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[TD="class: msgFname, width: 68%"] 3in1Mod <NOBR></NOBR>[/TD]
[TD="class: msgDate, width: 30%, align: right"]2:27 am [/TD]
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[TD="class: wintiny, align: right"] 63010.1 [/TD]
[TD="class: msgtxt"][h=2] Two thousand scholarships worth $36 million are awarded to foreign students each year [/h]
The Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Ms Sim Ann, has disclosed in Parliament that at least 2000 scholarships are awarded to foreign students each year.
This includes about 950 pre-tertiary and 1070 undergraduate students from Asean and non-Asean countries. The scholarships cover both tuition and accommodation.
These scholarships cost $14,000 for pre-tertiary students and between $18,000 and $25,000 (i.e, average of $21,500) for undergraduates.
This works out to about $13.3 million for pre-tertiary students and $23 million for undergraduates, giving a total of at least $36 million.
It took Non-Constituency MP Yee Jenn Jong of the Workers’ Party from two sittings in the Parliament to extract these figures out from the Ministry of Education (MOE).
In the first MOE’s reply last month, it only disclosed that 320 scholarships are awarded to Asean students each year, but it took a second enquiry from Mr Yee on Friday’s Parliamentary sitting (17 Feb) for MOE to disclose the much larger number of 1,700 scholarships which are awarded to non-Asean students annually.
When Mr Yee asked how MOE tracked the performance of the scholarship holders during their studies and whether the foreign students fulfilled their obligation to work here after graduation, Ms Sim replied that the academic performance of each scholarship recipient is tracked, and if their performance is poor, the scholarship is withdrawn.
It is not known how many of the foreign students have their scholarships withdrawn each year and what minimum performance is required of the foreign students by MOE.
Ms Sim said that most foreign scholars serve out their bonds and the few who default are made to pay liquidated damages. However, she did not reveal any numbers. She also did not explain how MOE could go after the defaulters given that they would have already skipped town.
Even if these defaulters could be located overseas, how is MOE going to enforce the bond agreement against the foreign bond-breakers in a foreign country? This is especially problematic from a legal standpoint since some of the Courts in foreign countries, e.g. China, are sympathetic towards their own citizens.
In fact, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that more foreign scholars are defaulting in the last 2 years, as related by PRC students in this article on a Chinese site: http://www.chinanews.com/lxsh/2012/01-10/3593069.shtml .
The reason being since 2010, in response to Singaporeans’ demands and the approaching of a general election, the government withdrew the automatic granting of PR to foreign scholars after their graduations from our local universities. Without PR, their employability diminishes. Many couldn’t find a job in Singapore and promptly skipped town to return home. Others have returned home because they find the job prospects better, especially with their ability to speak better English than their peers at home. It is not known if MOE has gone after those PRC bond-breakers mentioned inside the Chinese news article to “pay liquidated damages”.
Ms Sim also said that the quality of foreign scholars has been maintained over the years. She quoted some statistics: Around 45% complete their undergraduate studies with a second-upper class honours or better while only 32% of Singaporeans do as well.
Thanks to Ms Sim’s disclosure, Singaporeans now know that majority (55%) of the so-called foreign scholars are only of average calibre no different from our average Singaporean undergraduates. One would expect that with $36 million being spent on these “special” foreign scholars each year, they should all be scoring second-upper or better! Why are we even funding mostly average foreign students and calling them “scholars”?
Is Ms Sim not shameful for making this disclosure on behalf of MOE?
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