Future of University education here |
|---|
 If an individual is willing to give up on the status value a university degree confers upon him/her, this is a good thing. Ong Ye Kung assumes people will get to pursue their aspirations under this developing system. That is not going to happen. There will always be a few courses which are highly sought after and will have to be rationed. You can try to open as many places as possible but you can't do that without keeping an eye on demand. Right now too many people want to bake and not that many want to eat the baking. During my sister's time everyone wanted to start a magazine and nearly all of them lost money. Few people really know what they want and they end up pursuing fads and whatever pays the best. If this system succeeds we will become less Chinese/Asian as it is merit based and hierarchy destroying. Everyone is to be respected for his area of expertise and it is impossible to compare an apple to an orange except amongst the same sort of fruit. I welcome this more egalitarian outcome. Tomorrow everyone will be a graduate in his own way. Everyone will also go beyond that because his or her knowledge and skill sets have to be updated and refreshed all the time. I only hope the workplace would be more conducive than stressful. This is keeping things simple but in real life there are other forces that try to pull the person in different directions at the same time. People still envy each other and have this inherent need to come across looking better than others. The urge to differentiate and rise above others will always be there but it is up to us to socially discourage that and you have to nip it in the bud by taking advantage of this oncoming wave of change. This article first appeared on Blogging For Myself. It is reproduced with permission. |
|
YOU MAY WISH TO READ: Is Getting a Private University Education Worth It in Singapore? Foreign scholars get to study for free while I use CPF to pay for my kid's education |
