I also study in oversea.....Singkapore(I am not a local).....that's why my England is so powderful :thumbsup:
me too...
i study foreign kindergarden, primary, secondary, poly, tertiary... now... foreign vocational school.... solid man...
I also study in oversea.....Singkapore(I am not a local).....that's why my England is so powderful :thumbsup:
that's how schools (not just in singapore) maintain the value of the certificates they give out.
competition is real and each individual has to decide for himself/herself what he/she wants out of the university education. i have friends who give up CAP for hall activities, they still graduate and still do fine in work outside. at university level, i think we can't blame the point system for stopping anyone from making academic achievement, there's nothing wrong with a second/second upper unless you already decided that you want to enter civil service, but then that'll be up to individual choice how much the civil service career is to be valued.
btw from what you've pointed out, it's nothing to do with the point system, it's more to do with the distribution of the grades. and this distribution is used in every other point system, except it's less used in one that only says ''pass'' or ''fail,'' which do in fact exists but mostly in art related schools.
they have been using the GPA system for the past couple of years already, both ntu and nus.
Not really, there are schools which have a high first-class honour rate that does not degrade any of their degree value. Sure, they get flak for being a "honours producing school" but who cares, so long as the employability still trounces most of the other/equivalent schools in the same country. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
I think local unis should work harder on attaining a name, not just via silly advertisements - e.g. the recent few that were mocked bigtime (done by NUS Business School) depicting an overseas student rejecting WHARTON and SLOAN of all things to go to NUS Business School.. That is only one example, I've seen a few more which make me ashamed. We care too much about being on global rankings, so we do things here that make us get placed on global rankings, but so what, employers internationally will still often pick certain unranked schools but with a much better name over local schools with good rankings and no name.
I'm not certain how our local unis can do so, but as above example, touting the idea that they can match up to the big name giants without having the substance and presence is not going to the trick as far as I can see.
Not just in civil service, this first/second/third paper race; take for example - investment banking arena; it is not easy to break in unless you have contacts, most foreign firms have very high demands for their male employees when they recruit. I have a friend who interned in a locally based IB firm who has loads of overseas customers, on the male side there are zero local graduates, just to give you an idea of what they think.
P.S. Anyways, just in case someone comes up with some "only overseas then can get degree argument", it doesn't apply in the scenario just above this postscript; IB has all sorts of degrees, chem engine, fin engine, economics; you name it they probably have a graduate in it.
i think you're mixing up the point system, honours allocation with quality of the university. i believe you have more issue with the quality of education than the school's reluctance to give out more 1st class honours.
It's a mixture of both; perhaps got muddled but don't see how I got mixed up? :dunno:
Just lumping it all together for push factors away from local unis.
Arguments do not have to be in a point by point basis, especially when they're informal.. =D I guess that's the view that got me in trouble with my GP teacher (well, science stream GP teachers are interesting in weird ways) all the time.
What I'm saying; in short, is that:
Doesn't matter what quality your first class honours is if you do not have the name to back up your first class honours. No name no talk, first and foremost.
btw, the banking industry is extremely competitive, it's true that NUS graduates sometimes hardly get a chance, but that's more because of poor knowledge, or poor performance. poor performance during interviews as well. nothing to do with 1st class honours.
well, you don't solve the quality issue by giving out more 1st class honours. and if the school's quality is well recognised, even a 2nd class is a compliment. that's why there's really no relation between the two.
Hard to say;
I merely mentioned one example of a foreign investment banking corporation with branch here; whose management is largely male-dominated. Therefore, on the female side, for whatever reasons I shall not name (whatever I was told, anyways) the standards on paper are seemingly less stringent to the eye of an outsider.
They do demand stellar resumes from the males though; Ivy League or Oxbridge nonetheless; so it isn't just Singapore who does the paper chase, come to think of it.
yes, they demand nothing less than the best. it's true. and their contracts are usually short term because they need to turnover their manpower quickly to ensure that only the best stays.
Precisely my point; it makes local unis look ridiculous though.
You know, like a small man puffing himself to look big, I'm sure you get the idea.
In the first place, the rat race for 1st class honours has to stop, local unis have to get their idea down pat, and this comes in the form of change of culture, PROPER change of teaching methods (no, introduction of creativity or whatever not in the classroom is ridiculous, thankyew)..
And giving stringent and overly demanding academic requirements for employability versus a proper university education that is more ideal has to balance out somewhere.
I'm not sure if it'd work though; I'm not an enemy of the foreign students here, but nonetheless I agree with the general consensus that most of them are using Singapore as a window to the world; healthy competition (which most of the local uni students tend to gripe a lot about) is more than welcome though.it's just a strategy to get more foreign money, the global education market is competitive and so many suppliers competing for limited demand, still that has nothing to do with the honours allocation. i'm glad NUS did not resort to giving out honours more easily to attract foreigners though.
and if you realised, the rat race comes from the students, not the university system. the system is pretty much similar to many other schools all over the world, so don't blame the school for not getting the honours. in fact i see alot of courses being ''ruined'' by uninterested singaporean students in NUS.
very confusing, what do you mean?
What do I mean?
Right now, our universities are at a state where we are psuedo-recognised, neither here nor there, we are known, but not well-known. Something like the good ol' argument about whether Singapore is what-world (you know, first-world, blah); a lot of talent does run overseas for a few reasons: a) the fact that they do not like the proposed lifestyle in order to do well academically here; b) lack of name, and many more.
You state that despite the fact that Singapore isn't the top choice for more employers, giving stringent requirements for first-class ensures that you get a clear division between the cream and the uninterested students with possibly undesirable attitudes which may later on be migrated to their work. I agree. But how do you put it - how do you ensure that the quality of education (whether it is culture, exposure to various facets of education) improves while implementing such conditions which may well deter the development of the former [i.e. improvement of quality of education].
I have no quarrel with establishing a good research programme, agreed with the name thing; but we need more than just a name there.NUS does have a name in the research field, that's why the global ranking is high. improvement takes time, and the school has chosen to put the resources in research. i've no complaints about that, i thought having good research programmes will spin off into many benefits for the entire school. how that's done, i don't know the details. i only hope that more resources will go into undergraduate programmes once the research programmes are well established.
if you ask me, hall involvement is very hard to assess, and probably meaningless to grade since it'll be really arbitrary. if a student wants proof of active social involvement, i'll think getting involved in activities outside the school will be more important than getting oneself stuck in the hall. in some schools in europe, students run their own cross faculty research programs and make substantial contribution to the field, that definitely looks much more impressive on the resume.
when it comes to tertiary education, alot has to do with personal choices and what one wants to get out of one's time in the school. the system will never be perfect, someone somehow will have something against it and it will be changing all the time. actually i think entry into NUS is so easy for singaporeans that most singaporeans only want to get a cert. and don't want to have much to do with improving NUS. that complacency is evident in all the schools in NUS, which makes it even more difficult for qualitative improvement to take place.