SOAS FORUM Serene Wee Former Malaysian, PAP Minister Khaw BW had kicked off the debate on whether the emphasis on getting a degree is too excessive, for some time now. Malaysia has been ahead in having private institutions in various types of twinning programmes offering all manner of degrees.Only recently has SG been trying to catch up. Quite often such degrees are not worth the paper they are written on. Of course the paper qualification industry is enormous globally and the sales of degrees stretch right up to Phds. Not something to be brushed off as a mere electoral issue. It is a deep seated socio cultural problem which the PAP started in the first place and now it bewilders them, with no glimpse of any solution at all for SG. And they dont know whether to laugh or cry that Kenneth Jeyaretnam who usually would be an epitome of PAP academic excellence, is such an idiot even in his own field of economics. Irony is - for those in the know - PAP luminaries such as LKY and S Rajaratnam were surely not products of the exam factory. Raja was a university drop out and LKY was not a bookworm. Much has been written about Raja on that point - but Singaporeans are less conversant with the views of PAP founder member and left inclined Samad Ismail who was detained under the ISA and later banished to Malaysia. But nonetheless knew Lee as a natural ..not bookish at all. And Samad to his credit had written about it in glowing terms about Lee despite not seeing eye to eye with LKY in the advanced stages of their political struggles. Similar views were held by Lees teachers in school and at university. It must be said the well read Raja had not and would not be in sync with the way the word scholar is being bandied about these days. For one scholarship was not tied to the exam factory at all in his time... So this current debate on degrees defies glip pontification and most certainly not a black and white matter.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 09:06:37 +0000
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