financially prudent one.
But a closer look shows that it is premature to decide that the college is financially unsustainable. The proposed result of the merger, temporarily named New College, also does not achieve what Prof Tan and NUS claim it will do.
Prof Tan wrote that Yale-NUS had raised less than $80 million of its intended target of $300 million in endowed donations to build a sustainable overall endowment of $1 billion. This seems, at first glance, to be a valid point that throws the college’s future into doubt.
Yet Yale vice-president for global strategy Pericles Lewis told Yale Daily News (YDN), the university’s student-run publication, that the motivation for the closure was not financial. Former Yale president Richard Levin was even more direct: “If people are saying that finances were the issue, they’re simply incorrect.”
What accounts for the seemingly contradictory viewpoints? A report in YDN last Tuesday revealed that the $300 million fund-raising target was set for the year 2030.
This crucial detail, the timeline to meet financial targets, is noticeably absent in Prof Tan’s commentary.
With almost a decade to go, Prof Levin said the gap could be “easily closed” with more fund-raising efforts, and would have required only “a small fraction” of what Yale raises in a year. In other words, raising about $20 million a year for the next 10 years is not exactly much in the world of university endowments.
To put things in perspective, top liberal arts colleges in the United States that have at least US$1 billion (S$1.34 billion) in endowment, such as Williams College or Amherst College, are over 200 years old.
Yale-NUS was expected to achieve the same total endowment in a tenth of the time.
Put into that context, Yale-NUS has done admirably in terms of fund raising – of course, with the generous help of the Singapore Government.
The new NUS: Amplifying the University Scholars Programme and Yale-NUS story
NUS president to hold online townhall meeting with parents of Yale-NUS students
But it does not seem the college has explored all its funding options.
The YDN reported that Yale had made it clear it wanted to continue with Yale-NUS.
While neither parent institution has so far aided much in fund raising, Professor Levin said this was “about to change”. But with the closure presented by NUS as a done deal, Yale did not “really (have) an opportunity to keep the college going on its own terms”, he added.
There are other methods available to fund the college without burdening the taxpayer.
In a recent piece for Academia.Sg, Singaporean economist Linda Lim and a former dean at the Singapore Management University Pang Eng Fong said donations from wealthy alumni overwhelmingly form the core of donations for established liberal arts colleges in the US.
In the Singapore context, Yale-NUS needs time to grow the donor base. While outstanding in their own right, Yale-NUS’ first few graduating classes are still a small group of people in their 20s. They are hardly in a position to afford six-figure, much less seven-figure, donations to their alma mater.
Additionally, reports stated Yale had brainstormed various other solutions, including increasing student intake and fees. It seems premature to decide the college is not financially sustainable before other options had been fully explored.
The point of Yale-NUS was never to replace or add a conventional local programme, but to provide a unique offering to the local education landscape that could compete internationally. PHOTO: ST FILE
Prof Tan also claimed that the college was too expensive. “The resources required to operate Yale-NUS are much higher than we had planned,” he wrote.
Once again, the issue is context and perspective.
By way of explaining the high costs, Prof Tan pointed to the fact that Yale-NUS has a much lower student to faculty ratio (8:1) – common for liberal arts colleges – compared with the USP (12:1) and NUS (17:1).
But this is comparing apples with oranges. Prof Tan himself noted, for example, that USP would not be considered a liberal arts college but an honours college in the US. An honours college provides supplemental or alternative programmes, that can be curricular or extracurricular.
The point of Yale-NUS was never to replace or add a conventional local programme, but to provide a unique offering to the local education landscape that could compete internationally.
MOE’s 2008 report said a local liberal arts college would be “an attractive alternative to bright students who currently look overseas” for a similar education, and added that it would enhance Singapore’s reputation as a regional and global education hub on “the cutting edge of higher education”.
A fairer comparison would thus be against other top small liberal arts colleges abroad.
Take the top five such colleges in the US by a US News ranking. Tuition can cost beyond US$60,000 before room and board, four times more than for a Singaporean attending Yale-NUS (S$20,750).
So yes, Yale-NUS is more expensive than other local programmes. But when judged against its intended aims and competitors, Yale-NUS is quite cost efficient.
NUS initiated talks on merger of Yale-NUS with scholars programme in July
What’s behind the decision to close Yale-NUS College?
New, but not a liberal arts college
One might argue that regardless of these issues, the New College could still ensure “broader access” by “scaling up” an “inclusive interdisciplinary liberal arts education”, as Prof Tan and NUS have repeatedly said.
However, the New College has a proposed intake of 500 students a year, about equal to the Yale-NUS and USP combined (roughly 250 each). There is no “scaling up”.
As for “broader access” and being inclusive, Prof Tan failed to provide any information on the financial aid options.
In comparison, Yale-NUS has a needs-blind admissions policy for Singaporeans. Prof Tan himself pointed out that the majority of Yale-NUS students are on financial aid, which also means access for a large number of students from lower-income backgrounds.
But the real problem is a conflation of liberal arts with interdisciplinary education.
The USP has certainly provided an excellent interdisciplinary education for the past 20 years and, as Prof Tan noted, NUS has been on a “road map” to expand this since 2018.
A liberal arts college, however, goes beyond being interdisciplinary. In its 2008 report, MOE explicitly laid out what a liberal arts college model would look like. Factors included a high endowment, small overall cohort, a low faculty to student ratio and, importantly, governance autonomy from NUS to secure the college’s interests.
But far from autonomy, the New College will not have a dedicated faculty or its own majors. Instead, students will, like other NUS students, choose their major or specialisation from existing schools and faculties within NUS.
Yale-NUS closure: Employers say job prospects of graduates remain bright
NUS must keep the best elements of Yale-NUS brand of education
The intense and close-knit interaction between students and faculty inside and outside the classroom, so integral to the success of liberal arts colleges, will also be lost.
Prof Tan pointed out that the student to faculty ratio at the rest of NUS is 17 to one. A low ratio, however, is a distinctive hallmark of a liberal arts college.
Amherst College, Williams College and Pomona College all have fewer than 2,000 undergraduates, with eight or fewer students to one faculty member.
Professor Lim and Professor Pang pointed out that the stated objective of “scaling up” the benefits of the Yale-NUS model through the merger with USP was problematic.
“The essence of the liberal arts college pedagogical model… is limited scale,” they wrote. And it is the ecosystem of “intangibles” that arise from this fundamental nature of a liberal arts college education that generate “the positive externalities from which employers, and other societal actors, benefit”, they added.
The truth, then, is that New College will not expand liberal arts. It will “merge” the only liberal arts college available in Singapore out of existence.
Yale-NUS College closure: Cool the fire, but don’t let it burn out
Yale-NUS closure: Why we lost more than just four letters
Missing ‘steps’
Yale-NUS took five years to plan. The faculty of the New College has been given less than a year to plan its curriculum before the school is slated to accept new students.
New College currently has no admissions policy, not even a website – calling into question Prof Tan’s claims that it is a “very considered” strategic initiative.
Prof Tan sees the New College as the “Third Step”, indicating a progression from the previous “steps” of other mergers such as that of the College of Humanities and Sciences.
If this third step seems rather shaky, it is because, like the other mergers, several steps are missing. One such step is the proper consultation of stakeholders such as the senior administration, including the president of the very college one is trying to close.
The lack of consultation has since resulted in massive backlash, including from parents and alumni, and a petition by NUS and Yale-NUS students against such top-down decision-making that has garnered over 14,400 signatures.
As ST associate editor Chua Mui Hoong wrote in her Friday Home Ground column, the decision “smacks of hubris, a disregard for institutional autonomy and a total lack of respect and trust for the individuals involved”.
She also rightly pointed out that such “high-handed decision-making is guaranteed to foment distrust and cynicism, loosen cohesion and drive a wedge between leaders and people”, and called on NUS to treat staff, faculty and students like equal partners. This would be a first step towards weaving one of the “strongest attributes” of Yale-NUS into the new college’s DNA, she added.
Yale-NUS students unhappy, anxious over merger plans
Timeline of Yale-NUS College
Yale-NUS students and alumni are more than happy to embrace this spirit. But a partnership can only be equal by starting with respect and transparency.
Several key questions remain unanswered. First, why was Yale-NUS’ president and leadership not consulted, especially since the college’s finances were involved? If finances are the issue, would it not be short-sighted to forget the millions already invested, yet to be given the time to completely bear fruit?
Second, what, if any, was the review process to shut down Yale-NUS, given it has met or exceeded most of the goals set out in the 2008 MOE report? Were other options considered to retain a real liberal arts college in Singapore, and, if so, what were they?
Now that students have at least got some sense of the finances, can they be mobilised into a role to support fund-raising efforts that will save their school?
NUS’ Prof Tan and the senior administration must address these questions.
Stakeholders cannot throw their support behind a new entity, given the lack of transparency and consultation displayed thus far.
A new Singapore liberal arts college
A student at Yale-NUS College on Aug 31, 2021. The 240 freshmen who enrolled at Yale-NUS last month will be its final cohort of students. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Finally, the most important question: Will there be a liberal arts college Singapore can call its own?
Yale-NUS has demonstrated that such an institution can be highly successful, competitive and meet the vision set out by Singapore’s leaders, who recognised its importance to our national interests.
They were right. Numerous Yale-NUS students are contributing directly across the public service, including Public Service Commission and President’s Scholars.
Thus, the college has already developed “well-rounded leaders… versatile enough to be successful at the highest levels… in a rapidly changing world”, as envisioned by the 2008 MOE report.
As recently as 2019, then Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said in Parliament that “a liberal arts school like YNC will have a place in Singapore’s education landscape”.
Before him, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had articulated his hopes for a liberal arts college that belonged to Singapore, and is relevant to Asia.
While the decision to withdraw from the partnership with Yale is regrettable, this can also be an opportunity to start afresh, to create a liberal arts college that retains not the Yale name but elements actually vital to the success of the Yale-NUS educational model.
Universities need to tear down subject silos
One undergrad, two disciplines: Can a student master both arts and science?
To achieve this, an idea which deserves further study is to establish a Singaporean liberal arts college as a seventh autonomous university.
Policymakers should consider exploring with the college’s alumni – the main products of Singapore’s ground-breaking liberal arts experiment – the feasibility of such a project.
It is not too late to retain a true liberal arts college as envisioned by our nation’s leaders.
One that would, as PM Lee said, offer an education that is “one-of-its-kind in the world”, continuing Yale-NUS’ legacy in bridging the best of East and West while marking Singapore on the world map as a global leader in higher education.
Policymakers can still ensure that future generations of Singaporeans will reap the benefits of what a liberal arts college education in Singapore can offer; and with it all the benefits that will accrue to the country and beyond in the years to come.
Tee Zhuo graduated from Yale-NUS College in 2018 and works at The Business Times. Melody Madhavan was part of Yale-NUS’ inaugural batch, the Class of 2017. She works in marketing. Ng Yi Ming graduated this year. He is pursuing a master’s in Urban Science, Policy and Planning at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Over 10,000 sign petition calling for reversal of Yale-NUS merger
Workers’ Party MPs file parliamentary questions on merger involving Yale-NUS
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Self education. I know what it is like as I have nothing… No GCE 0, no A level, no ITE, no poly, no uni. Nothing. Don’t worry, be happy. Not easy. Tough but possible.
Self education. You can if you put all in one: be the teacher, be the tutor, be the student, the researcher, the marker of the lessons/exams on the self. Self teach and self mark. Not easy. Tough. Hard work. Discipline. Self motivated. Self achiever.
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PUBLISHED
MAR 6, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT in Straits Times.
The memories of my A-level results day have mostly faded, but I’ll never forget how it felt when I opened my results slip.
I had scored U or Ungraded for three out of six subjects – the lowest grade one can get.
The feeling of despair reminded me of what my form teacher had said to my mother in secondary school. “Your daughter is like a stock that has plunged to rock bottom in the market and will never rise again,” he told her.
I had failed four out of seven subjects in the Secondary 3 mid-year examinations back then. It broke my mother’s heart to hear those words. I, too, felt shattered.
Studying was never one of my strengths – the only subject that I consistently scored well in was English.
Reading news about the release of this year’s A-level results brought back a flood of memories about my own school days.
The A-level results were released on Feb 22. About 93.5 per cent or 10,353 students who took the A levels in 2021 amid the Covid-19 pandemic had obtained a pass.
A total of 11,070 students sat the exam last year, which means 717 students had not made it.
I am writing this column for those who failed their exams, or those who did much more badly than they had anticipated, and to let them know that all is not lost.
Looking at a results slip that you know will not open doors to any university can cause any student to crumble, especially in Singapore, where success is largely measured by our academic performance.
After working hard in Secondary 3 and 4, I managed to get into a junior college (JC). Once admitted, I felt pressured to take the mathematics and science subject combination, even though I had no aptitude for those subjects.
The common perception is that Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects offer better job prospects. At the age of 17, I was too afraid to deviate from society’s mould of success. I ended up taking economics, mathematics, chemistry and geography.
But by the second chemistry lecture, I was lost.
What followed was two years of low self-esteem as I struggled to keep up in classes. I would hide in toilets on campus to cry as I failed test after test.
On my A-level results day, I walked into the school hall to collect my results, prepared for the worst. But no amount of mental preparation could ready me for my results slip. Despite studying 10 to 12 hours a day, I had failed my A levels.
