TO HELL WITH SG50
I am a Singaporean studying in the University of Queensland in Australia and I can’t help feeling betrayed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's recent visit to us Singaporean students here after his G20 Summit.
PM Lee came here and spoke about how we should be celebrating SG50 next year even though we are overseas and he highlighted how successful Singapore has been over the past 50 years and how it has become “prosperous” and “respected”.
While I understand that he wants to celebrate, I think he doesn’t actually understand why many of us are forced to go overseas to study.
University of Queensland is quite a reputable university, perhaps not exactly on par with NUS but it is still ranked top 50 in the world. If I am able to secure a university spot in UQ and many other Australian university, why am I unable to get into NUS or NTU? (FYI, I got A B E for my GCE "A" levels and not a single course in NUS/NTU accepted me)
For me and many others here that I have talked to, it is because we have been rejected by local universities in Singapore.
Despite the Singapore society putting a huge emphasis on the need for a degree and the obvious pay gaps between degree holders and non-degree holders, they have not made an effort to ensure that there are enough university places in Singapore for students who actually want to study.
When I was entering university, Singapore only had about 26% of students entering locally funded universities. Now, I think the government has tried to expand this to 30% or 40% but it is still well short of the 50%+ seen in other countries like Finland and Denmark. Worse still Singapore university places are currently filled with an obscene number of foreigners: "45% of university students are not Singaporeans?"
Full article at PM Lee pretentiously 'celebrates' with us local university rejects in Australia
I am a Singaporean studying in the University of Queensland in Australia and I can’t help feeling betrayed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's recent visit to us Singaporean students here after his G20 Summit.
PM Lee came here and spoke about how we should be celebrating SG50 next year even though we are overseas and he highlighted how successful Singapore has been over the past 50 years and how it has become “prosperous” and “respected”.
While I understand that he wants to celebrate, I think he doesn’t actually understand why many of us are forced to go overseas to study.
University of Queensland is quite a reputable university, perhaps not exactly on par with NUS but it is still ranked top 50 in the world. If I am able to secure a university spot in UQ and many other Australian university, why am I unable to get into NUS or NTU? (FYI, I got A B E for my GCE "A" levels and not a single course in NUS/NTU accepted me)
For me and many others here that I have talked to, it is because we have been rejected by local universities in Singapore.
Despite the Singapore society putting a huge emphasis on the need for a degree and the obvious pay gaps between degree holders and non-degree holders, they have not made an effort to ensure that there are enough university places in Singapore for students who actually want to study.
When I was entering university, Singapore only had about 26% of students entering locally funded universities. Now, I think the government has tried to expand this to 30% or 40% but it is still well short of the 50%+ seen in other countries like Finland and Denmark. Worse still Singapore university places are currently filled with an obscene number of foreigners: "45% of university students are not Singaporeans?"
Full article at PM Lee pretentiously 'celebrates' with us local university rejects in Australia
