Foreigners are thriving in Singapore’s education system while we groom ASEAN, India and PRC kids from as young as 13 and taking up placements in NUS, NTU and SMU with scholarships while their local peers have to work part-time to cope to raising expenses while schooling. Many more locals are forced to study in SUTD, SIT, UNiSIM or overseas in order to pursue the subject of their interest. It is the same story for teaching positions in universities whereby our universities made efforts to recruit (mostly less-inferior) teaching staff from China and India in the name of diversity.
Given such disparity, our universities are more interesting in promoting diversity over the development of true blue Singaporeans with fathers or grandfathers who served NS. Top universities in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan ignored the diversity criteria in global university rankings and focused to be revered learning centers for their local youth. While they are not highly ranked in global university rankings, each year, the leading universities in these countries churned out numerous graduates who went on to further their horizons with their local elite conglomerates.
Our open-door policy in recent years, sacrificed the competitiveness of our local youth and burdened them with NSmen obligations. No amount of skillsfuture credit can fix this sorry state of affairs.