I really felt the way my teacher had predicted – that I had hit rock bottom.
Many people say that the A-level route is the easier route to university, but what fewer people tell you is that the certification cannot get you employment if you fail to make it to university.
I stubbornly retook the A levels the following year as a private candidate with the same subjects.
I still did not pass.
I felt that I could only blame myself for naively wanting to fit into the known path of success instead of finding my own path.
While retaking my A levels, I watched as my peers moved on with their lives to pursue degrees and other goals.
My mother then suggested that I enrol in a local polytechnic to pursue media and communication studies. After all, as my JC form teacher had reminded me after I failed the first time, not all hope is lost.
Although I was reluctant, remembering my childhood dream of becoming a reporter made me take the leap of faith.
I took my mother’s suggestion and, for the first time, I liked what I did in school.
We captured the journey of National Day Parade participants through videos of their rehearsals and performances.
There was freedom to decide what we wanted to do for projects – we were not constrained by answer keys or model essays.
We even followed ghost hunters – people who collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity – on one of their night-time excursions for a magazine interview.
Having a clear goal of becoming a journalist also gave me a strong motivation to do well. It was more meaningful to me than blindly wanting to do well in tests for good grades.
My A-level journey, which lasted three years, had felt like an endless marathon in a dark tunnel, but my polytechnic journey made me feel like I had reached the light at the end of the tunnel.
What also helped was meeting lecturers who were approachable and forming a close-knit group of friends in school who supported me through tough times.
The students I met in polytechnic came from all walks of life. They did not necessarily get stellar results, but a number of them had dreams that extended beyond doing well in school, such as starting their own businesses.
After three years, I had performed well enough to go to university. I cried tears of happiness upon seeing the acceptance letter from Nanyang Technological University to study English literature.
I may have hit rock bottom at 18, but it was not the end.
Of course, the journey was not entirely a bed of roses. I met my fair share of people who mocked me for being a few years older than my peers in school.
I constantly felt like I was playing catch-up – the feeling of being behind people my age was always at the back of my mind.
It was difficult to accept setbacks after failing my A levels twice.
It took me a long time before I could come to terms with failing tests or not getting to the next round of a job selection.
During university orientation, I met a schoolmate who had gone to the Institute of Technical Education before progressing to polytechnic and university.
When he shared his experience, someone commented: “You must be one of the success stories.”
Although it was a compliment, it showed how people may narrowly define success as going to university.
In December last year, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said there was a need to reduce emphasis on academics as a measure of success. The country can do so by embracing a diversity of talents and encouraging young people to pursue the path that might be less travelled, he said.
Failing my A levels taught me that there is no dead end in life. If one path does not work out, there are always other paths.
In my case, I managed to get internships at The Straits Times before and throughout my university years, before landing a full-time position as a journalist at the newspaper after graduation.
The job is not easy, but I am deeply thankful for how it connects me with people I would otherwise never have spoken to.
Comparison is natural – but I realised that maybe I was comparing myself with the wrong people.
The best person you can compare yourself with is your past self. As long as you keep moving in the right direction, that is good enough.
We can all soar in our own way.
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Who will teach the young?
Who will teach them to grow up as brilliant young adults, and who will not end up in court or in jail?
Do educators and parents know what is Complete Whole Person Education to nurture kids and to bring them up as brilliant young adults?
What is the missing link?
Learning from younger Singaporeans about building community
Yale-NUS models how to give everyone a stake in building a shared future.
I find it remarkable that Yale-NUS students see themselves as equal partners to faculty and staff in shaping the school’s future.PHOTO: ST FILE
PUBLISHED3 HOURS AGO on 19th Sept 2021 in Sunday Times.
The older I get, the more I realise I need to learn from people younger than me.
The recent debate over the closure of Yale-NUS College has reminded me of a time, some three years ago, when I worked closely with two of its graduates and a few other young journalists on a weekly column series designed to be a platform for their voices, and which we tagged
#OOTD for Opinion of the Day.
After about a year, I had to let them know that having taken on a new role at work, I no longer had time to edit their columns, so they would need to work with another editor.
They asked to see me in person and that caused me no small amount of anxiety, as I anticipated having to defend my decision to a group of vocal, unhappy millennials.
What happened instead was nothing of the sort.
When we met, they brought a bouquet of flowers and a thank-you card on which one of them had hand-written the headlines of all the columns we had worked on together.
I was gobsmacked, though not quite flabbergasted.
I remember we took a couple of photos and chatted for a while, a short while as it was a work day.
Last year, when speaking to a friend, I was surprised to find myself moved to tears by the memory of that incident, and the generosity shown to me by my younger colleagues.
If what we built then had shades of a community, albeit a short-lived one, they deserve the lion’s share of the credit for the work they put in.
Still, I am struck by how the word “community” came up during a recent lunch conversation with one of the bunch, and again in the column by another, journalist Timothy Goh, who wrote about the impending closure of his college and described Yale-NUS as “more than a school, it was a home”.
A community is a group of people with something in common. They might live in the same area, as in a local community; they might share an interest, as many virtual communities do; or they might share a set of beliefs, as in the case of a religious community.
When we speak of community, I think what matters is that the people involved feel a sense of belonging; they feel that there is a place for them and that their presence and contributions are valued by other members of the group.
It is this aspect of community building that stands out for me when it comes to Yale-NUS College.
Let me quote once more from Mr Goh’s excellent column, which bore the headline “Yale-NUS closure: Why we lost more than four letters”.
“The first batch of Yale-NUS students entered the college just eight years ago. The idea was to establish a small, diverse liberal arts college community, the first of its kind here,” he wrote.
“I was in the second batch. We entered the college when it was still in temporary accommodation and at a time when the curriculum, as well as other parts of school life like interest groups, were still being developed.
“Staff, students and faculty had an equal stake in shaping the future of the new school. Students were told that they were not spending their time there just to get a degree, but to build up the institution from scratch and leave behind legacies for students decades down the road.
“We embraced this spirit. We created our own government, school Constitution and policies on important issues such as student welfare and sexual misconduct. We also helped shape what kind of classes would be offered and how these would look. Programmes, housing policy, interest groups – even our mascot and other seemingly small things – were built from scratch.
“For instance, our school mascot – the kingfisher – came out of a process lasting almost seven months, involving three rounds of voting, ratification by the student body, and focus group discussions.”
Perhaps those of us trained for efficiency might wonder if the seven months the students spent discussing and voting on a school mascot, was the best use of their time. But what also comes across in the paragraphs above is the deep sense of belonging, so well captured by the writer as to be palpable.
I find it remarkable that Yale-NUS students see themselves as equal partners to faculty and staff in shaping the school’s future. What I would give to belong to a community that engendered such a shared sense of commitment!
House debates Yale-NUS issue, but a new chapter for liberal arts is being written
Concerns about academic freedom after Yale-NUS merger are unfounded: Chan Chun Sing
Community and nation building
A nation too is a community.
Three years ago, another group of NUS students, then from Tembusu College, set out their hopes as members of this nation in a letter they addressed to Singapore’s fourth Prime Minister.
They posed this question to him: “Do you see us as equal partners – leaders you want to empower – or as citizens you need to govern? What kind of role do you trust us to play?”
They went on to explain that while they were encouraged to think critically and voice their opinions in school, they weren’t sure if that applied outside school, where they saw naysayers being treated negatively.
“We can tell how much you trust us by looking at what freedoms you entrust us with. And, we want an answer because this will partly determine how far we will go for Singapore,” they wrote.
I think such sentiments are to be welcomed at this stage of Singapore’s history, when the problems we face are increasingly complex. We need citizens to step forward to partner the Government and each other, in tackling the challenges posed by climate change, inequality and mental health, among others.
But partnerships are built on trust, and trust is a two-way street. If those who hold power in Singapore are not ready to trust others, they are unlikely to find ready partners, willing to go all in with them. No one commits to an enterprise if they expect to be disrespected or pushed around.
That is why I believe that going forward, leaders need to listen, consult and engage more than ever before.
Top-down decision-making may be necessary in a crisis, but when it comes to large, complex challenges with no quick fixes, what’s crucial are the skills to engage and enrol multiple stakeholders in being active solution seekers.
Leaders who are able to do so, who are willing to take the time to listen, consult and forge partnerships based on equality and mutual respect, are the ones who can help design solutions that will go the distance.
Sometimes, you have to go slow, to go far.
A story undone: Yale-NUS and the future of liberal arts in Singapore
NUS must keep the best elements of Yale-NUS brand of education
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No money, how to grease the cogs?
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Yale-NUS closure part of NUS interdisciplinary road map, cost not the main motivation: Chan Chun Sing
The cost of educating a student at Yale-NUS is more than double that of a regular NUS humanities or sciences student.ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
Ng Wei Kai
UPDATEDSEP 13, 2021, 6:45 PM in Straits Times…
SINGAPORE – The merger of Yale-NUS College and the University Scholars’ Programme (USP) into the New College is part of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) road map to more interdisciplinary learning, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing on Monday (Sept 13).
It comes after the creation of the College of Humanities and Sciences by bringing together the arts and science faculties and the College of Design and Engineering, which will merge the School of Design and Environment and the Faculty of Engineering.
The College of Humanities and Sciences was created in December 2020 while the College of Design and Engineering was announced at the same time as the Yale-NUS merger on Aug 27.
Yale-NUS’ high costs are also part of the reason, but not the main motivation behind the decision, he added.
He was responding in Parliament to questions from both People’s Action Party and Workers’ Party MPs on the merger.
The decision has drawn criticism from both students and parents and speculation about the decision-making process behind it has grown over the last few weeks.
Mr Chan said the cost of educating a student at Yale-NUS is more than double that of a regular NUS humanities or sciences student.
He added that both tuition fees and government funding for the college are more than double.
He added: “But we accepted this because we saw value in having a liberal arts college in our tertiary system.”
Mr Chan said the college has “done its utmost in raising funds but through no fault of its own, has not reached its target” of $300 million.
The target amount would have given it an endowment of around $1 billion with government matching and investment returns which would have reduced the burden on government subsidies, he said.
He added that transitioning to the New College, the placeholder name for the new entity, will create “economies of scale” and reduce costs to some extent.
In response to a supplementary question from Mr Patrick Tay (Pioneer) on the financial situation of the college and on how integrated Yale-NUS is with the rest of NUS, Mr Chan said in 2020, his ministry provided $48 million in operating grants to the college.
He added that the college’s facilities such as its multi-purpose hall, study areas, lounges and fitness areas are currently accessible only to Yale-NUS students.
Yale-NUS merger: Decision to announce move as early as possible was jointly made by NUS, Yale
Concerns about academic freedom after Yale-NUS merger are unfounded: Chan Chun Sing
The New College will be accessible to all NUS students, he said.
Mr Chan also said the New College will not have a separate governing board from NUS but instead, will have an international advisory committee.
The college’s financial sustainability has come into the spotlight and leadership from both NUS and Yale-NUS have spoken publicly on the college’s failure to reach its funding goals.
Last Saturday, NUS president Tan Eng Chye said in an opinion piece published by The Straits Times that Yale-NUS had only raised $80 million out of its original goal of $300 million in endowment donations.
Mr Chan also said that NUS’ movement towards interdisciplinary learning and more flexible pathways began in 2018 in response to a more uncertain and fragmented world.
He said that the merger was motivated by NUS’ vision of developing an immersive living and learning community, where students majoring in over 50 different disciplines can come together.
Mr Chan also said the New College will be more integrated to the rest of the university than Yale-NUS was, allowing its students greater exposure to more disciplines.
He said: “NUS has learnt much from its relationship with Yale and in operating Yale-NUS, and it has affirmed the value of a liberal arts educational approach.
“It has decided that it is time to build on the best features of Yale-NUS College, and take a step forward to expand access and enhance the scope of its educational offerings, by merging Yale-NUS with the USP.”
Mr Chan added that the Ministry of Education is committed to supporting the New College, and it expects tuition fees and costs per student to be lower than those at Yale-NUS – in keeping with the vision for it to be more inclusive, affordable and accessible.
A story undone: Yale-NUS and the future of liberal arts in Singapore
The new NUS: Amplifying the University Scholars Programme and Yale-NUS story
He said it will retain the best elements of both institutions – including a residential component, small-group teaching, a common curriculum and an immersive experience.
He added that he expects the New College to have a global orientation and welcome a diverse group of international students.
He said: “In setting up the New College, NUS is not starting from scratch. It will tap the experiences of the faculty and students of both Yale-NUS and USP, and build on their strong foundations and rich traditions.
“Students and faculty from Yale-NUS and USP have been invited to be part of the New College planning committee.”
A story undone: Yale-NUS and the future of liberal arts in Singapore
A response to NUS president Tan Eng Chye, from three Yale-NUS alumni.
Tee Zhuo, Melody Madhavan and Ng Yi Ming
Yale-NUS College will be shut down when it is “merged” with NUS’ University Scholars Programme.ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
PUBLISHEDSEP 11, 2021, 8:49 PM SGT in Straits Times.
SINGAPORE – In 2008, a Ministry of Education (MOE) committee proposed a bold experiment: To create the first liberal arts college in Singapore.
In a report aptly titled “Greater Choice, More Room to Excel”, the committee noted that such a college should have a small cohort size and be autonomously governed. It would offer a “broad-based, multidisciplinary undergraduate programme” to help Singapore develop well-rounded, versatile individuals with a passion for inquiry and knowledge.
More than a decade later, that dream is a reality – Yale-NUS College (YNC).
Excelling across multiple fields, employed at top organisations, winning coveted postgraduate scholarships, and flying the Singapore flag high wherever they go, its graduates have surpassed the aims of the experiment. In the words of National University of Singapore (NUS) president Tan Eng Chye himself, the college is “without equal” and “a great success”.
Despite this, in a shock announcement made two weeks ago, the school will be shut down when it is “merged” with NUS’ University Scholars Programme (USP).
On Saturday (Sept 11), Professor Tan, in a commentary for The Straits Times, reiterated that the main aim of the merger was to expand interdisciplinary liberal arts education and make it more inclusive for the rest of NUS. But he also pointed to the college’s finances. Yale-NUS, he said, had not met its endowment targets, and was expensive to run. In other words, closing Yale-NUS is not just a noble move to increase access to education, it is also a financially prudent one.
But a closer look shows that it is premature to decide that the college is financially unsustainable. The proposed result of the merger, temporarily named New College, also does not achieve what Prof Tan and NUS claim it will do.
Prof Tan wrote that Yale-NUS had raised less than $80 million of its intended target of $300 million in endowed donations to build a sustainable overall endowment of $1 billion. This seems, at first glance, to be a valid point that throws the college’s future into doubt.
Yet Yale vice-president for global strategy Pericles Lewis told Yale Daily News (YDN), the university’s student-run publication, that the motivation for the closure was not financial. Former Yale president Richard Levin was even more direct: “If people are saying that finances were the issue, they’re simply incorrect.”
What accounts for the seemingly contradictory viewpoints? A report in YDN last Tuesday revealed that the $300 million fund-raising target was set for the year 2030.
This crucial detail, the timeline to meet financial targets, is noticeably absent in Prof Tan’s commentary.
With almost a decade to go, Prof Levin said the gap could be “easily closed” with more fund-raising efforts, and would have required only “a small fraction” of what Yale raises in a year. In other words, raising about $20 million a year for the next 10 years is not exactly much in the world of university endowments.
To put things in perspective, top liberal arts colleges in the United States that have at least US$1 billion (S$1.34 billion) in endowment, such as Williams College or Amherst College, are over 200 years old.
Yale-NUS was expected to achieve the same total endowment in a tenth of the time.
Put into that context, Yale-NUS has done admirably in terms of fund raising – of course, with the generous help of the Singapore Government.
The new NUS: Amplifying the University Scholars Programme and Yale-NUS story
NUS president to hold online townhall meeting with parents of Yale-NUS students
But it does not seem the college has explored all its funding options.
The YDN reported that Yale had made it clear it wanted to continue with Yale-NUS.
While neither parent institution has so far aided much in fund raising, Professor Levin said this was “about to change”. But with the closure presented by NUS as a done deal, Yale did not “really (have) an opportunity to keep the college going on its own terms”, he added.
There are other methods available to fund the college without burdening the taxpayer.
In a recent piece for Academia.Sg, Singaporean economist Linda Lim and a former dean at the Singapore Management University Pang Eng Fong said donations from wealthy alumni overwhelmingly form the core of donations for established liberal arts colleges in the US.
In the Singapore context, Yale-NUS needs time to grow the donor base. While outstanding in their own right, Yale-NUS’ first few graduating classes are still a small group of people in their 20s. They are hardly in a position to afford six-figure, much less seven-figure, donations to their alma mater.
Additionally, reports stated Yale had brainstormed various other solutions, including increasing student intake and fees. It seems premature to decide the college is not financially sustainable before other options had been fully explored.
The point of Yale-NUS was never to replace or add a conventional local programme, but to provide a unique offering to the local education landscape that could compete internationally. PHOTO: ST FILE
Prof Tan also claimed that the college was too expensive. “The resources required to operate Yale-NUS are much higher than we had planned,” he wrote.
Once again, the issue is context and perspective.
By way of explaining the high costs, Prof Tan pointed to the fact that Yale-NUS has a much lower student to faculty ratio (8:1) – common for liberal arts colleges – compared with the USP (12:1) and NUS (17:1).
But this is comparing apples with oranges. Prof Tan himself noted, for example, that USP would not be considered a liberal arts college but an honours college in the US. An honours college provides supplemental or alternative programmes, that can be curricular or extracurricular.
The point of Yale-NUS was never to replace or add a conventional local programme, but to provide a unique offering to the local education landscape that could compete internationally.
MOE’s 2008 report said a local liberal arts college would be “an attractive alternative to bright students who currently look overseas” for a similar education, and added that it would enhance Singapore’s reputation as a regional and global education hub on “the cutting edge of higher education”.
A fairer comparison would thus be against other top small liberal arts colleges abroad.
Take the top five such colleges in the US by a US News ranking. Tuition can cost beyond US$60,000 before room and board, four times more than for a Singaporean attending Yale-NUS (S$20,750).
So yes, Yale-NUS is more expensive than other local programmes. But when judged against its intended aims and competitors, Yale-NUS is quite cost efficient.
NUS initiated talks on merger of Yale-NUS with scholars programme in July
What’s behind the decision to close Yale-NUS College?
New, but not a liberal arts college
One might argue that regardless of these issues, the New College could still ensure “broader access” by “scaling up” an “inclusive interdisciplinary liberal arts education”, as Prof Tan and NUS have repeatedly said.
However, the New College has a proposed intake of 500 students a year, about equal to the Yale-NUS and USP combined (roughly 250 each). There is no “scaling up”.
As for “broader access” and being inclusive, Prof Tan failed to provide any information on the financial aid options.
In comparison, Yale-NUS has a needs-blind admissions policy for Singaporeans. Prof Tan himself pointed out that the majority of Yale-NUS students are on financial aid, which also means access for a large number of students from lower-income backgrounds.
But the real problem is a conflation of liberal arts with interdisciplinary education.
The USP has certainly provided an excellent interdisciplinary education for the past 20 years and, as Prof Tan noted, NUS has been on a “road map” to expand this since 2018.
A liberal arts college, however, goes beyond being interdisciplinary. In its 2008 report, MOE explicitly laid out what a liberal arts college model would look like. Factors included a high endowment, small overall cohort, a low faculty to student ratio and, importantly, governance autonomy from NUS to secure the college’s interests.
But far from autonomy, the New College will not have a dedicated faculty or its own majors. Instead, students will, like other NUS students, choose their major or specialisation from existing schools and faculties within NUS.
Yale-NUS closure: Employers say job prospects of graduates remain bright
NUS must keep the best elements of Yale-NUS brand of education
The intense and close-knit interaction between students and faculty inside and outside the classroom, so integral to the success of liberal arts colleges, will also be lost.
Prof Tan pointed out that the student to faculty ratio at the rest of NUS is 17 to one. A low ratio, however, is a distinctive hallmark of a liberal arts college.
Amherst College, Williams College and Pomona College all have fewer than 2,000 undergraduates, with eight or fewer students to one faculty member.
Professor Lim and Professor Pang pointed out that the stated objective of “scaling up” the benefits of the Yale-NUS model through the merger with USP was problematic.
“The essence of the liberal arts college pedagogical model… is limited scale,” they wrote. And it is the ecosystem of “intangibles” that arise from this fundamental nature of a liberal arts college education that generate “the positive externalities from which employers, and other societal actors, benefit”, they added.
The truth, then, is that New College will not expand liberal arts. It will “merge” the only liberal arts college available in Singapore out of existence.
Yale-NUS College closure: Cool the fire, but don’t let it burn out
Yale-NUS closure: Why we lost more than just four letters
Missing ‘steps’
Yale-NUS took five years to plan. The faculty of the New College has been given less than a year to plan its curriculum before the school is slated to accept new students.
New College currently has no admissions policy, not even a website – calling into question Prof Tan’s claims that it is a “very considered” strategic initiative.
Prof Tan sees the New College as the “Third Step”, indicating a progression from the previous “steps” of other mergers such as that of the College of Humanities and Sciences.
If this third step seems rather shaky, it is because, like the other mergers, several steps are missing. One such step is the proper consultation of stakeholders such as the senior administration, including the president of the very college one is trying to close.
The lack of consultation has since resulted in massive backlash, including from parents and alumni, and a petition by NUS and Yale-NUS students against such top-down decision-making that has garnered over 14,400 signatures.
As ST associate editor Chua Mui Hoong wrote in her Friday Home Ground column, the decision “smacks of hubris, a disregard for institutional autonomy and a total lack of respect and trust for the individuals involved”.
She also rightly pointed out that such “high-handed decision-making is guaranteed to foment distrust and cynicism, loosen cohesion and drive a wedge between leaders and people”,
and called on NUS to treat staff, faculty and students like equal partners. This would be a first step towards weaving one of the “strongest attributes” of Yale-NUS into the new college’s DNA, she added.
Yale-NUS students unhappy, anxious over merger plans
Timeline of Yale-NUS College
Yale-NUS students and alumni are more than happy to embrace this spirit. But a partnership can only be equal by starting with respect and transparency.
Several key questions remain unanswered. First, why was Yale-NUS’ president and leadership not consulted, especially since the college’s finances were involved? If finances are the issue, would it not be short-sighted to forget the millions already invested, yet to be given the time to completely bear fruit?
Second, what, if any, was the review process to shut down Yale-NUS, given it has met or exceeded most of the goals set out in the 2008 MOE report? Were other options considered to retain a real liberal arts college in Singapore, and, if so, what were they?
Now that students have at least got some sense of the finances, can they be mobilised into a role to support fund-raising efforts that will save their school?
NUS’ Prof Tan and the senior administration must address these questions.
Stakeholders cannot throw their support behind a new entity, given the lack of transparency and consultation displayed thus far.
A new Singapore liberal arts college
A student at Yale-NUS College on Aug 31, 2021. The 240 freshmen who enrolled at Yale-NUS last month will be its final cohort of students. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Finally, the most important question: Will there be a liberal arts college Singapore can call its own?
Yale-NUS has demonstrated that such an institution can be highly successful, competitive and meet the vision set out by Singapore’s leaders, who recognised its importance to our national interests.
They were right. Numerous Yale-NUS students are contributing directly across the public service, including Public Service Commission and President’s Scholars.
Thus, the college has already developed “well-rounded leaders… versatile enough to be successful at the highest levels… in a rapidly changing world”, as envisioned by the 2008 MOE report.
As recently as 2019, then Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said in Parliament that “a liberal arts school like YNC will have a place in Singapore’s education landscape”.
Before him, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had articulated his hopes for a liberal arts college that belonged to Singapore, and is relevant to Asia.
While the decision to withdraw from the partnership with Yale is regrettable, this can also be an opportunity to start afresh, to create a liberal arts college that retains not the Yale name but elements actually vital to the success of the Yale-NUS educational model.
Universities need to tear down subject silos
One undergrad, two disciplines: Can a student master both arts and science?
To achieve this, an idea which deserves further study is to establish a Singaporean liberal arts college as a seventh autonomous university.
Policymakers should consider exploring with the college’s alumni – the main products of Singapore’s ground-breaking liberal arts experiment – the feasibility of such a project.
It is not too late to retain a true liberal arts college as envisioned by our nation’s leaders.
One that would, as PM Lee said, offer an education that is “one-of-its-kind in the world”, continuing Yale-NUS’ legacy in bridging the best of East and West while marking Singapore on the world map as a global leader in higher education.
Policymakers can still ensure that future generations of Singaporeans will reap the benefits of what a liberal arts college education in Singapore can offer; and with it all the benefits that will accrue to the country and beyond in the years to come.
Tee Zhuo graduated from Yale-NUS College in 2018 and works at The Business Times. Melody Madhavan was part of Yale-NUS’ inaugural batch, the Class of 2017. She works in marketing. Ng Yi Ming graduated this year. He is pursuing a master’s in Urban Science, Policy and Planning at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Over 10,000 sign petition calling for reversal of Yale-NUS merger
Workers’ Party MPs file parliamentary questions on merger involving Yale-NUS
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Why…many ask why, and some even signed a public petition.
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Will MPs bother to ask questions in Parliament, and do they know how to ask the right questions to get the right answer?
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Hope some learned people [power with words, wordsmiths] will write on FB to suggest how MPs can use it as model questions in Parliament. Phrase the questions well for them, and suggest the MPs use it to question the minister in Parliament where the minister cannot dodge, but has to have face off and explain to Parliament and the nation.
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What’s behind the decision to close Yale-NUS College?
The agreement signed in 2011 between NUS and Yale had given either party the option to withdraw in 2025.ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Sandra Davie, Ang Qing and Ng Wei Kai
PUBLISHED5 HOURS AGO on 5th Sept 2021 in Sunday Times
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SINGAPORE – More than a week since the shock announcement that Yale-NUS College will close its doors in 2025, students and alumni are still wondering if they will get a more detailed explanation of the decision.
On Aug 27, the National University of Singapore (NUS) said in a statement that this year’s intake at Yale-NUS, a liberal arts institution that it set up with America’s Yale University in 2011, would be its last.
Calling the move a “merger”, NUS said the best elements of Yale-NUS and its own 20-year-old University Scholars Programme (USP) will form the basis of a yet-to-be-named new college, which will open next year.
NUS president Tan Eng Chye said NUS was extremely proud of what Yale-NUS has achieved in the past 10 years, and that the experience has contributed to a reimagining of undergraduate education at NUS.
“Our strong belief in the importance of interdisciplinarity, forged through our valuable partnership, has led to the establishment of the New College,” he added.
In a statement from New Haven, Connecticut, Yale president Peter Salovey offered his best wishes to the new college, and thanked the Singapore Government for having made the partnership possible.
The agreement signed in 2011 between NUS and Yale had given either party the option to withdraw in 2025.
NUS officials said that announcing the decision in advance will allow current undergraduates to complete their studies as planned.
Despite the amicable comments from university leaders, many students, alumni and faculty members have expressed anger and unhappiness at the decision and the lack of prior consultation.
Several meetings and townhall sessions have been called.
More than 13,000 people have signed an online petition titled Reverse the Mergers and #NoMoreTopDown initiated by students from Yale-NUS and NUS, calling on NUS to reverse the decision.
The petition includes a call for NUS to reverse two other mergers – between the Faculty of Engineering and the School of Design and Environment to form the College of Design and Engineering, which was announced on Aug 27, and between the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science to form the College of Humanities and Sciences, which was launched in December last year.
There is also much speculation on the “real” reasons for what many in the Yale-NUS community see as the closure of Yale-NUS.
Interviews with decision-makers, students, alumni and faculty of NUS and Yale-NUS have posited three possible reasons for the decision:
• NUS wanting to go it alone in offering a liberal arts curriculum that is in line with its priorities;
• Concerns over Yale-NUS’ funding and the high costs of a liberal arts college education to taxpayers and students
• Controversies the college has been embroiled in
Employers say job prospects of Yale-NUS graduates remain bright
Timeline of Yale-NUS College
NUS goes it alone
Professor Tan has described the move as an evolution of USP and Yale-NUS into a new college.
“The New College will offer students the opportunity to benefit from an immersive, interdisciplinary liberal arts education that very importantly offers greater access to multiple pathways, disciplines and specialisations across the NUS ecosystem,” he has said.
Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee, who sits on the Yale-NUS College board, said the main purpose of the move was to “democratise” liberal arts education in Singapore and make it available and accessible to more local students.
Yale-NUS did not provide figures on the socio-economic profile of the Singaporeans admitted this year, but said citizens made up 60 per cent of the 240-strong intake.
Of this number, 154 students – including permanent residents – were schooled in Singapore, 126 of whom were from junior colleges, integrated programme schools and specialised schools. Eight had graduated from the polytechnics.
Professor Chan, a former head of the political science department at NUS, stressed that NUS, being a public university and the flagship university of Singapore, has a national role to play to prepare Singaporeans for the demands of the future.
“It sees interdisciplinary learning as an important part of preparing students for the future, hence its effort to merge Yale-NUS and USP to have a bigger college that can accommodate more students,” she told The Sunday Times.
Prof Chan said that while Yale-NUS provided a top-notch liberal arts education, NUS has to keep evolving the education it offers “to build an education that is right for the time, and right for Singapore”.
While some form of broad-based, interdisciplinary programmes have been available at NUS over many years, most notably through the USP, Yale-NUS College took liberal arts education to another level.
Its education emphasised the full range of arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences. The common curriculum it developed spanned Western and Asian cultures and perspectives.
During their four-year, fully residential undergraduate experience, they learn in small classes and by collaborating with the faculty and their peers. There are also a range of co-curricular programmes and study and research opportunities abroad.
Yale-NUS to stop taking in students, NUS plans to set up new liberal arts college
NUS initiated talks on merger of Yale-NUS with scholars programme in July
Yale alumnus Michael Montesano echoed Prof Chan’s remarks when he said that NUS’ decision was based on its priorities for the university as a whole.
Dr Montesano, an American who is currently a visiting senior fellow at a Singapore think-tank, said: “Those priorities doubtless reflect goals and constraints relating to Singapore’s current social and economic realities, and to a vision of how NUS can best serve Singapore and Singaporeans.
“They are related to other changes under way at NUS, and they are inherent in NUS’ mission as a national university with a role to play in an ever-changing society.”
Prof Chan added that the change is part of “a larger realignment NUS started on two years ago, to deliver flexible, interdisciplinary education to more students”.
It also follows the creation of the College of Humanities and Sciences, and the College of Design and Engineering brought about by the merger of the schools of design and environment, and engineering.
Yale-NUS’ financial sustainability
Yale-NUS did not provide figures on the socio-economic profile of the Singaporeans admitted this year, but said citizens made up 60 per cent of the 240-strong intake. ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
Another consideration had been the question of the college’s financial sustainability, said Prof Chan.
Yale-NUS had hoped eventually to secure as much private funding as top-tier American liberal arts colleges, she said.
Concern about the financial model “started the conversation” about what to do with the college, she told The Economist recently.
On its website, Yale-NUS College reports that as at March this year, its endowment amounted to $429.8 million.
In comparison, Wesleyan University, a liberal arts college in the United States with three times the number of students as Yale-NUS, has an endowment of US$1.13 billion (S$1.5 billion). NUS, with a much larger student body, has an endowment of some $6 billion.
Media reports have quoted Professor Pericles Lewis, the founding president of Yale-NUS, as saying in recent days that the college had “a few years left” to achieve its fund-raising targets.
Prof Lewis, who is now Yale University’s vice-president for global strategy, did not respond to questions from The Sunday Times on the funding target and what meeting it would have meant for the financial sustainability of the college.
He was also asked if college funds could be used to lower tuition and residential college fees for students to improve the accessibility of a liberal arts education here.
Singaporean students who enrolled in Yale-NUS this year would have to fork out $20,000 in tuition fees and another $10,000 in college fees – much higher than the $8,200 tuition fees paid by Singaporean students doing an arts and social sciences degree at NUS.
A USP student entering the arts and social science faculty this year would also pay $8,200 a year in tuition fees.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, they were required to stay two years in a residential college, which would cost another $7,000 a year.
Ms Gerry Tan, 20, an NUS arts and social science student, said her own experience of applying to Yale-NUS made her question if a liberal arts education was within the reach of students from average Singaporean families if they did not get scholarships.
“My parents are middle-level managers and although I wanted to try for a place in Yale-NUS, they baulked at the fees, which will amount to $120,000 in four years,” she said. “It is out of reach to families like mine.”
The agreement signed in 2011 between NUS and Yale had given either party the option to withdraw in 2025. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Some have asked if the move was because the Singapore Government was uncomfortable with the Yale University faculty’s insistence on academic independence, and its stance on issues like freedom of speech and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) matters.
They point to how, when plans for the college were announced in 2010, Yale faculty members in the US had expressed concerns over academic independence of the college and constraints on freedom of speech in Singapore.
At the opening of the Yale-NUS campus in 2015, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said that to succeed, the college needed a curriculum and ethos that responded to the regional context of Asia.
He said it needed “to feel the buzz of societies on the move, to respond to the zeitgeist, the issues, and the priorities of a rising continent”.
Criticisms from Yale faculty members appeared to die down after the college took in its pioneer batch in 2013 and students praised the rigorous liberal arts education they were receiving.
Two years ago, the issue of academic independence surfaced again when a module called Dissent And Resistance In Singapore was cancelled.
The college told Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at, who was to lead the course, that it was insufficiently academically rigorous and could pose a legal risk to the students.
Responding to allegations that the college had caved to political pressure in cancelling the module, Prof Lewis conducted an investigation that yielded no evidence of government coercion.
The matter came up in Parliament. Then Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said “academic freedom cannot be carte blanche for anyone to misuse an academic institution for political advocacy”.
The recent move has drawn questions from three Workers’ Party MPs who have filed parliamentary questions asking for more clarity behind the decision and whether the nature of student activism in the Yale-NUS campus played a part in the decision.
Alumnus Daryl Yang, 28, co-founder of student-run group Community for Advocacy & Political Education in Yale-NUS, said: “We may never know if political concerns were indeed one of the considerations.”
But if it was in fact a reason, he said, it may have “backfired” given how it has goaded students across NUS and Yale-NUS to come together and mobilise the
#NoMoreTopDown petition.
He felt NUS should put an end to these speculations by ensuring the new college adopts Yale-NUS’ policy on academic freedom, and guarantee incoming students to the new college that they will be able to explore their academic interests outside the classroom the same way Yale-NUS students have been able to.
Prof Chan disagrees with the view that the move was due to political factors.
While the Government may have been “concerned” with some of the controversies over the years, it is not the main reason for the change, she said.
She reiterated how the decision was part of a larger move for NUS to adopt a more flexible, interdisciplinary approach.
Prof Lewis told Yale Daily News, a student-run newspaper in New Haven, last week that questions of academic freedom were not a factor in the decision to close Yale-NUS.
“The NUS people and the Government have been very supportive of academic freedom at Yale-NUS,” he told the paper, adding: “We have been very satisfied with the ability of Yale-NUS students and faculty to exercise their academic freedom and have a really great experience there. That has not been a problem from our point of view.”
Yale-NUS students unhappy, anxious over merger plans
Over 10,000 sign petition calling for reversal of Yale-NUS merger
Meanwhile, work has started on the new college.
NUS has announced a planning committee chaired by NUS senior deputy president and provost Ho Teck Hua and comprising leaders from USP, Yale-NUS and Yale University.
But some students, alumni and faculty members interviewed are pessimistic that the new college will be able to recreate the Yale-NUS unique model of education that made possible small class sizes, close collaborations between staff and students, and a more participatory approach to learning.
Yale-NUS Associate Professor Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, an interdisciplinary scholar of environmental studies, praised the work of one of his students.
“It took a decade to construct the intellectual community and culture that produced this work,” he said, adding that it was made possible by the “warm and egalitarian relationship between students and faculty” and his student’s commitment and hope that her work would help to educate a new generation of students to address the climate crisis.
Others say these criticisms will die down once the new college is set up and provides its own unique model of education.
A retired academic who has held leadership positions in local universities pointed out that this was not the first partnership a local university had with a prestigious overseas university.
Singapore Management University’s agreement with the Wharton Business School ended after five years, and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) said goodbye to its education collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2017, after seven years. SUTD’s research collaboration with MIT ended in June last year.
Of Yale-NUS and NUS’ new direction, the retired academic said: “The two universities are still standing and doing better than ever. Their students enjoy good job prospects. If we want the best elements of liberal arts education from Yale-NUS to continue benefiting our students, then I am confident we can do it, and do it well.”
NUS must keep the best elements of Yale-NUS brand of education
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Yale-NUS closure: Why we lost more than just four letters
The first batch of Yale-NUS students entered the college just eight years ago.ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
PUBLISHED6 HOURS AGO on 5th Sept 2021 in Sunday Times.
On Aug 27, the National University of Singapore (NUS) announced that Yale-NUS College would stop accepting new students and merge with the University Scholars Programme to form a new college.
While touted as a merger, many commentators – including alumni and Yale itself – have called it a closure, with students expressing grief and anger over the move.
A petition calling for the decision to be reversed has garnered over 13,500 signatures, and several MPs have said they will raise questions about the move in Parliament.
When news broke about my alma mater’s de facto closure, I was surprised at how shocked I felt, finding myself on the verge of tears and in a strange daze, unable to focus on anything for a few hours.
A meme has been going around suggesting that all that’s been taken away with the recent move is four letters: Y-A-L-E. So why are students and alumni reacting so strongly?
I cannot speak for everyone, but as far as I am concerned, we lost more than just four letters that day.
Some people have compared the move to past incidents of junior colleges or secondary schools merging or shutting down here. I’d say this is different.
The first batch of Yale-NUS students entered the college just eight years ago. The idea was to establish a small, diverse liberal arts college community, the first of its kind here.
I was in the second batch. We entered the college when it was still in temporary accommodation and at a time when the curriculum, as well as other parts of school life like interest groups, were still being developed.
Staff, students and faculty had an equal stake in shaping the future of the new school. Students were told that they were not spending their time there just to get a degree, but to build up the institution from scratch and leave behind legacies for students decades down the road.
We embraced this spirit. We created our own government, school Constitution and policies on important issues such as student welfare and sexual misconduct. We also helped shape what kind of classes would be offered and how these would look. Programmes, housing policy, interest groups – even our mascot and other seemingly small things – were built from scratch.
For instance, our school mascot – the kingfisher – came out of a process lasting almost seven months, involving three rounds of voting, ratification by the student body, and focus group discussions.
This can-do spirit continued beyond the campus, with students going on to be a major driving force in campaigning on issues in society.
One example is the Singapore Climate Rally, the first of its kind in Singapore, which Yale-NUS students helped start. More than 2,000 attended the event at Hong Lim Park.
The culture of the college also encouraged people to try new things and not be afraid to fail.
NUS initiated talks on merger of Yale-NUS with scholars programme in July
Employers say job prospects of Yale-NUS graduates remain bright
For one class, students had to go and break a social norm in public (in a legal manner) to learn about social constructs. People tried a variety of things in response, from facing the “wrong way” on escalators and in lifts, to singing Happy Birthday to nobody in public. I strapped on a pair of fairy wings and bunny ears, and walked all the way from Dhoby Ghaut to Bugis.
Clubs and interest groups welcomed all, even (in some cases, especially) those who had never tried that activity or sport before. Taking classes and courses outside of one’s major was the norm, with science students writing poetry, and artists learning coding.
I entered the college with a lot of sexist, racist and toxic masculine beliefs that I had never before thought to question. The environment that the college and its diverse community provided encouraged me to reassess these through a different lens, and change to become a better person. A strong emphasis on self-care gave space to students to acknowledge and seek help for mental health concerns.
For many of us, Yale-NUS was more than a school, it was a home.
The small intake size of about 250 a year and the four-year residential programme created a tight-knit community.
When the announcement was made, it seemed like everything we had worked for – the culture we had painstakingly poured our hearts into to create over nearly a decade – had been for naught.
There is also a sense of sadness that a space like this, which could have been a model for similar spaces here, will soon cease to exist.
Though details of the New College are still being confirmed, its admissions intake and class sizes will be larger than Yale-NUS’, and it is likely that international students will make up a smaller proportion of the school body, making a similar experience difficult to replicate.
But perhaps more painful than losing the legacy of Yale-NUS was how we lost it.
The whole process happened suddenly, without a clear explanation as to why it was happening. Staff were informed only last month, and students themselves – some of whom had just paid their tuition fees or just matriculated – were told last, without any prior consultation. Students and staff, some of whom turned down prestigious offers elsewhere or uprooted their entire families to come to Singapore, now face uncertain futures.
Worse, it appears the decision was made without consulting the college’s own leaders. Yale-NUS president Tan Tai Yong revealed during a townhall with alumni that the college’s governing board was informed only in July, after the decision had been made by NUS, and was in no position to deny the decision. Professor Tan told the college’s newspaper, The Octant, that the school’s administration had all been surprised by the news, and that he himself had been “gobsmacked and flabbergasted”.
Yale president Peter Salovey has separately stated that he “would have liked nothing better” than to continue developing Yale-NUS, and that NUS president Tan Eng Chye was the one who had “informed (him) of NUS’ intention”.
One week after the news broke, NUS released a statement saying it had consulted the chairman of the university’s board of trustees and the Ministry of Education on the merger in late June.
NUS has the legal right to review and withdraw from its partnership with Yale with a year’s notice. But it is the manner in which this withdrawal took place that has got many concerned – seemingly out of the blue, and without much discussion with the parties most affected by the move.
The speed at which nearly a decade’s worth of work was terminated – without the school’s own governing board even being consulted – has left many unanswered questions.
What’s behind the decision to close Yale-NUS College?
Yale-NUS students unhappy, anxious over merger plans
Moving forward
So what now? Calls have been made for NUS to reverse the decision and provide more transparency in the process. Whether the university will respond remains to be seen. But for those who are upset over the change, I believe there are three things we can do.
First, there is a need to recognise that such sadness over the loss is a reflection that there was something good and real in what we were privileged enough to have experienced.
As a non-Yale-NUS friend put it: “I would’ve killed for a uni experience that made me that upset to hear it was gone.”
Second, to recognise that we are not a “failed experiment”, as some have insinuated.
Although this is not the only metric of success, Yale-NUS graduates have secured a high rate of employment, as well as high median salaries. The school’s president has also said multiple times that the closure of the college is not a result of the failures of staff or students. The fact that NUS wants to expand the liberal arts programme here, which was first trialled at Yale-NUS, is a sign that the college achieved something good.
It is my hope that any future liberal arts programmes will at least retain the spirit of partnership and community between students, staff, faculty and administration that gave everyone an equal say in building up the college.
Finally, even as the situation continues to develop, let us remember that Yale-NUS is not just a place, but people.
We must carry the values and spirit of the community wherever we go and strive wherever we are, to be – as our motto put it – a community of learning, founded by two great universities, in Asia, for the world.
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==========
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Close one and set up a new College…and with Yale.
What will be in the new College [yet to be named] that are missing in the Yale-NUS College that will be closed in 2025?
What are the SWOTs in both?
What are the advantages in SWOTs of the new College to be set up and when?
Why me blur? I have not step into a uni, high school, and no GCE-O level.
I have nothing. I hope the learned will remove the blurring parts.
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The new NUS: Amplifying the University Scholars Programme and Yale-NUS story
NUS president sets out the backdrop to the decision for the merger.
Yale-NUS College will merge with NUS’ University Scholars Programme to form a new college that will open by August 2022.ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
PUBLISHED10 HOURS AGO on 11th Sept 2021 in Straits Times.
No one who has stepped into the Yale-NUS campus can doubt that it holds a special place within the National University of Singapore (NUS) – greatly prized, carefully tended and superbly resourced. Yale-NUS is a cherished part of our community. All NUS facilities are open to Yale-NUS students, and in good times, our professors celebrate winning research grants together; in tough times, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, NUS opened its hostels for Yale-NUS students who were quarantined.
Two weeks ago, we announced we were combining Yale-NUS College (Yale-NUS) with our University Scholars Programme (USP). Though we have committed to ensuring the full Yale-NUS experience for all its students until the college is wound down in 2025, I understand the deep sense of loss the Yale-NUS community feels because the college, its culture and legacy, and its beautiful spaces are without equal.
Like many of my colleagues, I consider Yale-NUS a great success. This move to embed an interdisciplinary liberal arts education within NUS is meant to amplify, not diminish, the Yale-NUS story.
The question is how best to do this.
Since I became president in 2018, Yale-NUS’ finances have weighed heavily on my mind. Since the inception of Yale-NUS, the Ministry of Education has provided significant funding to Yale-NUS during its earlier years stretching to 2022, while it was ramping up enrolment and building its endowment.
After that, NUS and Yale-NUS would carry Yale-NUS’ financial commitments with the regular capitation funding, as with all autonomous universities in Singapore, to be supplemented with endowment income.
Despite hard work and best attempts by all parties, Yale-NUS raised less than $80 million of endowed donations, about a quarter of the over $300 million target which is required to build an endowment of around $1 billion. So, even with generous government seed funding and matching, the Yale-NUS endowment is much smaller than needed to sustain it.
Today, Yale-NUS operates with a ratio of eight students to one faculty member – compared with more than 12 to one in the USP, and 17 to one in the rest of NUS. Furthermore, the majority of Yale-NUS students are on financial aid. Hence, the resources required to operate Yale-NUS are much higher than we had planned.
Therefore, to make Yale-NUS financially sustainable in the long run, we would need to make adjustments to the immersive small group learning environment, among other aspects that would be adversely affected. At the same time, tuition fees would have to increase significantly.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech at Yale-NUS’ groundbreaking in 2012 is instructive. He spoke about Yale-NUS’ “broad-based, multidisciplinary undergraduate curriculum” and its “immersive residential college system” which followed the traditions of not just Yale, but also that of older universities like Oxford and Cambridge “to promote personal and intellectual growth”.
He said “we hope (Yale-NUS) will combine the best of East and West, that takes the best of US liberal arts education from Yale, New Haven, adds NUS’ distinctive Asian and global strengths, adapts this mix to our different social and cultural contexts, and creates an experience which is more relevant to students from Singapore and Asia, or most of whom will be from Singapore and Asia… It is not a replica of Yale, but a bold effort to create something new and different”.
In its time, Yale-NUS has fulfilled these ambitions and more.
But there is another source of similar ambitions within NUS. Some 10 years before the creation of Yale-NUS, NUS created the USP, bringing together an extraordinary group of students and professors. This programme has a strong core curriculum, emphasising broad interdisciplinary education, and developed with input from Harvard University. The USP draws resources and deep expertise from all over NUS, including the Schools of Business, Computing, Design and Environment as well as the Faculties of Law, Science, Engineering, and Arts and Social Sciences.
In the US, the USP would be considered an honours college, and does not confer a liberal arts degree. In honours colleges within large US public universities, high-achieving students are offered the same intensive learning experience fostered at small liberal arts colleges but at a far lower cost. Within NUS, the USP is a much sought-after, high-quality source of broad-based interdisciplinary education. It is an exceptional and extraordinarily successful residential programme, and a beacon of high value and scholarship. It too, represents something new and different.
Given all of the above, we therefore decided that combining the USP and Yale-NUS would allow us to preserve the distinctive educational approaches that both have been working hard to refine over the years, resulting in a New College which will be greater than the sum of its parts. The overriding reason for this move is the vital role that a broad-based interdisciplinary education plays within the reimagining of higher education at NUS.
Universities need to tear down subject silos
A degree in learning to be human
Since 2018, NUS has charted and implemented a planned series of educational innovations. Covid-19 brought home the importance of ensuring that our students are well prepared to thrive in a more uncertain world. In a world of change and uncertainty, students will need broad intellectual foundations, so that they can engage in lifelong learning across many fields. Students will also need to develop the ability, agility and attitudes to adapt as their world changes at an increasing pace.
We have been working on educational reforms to deliver three things. First, a common curriculum that builds intellectual versatility. Second, flexible pathways that allow for students to customise their learning and to pivot to their strengths and aspirations. Finally, interdisciplinarity – the opportunity for broader learning across a range of disciplines.
Slowly but surely, we are building a new NUS. The formation of the College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS) in December 2020, and the newly announced College of Design and Engineering (CDE) are all part of this road map.
NUS must keep the best elements of Yale-NUS brand of education
What’s behind the decision to close Yale-NUS College?
The third step: New college
The New College is our third step. The merger is possible because CHS and CDE have adopted a curriculum framework similar to Yale-NUS. Its funding model will be more closely aligned with the broad, sustainable model we have adopted across NUS, as well as our philosophy of providing support for financially disadvantaged Singaporean students. The New College will be more sustainable, inclusive and accessible to all potential NUS students.
It will provide a broad-based, interdisciplinary common curriculum to allow students access to many more disciplines – science, engineering, design, law and computing, in addition to the humanities, social sciences and sciences. Our hope is that it will offer an even more diverse common curriculum than its predecessors: the USP or Yale-NUS.
On top of flexible access to multiple pathways and specialisations, students will continue to experience immersive learning, small group teaching and vibrant residential living – hallmarks of the New College.
We have set up a planning committee to work with professors and students from USP and Yale-NUS, as well as the rest of NUS, for a collaborative, sensitive and thoughtful transition over the next four years.
Yale-NUS College closure: Cool the fire, but don’t let it burn out
Yale-NUS closure: Why we lost more than just four letters
In mathematics, there is a way of solving problems mimicking genetic algorithms, by which a group of solutions evolve towards ever better solutions. A “crossover operator” combines the best elements of two or more prior solutions to generate better ones. Each solution therefore has something special, and contributes towards the next generation. Over time, generations iterate and become better at solving problems. The old becomes something new, and yet, not completely different.
In the same way, it is my firm hope that New College will carry with it the rich histories of the USP and Yale-NUS, while providing more students with the greater reach and range of educational pathways afforded by the entire NUS ecosystem. I believe everyone in the NUS community – including the USP and Yale-NUS – can join in this bold effort to create something new, and yet, not so different.
Professor Tan Eng Chye is president of the National University of Singapore. He is a mathematician and an alumnus of NUS and Yale University, making him a crossover operator himself.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
NUS president to hold online townhall meeting with parents of Yale-NUS students
Yale-NUS closure: Employers say job prospects of graduates remain bright
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Yale-NUS College closure: Cool the fire, but don’t let it burn out
The fervour of the Yale-NUS College community in lobbying against the decision to merge it into a new college showcases the best – and perhaps the worst – of a liberal arts education.
Chua Mui Hoong
Associate Editor
Neither Yale nor NUS has gone public about whether financial matters contributed to the break-up.ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
PUBLISHED2 HOURS AGO on 10th Sept 2021 in Straits Times.
The closure of Yale-NUS College (YNC) has sparked a veritable flood of digital ink as students past and present lamented the decision by the National University of Singapore (NUS) to end its collaboration with America-based Yale University, and to create a new interdisciplinary college that will enrol more students.
The move announced by NUS on Aug 27 was met with shock and disappointment from many alumni and existing students. They took to online and mainstream media to articulate just why they thought the move was a poor decision and spelt out what would be lost by closing YNC.
Student-run publications The Octant from YNC and Yale Daily News published many articles on the issue. The Straits Times ran a heartfelt account of what will be lost when the college is shut, by alumnus and health reporter Timothy Goh, while The Business Times published a commentary from Mr Tee Zhuo, also a YNC graduate, arguing that the move signalled to the world that “doors are shut, minds are closed” in Singapore, and that such a reputation was bad for business.
Others got together to get organised – to get a petition going, to arrange meetings and discussions.
Reading the articles and seeing its students and alumni in action, I felt that this was a case of the YNC community showcasing what’s best of a liberal arts education.
Some of the articles from recent graduates on The Octant were well-argued and well-referenced, doing credit to the intellectual training provided by YNC. A liberal arts education is meant to help train students to think critically.
While any humanities education does that, perhaps what YNC did more than others was to push students to look at problems in the real world, find solutions and then implement those solutions. That willingness to take the initiative was among traits employers like about YNC students.
From my very limited experience of YNC students past and present, I have also been impressed by this willingness to step up and take the lead to help create change. YNC students admirably stepped up to organise activities to try to create change in a positive way. They launched a petition that I read with interest. But I could not sign it because it called for a reversal of the decision to close YNC and merge it into the proposed new college. (This petition had over 2,500 signatures. Another related petition calling for a reversal of NUS merger moves that affected other departments, including the arts and science faculties, had over 14,000 signatures as at 5pm yesterday.)
I felt for the students and alumni who had the YNC rug pulled from underneath their feet, but thought it impractical to launch a petition for a reversal of the decision. I did, however, admire the passion of the sentiments that led the authors of the YNC petition to say: “We deserve to know why and how the college was made to shut down. We deserve a chance to prove ourselves worthy, a chance to convince all the decision-makers to reverse this decision.”
But as the decision looks to be a done deal, the petition is just a way to channel people’s energy into some action.
When I told a young YNC friend to look ahead and see how to integrate the YNC experience into the new college, he said that was precisely what he and his mates were going to do: work with NUS to incorporate the best parts of the YNC ethos into the new plans.
YNC is by no means the only, or largest, or most expensive, overseas university venture here to shut down after a few years.
For YNC, which took in its first batch of students in 2013, the partnership agreement allows either party to withdraw in 2025 with at least one year’s notice.
By announcing the move to merge YNC into the new college now, NUS is giving four years’ lead time, enough for the last batch of students to graduate in 2025.
Yale-NUS closure: Why we lost more than just four letters
What’s behind the decision to close Yale-NUS College?
Australia’s University of New South Wales closed its Singapore campus in 2007 after one semester due to low enrolment.
New York University announced the closure of its Singapore branch, the Tisch School of the Arts Asia, in 2012 and said the school would cease to exist by 2015, as it was losing money.
Neither Yale nor NUS has gone public about whether financial matters contributed to the break-up.
Despite its small size (it takes in about 150 to 250 students a year), YNC has punched above its weight. Its alumni have gone on to found start-ups and start civil society movements, including the Singapore Climate Rally. The sheer digital decibel level of the protest over its closure is another instance of this mini-size but mega-impact institution.
ST ILLUSTRATION: MANNY FRANCISCO
Looking forward
While admiring the passion of the YNC community, and the depth of feeling over the closure of YNC, I also hope that students past and present will move beyond feelings to analyse the move and look at it dispassionately.
I would urge them to put on their critical thinking hat. This after all is the foundation of any good university education – not just a liberal arts college – and requires one to look at an issue from multiple perspectives.
The YNC community must set aside its feelings of hurt now, to focus on the rationale behind the move to merge YNC with the university’s University Scholars Programme (USP) to form a larger college that promises “immersive and interdisciplinary learning characterised by flexible curriculum, residential living and small group teaching”, according to the USP website.
The move is part of a university-wide plan to merge departments to create a more interdisciplinary university education more relevant to future needs. One can debate the details of the What, but the Why of the move is in the right direction.
NUS must keep the best elements of Yale-NUS brand of education
Yale-NUS closure: Employers say job prospects of graduates remain bright
As for suggestions that YNC is irreplaceable and NUS cannot possibly run a good enough liberal arts college, I would just say that every cohort, in every outstanding institution, thinks its experience is unique and irreplaceable. And it is. Always. To the ones who went through it and no other. (I have had those Dead Poets Society-kind of bonding in school, in the Humanities Programme in junior college, and then in Harvard as a graduate student. Friendships with fellow students and teachers/professors are made that last decades; the memories are seared lifelong; the experience changes you forever. The experience is indeed unique and irreplaceable – to those of us who went through it together. The next cohort will no doubt feel the same about its experience.)
While extolling the benefits of the YNC experience, students and alumni should practise the perspective-taking and empathy they were taught, and not assume that no NUS course can ever match what they went through. That kind of elitist thinking would be a throwback to the worst of liberal arts institutions, which in the United States are being criticised for perpetuating elitist privilege. Like the child of a mixed race marriage who must respect both parents’ heritage, the YNC alumni must not idealise one part of their intellectual heritage and disdain the other. Instead, they should work with NUS to help entrench the best parts of the YNC experience to help the new college succeed.
Next, analyse Who. Who made the decision? It appears clear that YNC leaders were not consulted and were informed only days before the public announcement. US-based Yale leaders have also made clear their disappointment with the closure of YNC and said they had wanted to continue the arrangement. From what has been made public so far, it was NUS leaders who made the call (including NUS president Tan Eng Chye, who is incidentally an alumnus of both NUS and Yale). The Ministry of Education, which has been silent so far, is expected to address this in Parliament next week.
Assessing who the decision-makers are helps clarify lines of accountability and provides pivot points for lobbying action.
NUS initiated talks on merger of Yale-NUS with scholars programme in July
Timeline of Yale-NUS College
Top-down decision
Apart from the Why, What and Who, it was the process of decision-making – the How – that attracted the most flak. Both petitions against the closure of YNC decried the top-down nature of the move and how it was done without consulting students, staff or faculty.
Critics of the move are on strong ground here. While I don’t expect students or all staff (except some senior ones who need to help with reorganisation) to be consulted, it was quite surprising that even YNC president Tan Tai Yong was “gobsmacked and flabbergasted” by the move, as he was quoted as saying. The YNC governing board was not consulted, and was informed days before the announcement.
Making a decision to shut a college over the head of its president and governing board smacks of hubris, a disregard for institutional autonomy and a total lack of respect and trust for the individuals involved.
Sadly, from my experience, this is by no means unusual in Singapore. I have been involved in organisations that went through major restructuring without the board being informed, let alone being asked for consent. This is a shabby way to treat leaders, and individuals who have sacrificed time and energy to help steer an organisation as directors (or governing board members in YNC’s case).
Parents of Yale-NUS students ask to meet NUS president over college’s closure
Workers’ Party MPs file parliamentary questions on merger involving Yale-NUS
Officials or administrators who persist in such top-down actions will increasingly have to account for their decisions to the stakeholders involved. As the outcry over YNC’s closure shows, we are raising a generation that will not accept such high-handed moves without protest or some form of organised action, however ineffectual.
More importantly, such high-handed decision-making is guaranteed to foment distrust and cynicism, loosen cohesion and drive a wedge between leaders and people. Already, some YNC students are talking about feeling betrayed.
In its plans for the new college, NUS will have to change its modus operandi. It must make good on its promise to “maintain the strongest attributes of both its predecessors in an exciting new way”, in the words of USP director, Associate Professor Kang Hway Chuan. If alumni reports are a guide, one strength of YNC was making staff, faculty and students feel like equal partners. That should surely be one of the “strongest attributes” of YNC to be woven into the new college’s DNA.
The 240 freshmen who enrolled at Yale-NUS earlier this month will be its final cohort of students and will graduate in 2025. ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
Finally, some words for YNC students and alumni, and all affected by the change:
Your feelings today of hurt, anger, disappointment and betrayal over the decision are valid. Vent them safely with your friends, then set them aside.
Be cool-headed and analytical about what’s best about YNC that is worth preserving. Then channel your energy into trying to preserve the best of that spirit and energy in the new NUS college. Remember that disrespecting NUS is disrespecting half your heritage.
And deep within you, don’t let the flame die. What you feel now is the rage and despair of the powerless in the face of decisions made by those with power that affect you directly. One day, when you become powerful yourself, when you are in positions of authority, remember how it feels like to be powerless and not respected.
And then resolve always to do your best to act differently – to make decisions in a different way, that includes not excludes, that shares power not removes it, that respects stakeholders, not treat them as dispensable.
Creating such a culture of collaborative leadership would be a good legacy of YNC for Singapore.
Over 10,000 sign petition calling for reversal of Yale-NUS merger
One undergrad, two disciplines: Can a student master both arts and science?
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It depends whether the person is an old soul with a big capacity, photographic, and powerful memory ‘chip’ up in the brain.
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One undergrad, two disciplines: Can a student master both arts and science?
As Singapore forges ahead with interdisciplinary education, its success will depend on how well three inherent tensions are reconciled
Fung Fun Man and Ng Chia Wee.
The National University of Singapore’s College of Humanities and Sciences is part of a series of initiatives to prepare students here for a world of wicked problems, ones like climate change, cyber security and pandemics. PHOTOS: NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE.
PUBLISHEDAUG 31, 2021, 5:00 AM SGT in Straits Times.
Can a political science student learn chemistry? This was a question posed to 19-year-old Leow Shuen Ling, who began her undergraduate education at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS) earlier this month.
Her response was an emphatic “Of course!” but this was followed by what she said would be a better question – why can’t a political science student learn chemistry?
To be fair, this question may not fully apply to Shuen Ling, as she intends to pursue a double degree in political science and chemistry.
Nevertheless, the question is reasonable and might have crossed the minds of those who have followed the development of the CHS from its opening late last year.
The CHS brings together the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science. Its opening is part of a series of moves to prepare students here for a world of wicked problems, ones like climate change, cyber security and pandemics which pay little heed to disciplinary boundaries.
With further announcements by NUS last week that two new interdisciplinary colleges will be established – bringing together the University Scholars Programme and Yale-NUS College, and separately, the Faculty of Engineering and the School of Design and Environment – Singapore has ushered in a bold new chapter in higher education.
Much has been said about the importance of interdisciplinary education, but beneath the big plans and abstract discussions, it is easy to forget that individual students are the heart of the matter: students like Shuen Ling, who have distinct hopes and worries, embarking on brave new journeys for a better future.
As Singapore accelerates its interdisciplinary drive in higher education, what needs to be addressed are three tensions that students are likely to have to grapple with when they enter institutions like CHS.
Two worlds, two views
The first challenge posed by efforts to integrate the arts and sciences has to do with the habits, skills and perspectives that the students bring with them from their earlier years in education.
In junior college, for instance, students are generally divided into the arts and science streams; most students take a “contrasting” subject from the stream they are not part of, but the streams themselves remain separate. Such divides, despite having some benefits, could nevertheless affect how far students engage with other disciplines.
Consider marine biologist Toh Tai Chong and sociologist Yasmin Y. Ortiga’s experiences running an interdisciplinary reading group on green spaces. Writing in the Asian Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, they recalled an instance of a life science major who had difficulty telling the difference between a survey and an interview and a history major who said she “did not believe in objectivity”.
While most students will likely fall somewhere between these extremes, it remains reasonable to suggest that students generally view arts and sciences in silos, being used to an education system where the two are largely separated.
Furthermore, the very nature of these subjects when taught in isolation lends them to such perceptions too: The hard sciences focus on precision and impersonal, mathematical reasoning and laboratory experiments; the arts subjects centre on the human condition, emphasising interpretation and diverse perspectives which are sometimes gleaned through surveys and interviews.
To address this tension between the arts and sciences, students would benefit from a glimpse into history, and understanding how education has evolved along with advances in all fields of knowledge.
“The academic disciplines of today and the modern concept of disciplinarity are largely the product of developments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” Dr Allen F. Repko, former director of an interdisciplinary studies programme at a United States university, and his co-authors wrote in the book, Introduction To Interdisciplinary Studies.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Universities need to tear down subject silos
NUS launches new interdisciplinary College of Humanities and Sciences
Indeed, the creation of disciplines emerged as a necessary construct to marshal the growing mass of information and assist in deeper research, but the price is the creation of silos, which ironically makes it harder to advance knowledge by seeing connections.
Today, we have reached the stage where a correction is needed in the direction of Leonardo da Vinci, the archetypal Renaissance man, able to synthesise what both the arts and sciences have to offer. Yet in trying to achieve this correction, students may find themselves facing another tension – between breadth and depth of knowledge.
Breadth and depth
For students entering interdisciplinary institutions, one concern would be whether depth of knowledge will be compromised.
On a basic level, assuming fixed teaching hours, it is inevitable that some depth will have to be traded off for greater breadth – but only because a better balance between the two is what will be needed for the future economy, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the problems that need solving.
Furthermore, with information now becoming outdated faster, the excessive specialisation seen in the past could even be counterproductive, taking time away from developing the agility to learn new knowledge.
Interdisciplinary institutions can also address students’ concerns by giving them the flexibility to create their own balance between breadth and depth (within limits).
For instance, while all CHS students have to read an interdisciplinary common curriculum comprising a third of their CHS education, they have some flexibility in customising the other two-thirds to embark on one of three pathways.
If they wish to focus on a particular subject, they could embark on the “deep specialist” pathway. Of course, like Shuen Ling, they could instead be an “integrator” and home in on two majors, or alternatively, read one major alongside a minor and unrestricted elective modules.
Passion and ability
When asked if a political science student can learn chemistry, Shuen Ling replied that “ultimately, what we can learn is dependent on the extent of our passion and interests”. But for some students, passion and ability to learn may in fact be another source of tension. What if they are passionate about a contrasting subject but are not sure how good they will be at it?
While there are differences in individuals’ abilities, possible tensions between passion and ability can be partially reconciled with better learning strategies. This belief stems from our prior involvement in an NUS elective module,
Learning To Learn Better, helping students set aside sub-optimal learning strategies and pick up better ones.
One powerful learning strategy is drawing connections, a skill which lies at the heart of interdisciplinary learning.
For example, a political science student could learn about developments in chemistry by relating them to politics.
A quick Google search reveals helpful resources, such as an interesting periodic table designed by the European Chemical Society highlighting elements at risk of scarcity due to reasons such as conflict. Professor of history of science Agusti Nieto-Galan’s book The Politics Of Chemistry, which analyses the intersection of science and power in 20th-century Spain, could also be an interesting read.
Institutions must also play their part in addressing the three aforementioned tensions. Besides giving students the flexibility to customise their interdisciplinary experience within limits, they should also ensure that educators are well-trained in appropriate pedagogies, and that sufficient support is given to students who may want to pursue a field in which they have less prior training.
Whether it be institutions, educators or students, in this new chapter of higher education in Singapore, success will depend on how all involved find the right balance in managing inherent tensions – between passion and ability, between breadth and depth, and, for CHS students like Shuen Ling, between the arts and the sciences.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
NUS must keep the best elements of Yale-NUS brand of education
Yale-NUS welcomes NUS College of Humanities and Sciences
Dr Fung Fun Man is an instructor at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Chemistry.
Mr Ng Chia Wee will begin his final year of undergraduate education in the NUS Philosophy, Politics and Economics Programme next January.
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“Singapore to have an Open University” – headline on front page of ST on 14 July, 1991.
That was 23 years ago.
Also, I provide the following in JPEG format below:
“Open University plan under study” in ST front-page headline on 1 July, 1991
“Don’t take too long to start Open University” in ST Forum on 3 July, 1991
“Govt should invest more in education” in ST Forum on 27 Sept, 1990
“Differences in way scholarships given” in ST Forum on 18 Jan, 1992
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Open university? Forgotten? Not me. I wrote on this on 3 July, 1991.
Graduates and non graduates, what is the great difference between the two?
The Summit…and the Base…
How big should it be?
Which is important…Base or Summit….or both?
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Is the Open University relevant today?
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S’pore needs more grads to stay ahead: NTU president
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Nanyang Technological University’s President Bertil Andersson,
To achieve lifelong learning, it is insufficient to focus only on specialised training, he says
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Published: August 30, 2014 in Today newspaper
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SINGAPORE — Amid the spirited public discussion about the value of a degree and the need for a greater emphasis on applied and technical education, Nanyang Technological University president Bertil Andersson put up a robust case for Singapore needing more graduates — among other things, so as to not end up as a “second-rate country” — and pointed out that there is a false dichotomy between specialised training and pursuing a degree.
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The real problem is how people here tend to follow a fixed path in getting an education, he said yesterday in an interview with TODAY.
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“Most Singaporeans, young people, want to take (a degree course) as fast as possible and then they want a job,” Prof Andersson said, offering his take on the Singapore-style paper chase. It is important that the door remains open for individuals to enter university long after they have started work, he added.
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He noted that in Sweden and the United Kingdom, for example, about 40 per cent of each cohort are degree holders. In comparison, about 30 per cent of each cohort here go on to study at local universities. “That is low (by) international standards.”
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The Government has set a target of providing places at publicly funded universities for 40 per cent of each school cohort by 2020.
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Prof Andersson added: “Singapore is a country that is connected to all other countries in the world — we trade with them, we interact with them … So, Singaporeans cannot be lower-educated than people in America and England. If not, you will become a second-rate country instead of a First World country.”
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During the National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made clear that a cultural shift in the way Singapore values its people is needed for the future. He said the paper chase is not the only route to a bright future — another pathway lies in getting a good job, mastering deep skills, performing well and gaining relevant qualifications to advance a career.
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On Thursday, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam noted that the failure to focus on applied and technical education is the reason countries, even those with successful economies, are grappling with the problem of underemployment. “The most modern and advanced societies — you can look at Switzerland … Germany — require large numbers of people with technical skills in services, manufacturing and logistics,” he added.
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Weighing in on the issue, Prof Andersson said to achieve lifelong learning, it is insufficient to focus only on specialised training.
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“My view is that specialised education, at least a higher level of specialised training, must become more academic — it’s not either or; it’s both,” he said.
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Citing the example of an engineer’s future, Prof Andersson said his role was not to work in front of machines. Rather, he should be the one programming robots or machines to do the work — something that requires academic training from studying for a degree.
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“The problem is what Prime Minister Lee called the ‘paper chase’ — it’s so streamlined,” he added.
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In contrast, students in Sweden sometimes take a break or work before entering university.
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Even without top grades, universities in Sweden will also consider applicants’ work experience for their admission, noted Prof Andersson, who is a Swede. He acknowledged that Swedish students are able to spend a longer time deciding what they want to do since university education is free.
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However, Singapore can work around that and offer more flexibility in the system. For instance, he said universities could change the way they evaluate the admission criteria for undergraduates and make it easier for applicants to enter university at any age.
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When asked whether NTU would lead the way in changing admission criteria, he noted that he would be happy to do it, while acknowledging the rules and regulations governing university admissions and discussions that would be needed with the Education Ministry.
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The streamlined education pathways are also why Prof Andersson noted that there are “much too few” Singaporeans taking their master’s degrees and PhDs. “That is a reason we have so many foreign professors, because there are few Singaporeans, young people going into an academic career,” he said.
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He added that support systems need to be created to make it attractive for young Singaporeans to pursue postgraduate studies.
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His advice to students? Take time to deliberate study choices. “Be ambitious, but don’t rush,” he said.
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I wrote in 2015: Was he a foolish old man?
Our former PM Mr Lee Kuan Yew died in office as an MP.
He held office till his last breath, strong willpower and commitment.
With his commitment and responsibility to the nation, I believe he did not take leave from his MP post to go for extended leave of say, three to six months with his late wife in their twillight years to enjoy world cruises, like the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Alaska, South America, etc.
Or that he took leave to spend time on the Trans-Siberian rail, the Eastern & Oriental Express, and the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
Now he has left behind the millions to his grandchildren to spend it for them….?
Now he has left behind billions for the next/future govt/s of Singapore to spend it for him….?
For some of them [the younger generations] who inherit it all, I hope they will not callously call him a foolish old man.
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Self- education..How?
.Andrew Chuah-Choong in his Facebook on 30th March 2023:
You write well, he is history
Tan Kok Tim
Self study as teacher, student, researcher, self testing, and self as the examiner. I bought all the study materials and past exam papers for S$1000 to self study.
It took me six years. It was all worth it, but at a heavy price and a great trial and test on my freedom, general health, mental and physical conditions, even my spirituality.
Good to have tribulations, trials and testing when a person is young to reap the fruits and harvest when past 50/60.
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Andrew Chuah-Choong
Tan Kok Tim a great man, we all have these tribulations, trials and testing.
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Tan Kok Tim
Andrew Chuah-Choong Not all are born with the silver spoon in the mouth or go home in a Lexus at birth.
Some end up in the rubbish bin or chute. Are humans born equal? No. Why not?
What is the true cause of humans born unequal, some lame, blind, stillborn, and some born into royal families, wealthy families, and others are born in war-torn country, in the desert, etc? Why?
Born equal, and yet unequal. Why? Some question is there a God to decide all these, control all these, and for God to bless every couple when they procreate? Some do not believe there is a God for all these. Why?
Sad for humans to climb above God, and judge God’s Command.
Human logic and super intellect will not get to grasp and understand God’s point of view, and God’s Great Love for all mankind. Sad when super smart humans judge God.
Andrew Chuah-Choong
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Tan Kok Tim
Babies are born the same, now and then. Some with two eyes, two legs, two hands, one head, and seven holes in the head. No change. But, but, some still are born into royal families, rich families, and some born into poverty, in the desert, in Ukraine, etc. No change. Why?
Humans must understand this for mankind to progress well and not come to an end due to the N thing. Have a happy day.
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Does Singapore need a Plain Language Act?
To get the people behind public policies, they need to first understand what is being said. Jargon-filled government statements and speeches are a hindrance.
Han Fook Kwang
Editor-at-Large
Why is it that when officials speak or write, they suddenly become very different from ordinary people who never ever speak or write like this? PHOTO: UNSPLASH
PUBLISHED 3 HOURS AGO on 13th Nov 2022 in Sunday Times.
The Singapore public service is known to be efficient and forward-looking, but there is one area where it can do much better.
It should put in more effort to communicate in plain, simple language so that the man in the street can better understand government thinking and policies.
You don’t have to look very hard for evidence of this shortcoming in speeches and press releases containing incomprehensible buzzwords and jargon.
Here are samples from the last few months:
“pathfinder for rules and standards in advancing trade and environmental sustainability”; “leverage our collective wisdom and action in the digital domain”; “build a sustainable resource-efficient and climate-resilient nation”; “catalyse a whole-of-nation movement to take collective action”.
Why is it that when officials speak or write, they suddenly become very different from ordinary people who never ever speak or write like this? Can you imagine anyone saying “we should leverage our friendship and take collective action to partake in some food” instead of “let’s go out for lunch”?
Why use “catalyse” when “start” will convey the same meaning unless you want to confuse your listeners? Whole-of-nation? Isn’t it the same as national? And what exactly is a resource-efficient and climate-resilient nation?
There are two problems with using these words which have no clear meanings. For the speaker or writer, it is a lazy way of expressing your ideas without having to think more deeply about what exactly you are trying to say. If you are not clear about what you want to achieve, how can you know what to do and enlist public support for your policy?
Orwell’s warning
The English writer George Orwell put it succinctly in his critique of those who use these cut-and-paste words when he wrote in 1947:
“You can shirk it by simply throwing open your mind and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”
Over the years, more and more of these meaningless words have crept into officialese because there are more and more experts who specialise in all sorts of technical subjects and communicate with one another in jargon-filled language.
Alas, public officers, including ministers, borrow the lingo wholesale for their speeches and public documents and add to the mental fog.
For the listener or reader, it is hard work to try to decipher their meaning, and most people will not bother.
Clear communication is important for a working democracy which depends on public understanding and support of government thinking.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Wanted: Vaccine against corporate speak
Enough of buzz-speak – let’s call a spade a spade
New Zealand’s law
It is a worldwide problem, and became so bad
in New Zealand that the government passed a new law in October called The Plain Language Act, which requires its communication to the public to be “clear, concise, well organised and audience-appropriate”.
MP Rachel Boyack, who presented the Bill to Parliament, said: “People in New Zealand have a right to understand what the government is asking them to do and what their rights are, what they are entitled to from government.
“When governments communicate in ways that people don’t understand, it can lead to people not engaging in services that are available to them, losing trust in government and not being able to participate fully in society. Those most affected are people who speak English as a second language, have not attended university, have disabilities and are elderly.”
That last quote about non-native English speakers is pertinent here.
Here is one example from a parliamentary sitting last month that would have fallen foul of the New Zealand law.
The question asked by an MP was whether kindergartens run by the Education Ministry have programmes for special-needs children.
This was part of the government reply:
“MKs (shorthand for Ministry of Education kindergartens) tap on sector-wide Early Intervention (EI) provisions such as the Development Support-Learning Support (DS-LS) and Development Support Plus programmes, to support these children. Under these programmes, professionals such as Learning Support Educators and therapists provide intervention for identified children once or twice a week.
“This includes language and literacy support for children with learning needs and psychological support for children with behavioural needs. MOE also provides Assistive Technology such as Frequency Modulation systems for children with hearing loss.”
Unless you are from the ministry, or specialise in early education, you will have no idea what the answer meant.
Good luck to you if you are a parent of a special-needs child wanting to know which kindergarten might be suitable.
This was a particularly bad case but, to be fair, there are examples of good, clear writing when officers make the effort to do it. I found the recent White Paper on Healthier SGeasy to understand and largely devoid of jargon and unnecessary words. It shows the service is capable of writing clearly, but it must keep at it and not slack.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Making law accessible to the ordinary person
Over 500 Singapore laws to be made easier to read
Still, it is a pity that
bad language habits have not been stamped out, because the problem was highlighted 43 years ago, in 1979, by founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
He was so frustrated by the lack of clarity in official papers that he gathered the top brass of the civil service to discuss failing English standards among officers.
“I want to convince you, first, of the importance of clear, written communication… The use of words, the choice and arrangements of words in accordance with generally accepted rules of grammar, syntax and usage can accurately convey ideas from one to another. It can be mastered even though you are not an Englishman,” he said.
“When you write notes, minutes or memoranda, do not write in code, so that only those privy to your thoughts can understand. Write so simply that any other officer who knows nothing of the subject can still understand you. To do this, avoid confusion and give words their ordinary meanings.”
To tackle the problem, he formed a small group of the top permanent secretaries to vet every Cabinet paper before it reached ministers.
Then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee insisted that every officer read The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers, which contained many useful tips on how to write clearly and plainly.
The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers contained many useful tips on how to write clearly and plainly. PHOTO: HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE
As a young officer then, I was impressed that the two top leaders recognised how important it was to do so and wanted to do something to improve it.
If no one complains about unclear writing and speech, people assume it is all right to do the same, everyone follows suit, and it becomes the norm.
Ministers should lead by making sure that their speeches are jargon-free and clearly understood by everyone.
To be fair to them, I have found that when they speak off the cuff, they are usually articulate and clear.
It is when they read out a speech, often prepared by civil servants, that they revert to officialese.
They should write their own speeches, which Dr Goh and Mr Lee often did.
It takes time, but if it is not worth the effort, the speech is not worth making.
Han Fook Kwang is also senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Forward Singapore not just a government exercise, involves everyone including businesses
High level of trust in S’pore due to culture of honouring one’s word and one another: DPM Wong.
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The Complete Plain Words…
“Dr Goh Keng Swee gives every officer whom he thinks is promising and whose minutes or papers are deficient in clarity, a paperback edition of Sir Ernest Gowers’ The Complete Plain Words.”
How words can inspire and give life
Literature examines our reality, our actual consciousness, in a more exact way than science or even philosophy
Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman speaks at the inauguration of US President Joe Biden in Washington on Jan 20, 2021.PHOTO: AFP
PUBLISHEDMAR 14, 2021, 5:00 AM SGT in Sunday Times
In January, at the inauguration of America’s 46th President Joe Biden, an almost unknown young woman stepped onto a high and windy plinth above the city of Washington and read to the world a poem.
As Amanda Gorman spoke, the world listened and was moved. Almost immediately, the Internet began humming and the world knew the 23-year-old poet and activist. Sometimes such things can happen – a single voice rises from obscurity to inspire us with its truth.
Across time and throughout history, such voices, emerging from the deepest part of our human psyche, have spoken and been revered as signposts on the collective path we all journey upon through life.
American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr’s iconic I Have A Dream speech changed the history of the movement and is immortalised forever by all those who, whatever their race or colour, seek liberation from oppression.
Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi insisted at the height of his resistance to colonial rule: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Millions heard him then and millions still heed his advice.
Over 2,000 years ago, Chinese sage Confucius wrote: “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Those words are as fresh today as when he first penned them.
What is it that inspires us when we hear such words? What is it that touches us so profoundly? In her poem, The Hill We Climb, Gorman spoke of America’s divisive history, of her slave roots, of being a skinny black girl and of her pride in being American. None of this is relevant to the world that so rapturously received her message.
What inspires and always inspires us as a people, is the reference to our commonality, to that part of ourselves that is beyond colour or race, beyond language or status, creed or religion.
“When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? A loss we carry, a sea we must wade.”
In the interior universe of subjective human experience, who is there who does not know and respond to what these words imply?
Gorman is above all a poet, a woman, and her youthful energy and the polish of her words for a moment transfixed the world.
To produce such words is to go to the very locus of inspiration. As a conduit of received wisdom, sitting in solitary quietness, the writer must open herself to what might, or might not, be given.
This is what artists in all their many spheres do, be they poet, writer, painter, musician, dancer or actor. They are a channel for something greater than themselves, something that is entrusted to them to receive and interpret, and pass on to others.
In whatever its form, art presents and debates the reality of our profoundest responses. That is why we stop, entranced as we sit in a theatre, stand before a painting, read a poem or novel or listen to music. We are caught for a moment by what rings true to our soul.
The British novelist Iris Murdoch was also known as a moral philosopher, and wrote extensively on the meaning and power of art in a society.
In an address to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1972, she said: “There is no doubt which art is the most practically important for our survival and our salvation, and that is literature. Words constitute the ultimate texture and stuff of our moral being, since they are the most refined and delicate and detailed, as well as the most universally used and understood, of the symbolisms whereby we express ourselves into existence. We became spiritual animals when we became verbal animals. The fundamental distinctions can only be made in words. Words are spirit.”
Great art, Murdoch wrote, inspires truthfulness and humility and can discuss our reality, our actual consciousness, in a more exact way than science or even philosophy.
This truthfulness makes the artist a continued threat to those who choose darkness over light. Murdoch wrote: “Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify.”
Tyrants twist words in a way that appeals to our collective shadow; they seek to incite our most callous responses, to arouse our most negative emotions.
Poet Marylyn Tan, historic Singapore Literature Prize-winner, is not afraid to get her verse dirty
The ‘rebel girls’ of Singapore poetry: Young, outspoken and pushing boundaries
Days before Gorman spoke her uplifting words, then president Donald Trump stood before a crowd that wielded flags, weapons and a makeshift gallows and spoke words that will go down among the darkest in America’s history. “We fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The crowd screamed repeatedly “Fight for Trump” as the Capitol Hill insurrection began. In the impeachment trial that followed the insurrection, the debate over the meaning and use of the word “fight” was central to the arguments of both the defence and the prosecution.
From stillness to revelation
That historic insurrection caused Gorman to change and deepen her half-formed poem.
Grappling with the inspiration that finally became The Hill We Climb, Gorman, like every artist throughout time, would have wrestled and beseeched, for such work does not come easily. The artist must go alone to that place where most avoid to go, to solitariness and solitude, to stillness and silence, and there wait for vision and revelation.
According to the African American writer James Baldwin, in that solitude the writer must “conquer the great wilderness of himself… to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place”.
How literature taught me about life
What local poetry does that Shakespeare cannot
This sentiment is beautifully echoed by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “For the sake of a few lines one must see many cities, men and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the small flowers open in the morning.”
There are many who will quickly forget the moment they stopped to listen to Gorman’s words. But there will also be many who will remember her words.
And in that remembering, the world will be slightly changed for the better.
“The quality of a civilisation,” wrote Murdoch, “depends upon its ability to discern and reveal truth, and this depends upon the scope and purity of its language… Words are where we live as human beings and as moral and spiritual agents.”
In 1993, American author Toni Morrison became the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In her acceptance speech were words every writer now and across time will endorse. “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
• Meira Chand has a doctorate in creative writing and is the author of nine novels, whose themes examine the conflict of cultures and the search for identity.
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Why humans have to be educated?
Who some are like they already have education before birth?
Why some are born duds and while some, very few, are child prodigy?
What is complete whole person education?
Why is the purpose of education when one ends up in jail or end are in ruin or tragic death?
Do religions have the solutions to solve all these issues?
Why some pray and hope that they will be reborn into a good family?
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The Straits Times’ Editorial says
Continuing education is the new normal
PUBLISHED2 HOURS AGO on 29th March 2021 in ST
This year’s graduates from the autonomous universities, polytechnics and Institute of Technical Education can take up to four free education and training modules offered by their alma maters from next month. The move is meant to support the graduates in broadening their skill sets and to provide them access to more opportunities across different sectors amid the uncertain economic outlook. The offer is an extension of a one-off initiative that was introduced last year by the Ministry of Education, SkillsFuture Singapore and the institutes of higher learning. Beneficiaries will be this year’s cohort of more than 16,000 university graduates and about 45,000 graduates from the other institutes of higher learning.
Continuing Education and Training (CET) is an economic necessity that has been sharpened by the coronavirus pandemic. The onset of Covid-19 last year prompted the Government to issue the reassurance that, while it was a challenging time to come of age for young people here and while the road ahead was fraught with uncertainty, every effort was being made to ensure that there was no “lost generation” in Singapore. Across Asia, which is home to more young people than any other region, the lost generation consists of fresh graduates who have no or little job prospects and who are in danger of being ignored by companies in favour of the freshest applicants when employment opportunities do return.
The challenge, therefore, is to keep current cohorts competitive so they remain employable even as newer entrants arrive on the job market. The Government here gave the assurance that while the pandemic might have set back the plans of young job-seekers temporarily, it would not stop them from fulfilling their potential. They would be provided with access to jobs and traineeship opportunities even as the Government embarked on a project of unprecedented scale to protect jobs through wage support. On their part, young Singaporeans must recognise that learning is no longer just about compulsory education but is now about continuing education.
CET initiatives provide them opportunities to return to their alma maters onsite or offline to refine what they learnt in the light of new knowledge. The other advantage of such courses is that they offer exposure to adjacent competencies, or relevant knowledge that cuts across traditional academic disciplines, so as to be attractive to employers. Combined with training provided by companies, CET can become a natural part of an employee’s portfolio of expertise and experience in a world where digitalisation and technology in particular are transforming the contours of knowledge on which industry depends for its progress. The pandemic has highlighted the need for agility and the need to constantly upgrade. That is the other new normal of these times.
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Letter of the week: Time ripe for a pan-Asian university
The National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine holding its Commencement on July 14, 2019.ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
PUBLISHEDJUN 20, 2020, 7:09 AM SGT in ST Forum
Fear of China’s rise as a superpower, compounded by the coronavirus blame game, is fuelling anti-Chinese sentiment in many Western societies. Since the Covid-19 pandemic started, there have been many reports of physical attacks, verbal abuse and racial tirades directed against those of East Asian descent.
Large numbers of international students from China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia may now be reconsidering their plans to study in the West.
The time is ripe for a pan-Asian university. It will be beneficial for Asians of different origins to deepen their understanding of diverse Asian civilisations, economies and peoples to promote a harmonious and shared future.
And as globalisation beats a retreat, Asians will find a stronger sense of belonging, hospitality and relevance in Asia, especially if anti-Asian sentiment in the West persists for some time.
Singapore’s international stature, multiculturalism, economic competitiveness, geopolitical sensitivities, education excellence and external orientation make it the ideal location for such a university.
This university can be a model 21st-century institution, applying leading educational technologies and facilitating collaborative student experiences.
Through strategic collaboration, it can draw some of its academic programmes, teaching faculty, research capabilities and student base from our six public universities.
Instead of being a traditional institution, it can operate on a hub-and-spoke model, with satellite campuses in, say, the Middle East, China, India and South Korea, as well as elsewhere in South-east Asia.
In this way, students would be able to spend their educational journey in several countries for an immersive and diverse Asian experience. Community activities could be arranged to integrate them with local schools and communities.
There are numerous benefits for Singapore. The university could enhance its status as a global-Asia hub, as well as its international attractiveness, economic relevance, talent agenda and educational sophistication.
It could also open up economic opportunities for Singaporeans, especially the young, by increasing their appreciation of and affinity with the greater Asia region.
by Charlie Ang Hwa Leong
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Open University 23 years late….possible?
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I refer to, “Job prospects for non-graduates: Degree holders ‘have an edge from the get-go’, and in particular to PM Lee’s NDR speech on the value of a uni degree and the need for greater emphasis on applied and technical education.
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I recall the ST front-page headline “Singapore to have an Open University” [in ST 14 July 1991] announced by the then PM Goh Chok Tong and the Minister of Education Tony Tan.
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However, probably unbeknown to many Singaporeans, it was like this project was unceremoniously banished from our educational radar screen for good.
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Ever since its sudden disappearance, the media and no one in the academia have raised it openly again like it was taboo and given the out-of-bound marker.
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I hope the Open University concept is relevant today after 23 years of hibernation.
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We should take it out from the archive, and openly and maturely discuss any concerns of its practicability and feasibility in today’s economics and educational landscape.
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How Dr No has a great impact on my life….?
British action Sir Sean Connery, the actor for Bond in Dr No, he passed away at age 90 in Nassau. May his soul RIP.
I watched the movie, Dr No, and I read that first Bond book by Ian Fleming.
I did not stop, and I read all the Bond series within 12 months.
It has improved my command of the English language and inculcate in me my love for reading.
I have not looked back and will always remember Dr No.
I have always advised youngsters to read one book a month and 12 in a year if they wish to improve their English.
Of course, I suggest Bond if they find it to their liking. It is better than not reading at all.
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Sean Connery’s widow reveals he had suffered from dementia
Sean Connery with his wife Micheline Roquebrune at the 34th AFI Life Achievement Award tribute to Sir Sean Connery held at the Kodak Theatre on June 8, 2006 in Hollywood, California.
Published02 NOVEMBER, 2020UPDATED 02 NOVEMBER, 2020 in Today newspaper
LONDON — Iconic Scottish actor Sean Connery, who has died at the age of 90, suffered from dementia in his final years, his widow Micheline Roquebrune revealed on Sunday (Nov 1, 2020).
Connery, famous for playing the original on-screen James Bond, passed away at his home in the Bahamas, prompting an outpouring of tributes.
He died peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family members, his widow Ms Roquebrune told the Mail on Sunday.
“I was with him all the time and he just slipped away,” the 91-year-old told the newspaper.
“He had dementia and it took its toll on him. He got his final wish to slip away without any fuss.
“It was no life for him. He was not able to express himself latterly.”
Read also: Former James Bond actor Sean Connery dies aged 90
Connery will be honoured in a private funeral ceremony, with a memorial event to be held later, according to a publicist.
The actor, who was knighted in 2000, won numerous awards during his decades-spanning career encompassing an array of big-screen hits, including an Oscar, three Golden Globes and two Bafta awards.
But it was his smooth, Scottish-accented portrayal of the suave licensed-to-kill spy 007 that earned him lasting worldwide fame and adoration.
The first actor to utter the unforgettable “Bond, James Bond”, Connery made six official films as novelist Ian Fleming’s creation, giving what many still consider to be the definitive portrayal.
Former 007 actor Pierce Brosnan joined the flood of weekend tributes to the Scottish actor, who he said “led the way for us all who followed in your iconic foot steps“.
“You were my greatest James Bond as a boy, and as a man who became James Bond himself, you cast a long shadow of cinematic splendour that will live on forever,” Brosnan added.
Meanwhile US President Donald Trump, like Connery a golf fanatic, took to Twitter to praise the big-screen star after he passed “on to even greener fairways”.
“He was quite a guy, and a tough character,” Mr Trump added, claiming Connery had once helped one of his Scottish developments win approval by saying “let him build the damn thing”.
“He was so highly regarded & respected in Scotland and beyond that years of future turmoil was avoided.”
‘MODEL OF A MAN’
Connery, born in Edinburgh in 1930, married French artist Roquebrune in 1974, a year after he divorced first wife Diane Cilento.
The couple first met in Morocco in 1970. They had lived outside his native Britain for decades, previously owning a home in the Spanish resort of Marbella and then in the Bahamas.
In one of the last photographs said to have been taken of the 007 legend, and published by the Mail on Sunday, Connery can be seen clasping the hand of a smiling Ms Roquebrune.
The picture was taken on the pair’s 45th wedding anniversary on May 6, according to the paper.
“He was gorgeous and we had a wonderful life together,” the Tunisian-born widow said.
“He was a model of a man. It is going to be very hard without him, I know that. But it could not last for ever and he went peacefully.” AFP
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tankoktim 