Foreign students taking up spaces meant for local students

[Admin]

This topic came up several times on Hardwarezone, YP Network and other mediums. I believe this is a contentious issue that we, as a group should be prepared to react to. Most of the angst from netizens lies in the fact that they do not understand the rationale behind the 20% foreign students cap. If we observe the postings and replies, all of them are emotionally charged and highly inaccurate.

Don

[Admin]

This topic came up several times on Hardwarezone, YP Network and other mediums. I believe this is a contentious issue that we, as a group should be prepared to react to. Most of the angst from netizens lies in the fact that they do not understand the rationale behind the 20% foreign students cap. If we observe the postings and replies, all of them are emotionally charged and highly inaccurate.

Don

My take on our group’s strategy is one of educating them the reasons behind certain policies and make sure they see it from a national standpoint, not from a personal myopic point. We as a group representing YP should attempt to diffuse the tension but not engage in the foray. The worse situation is for us to appear confrontation and engage in unnecessary fiery debates. This will not aid our cause at all.

Don

[Admin]

Based on my interaction with the students in IHL, the issue of having foreign students (at least from my students) is at a comfortable level for the majority. On a stronger note, my students welcome them. IHL (Institute of Higher Learning) has a quota system on the number of foreign students to local students. Hence a system of check and balance is in place. The situations that warrant more concerns are the attraction of students to Engineering faculty and the prospect of finding jobs (relating to their specialization and competition with FT) upon graduation

Peter

[Admin]

I kind of differ in my opinions about the issues on foreign students.

You are right, most students are comfortable with having foreign classmates, bearing in mind that they have been accepted into the school already. The grouse is actually from those who are NOT admitted to the schools. To those who are not admitted, they see foreign students as a threat who took away their places, like how Singaporeans see foreign talents as a threat who took away their jobs. Many of them vent their anger on forums, blogs, even on our YP page (thread was deleted recently). In fact, I have an angry parent who has been coming to my MPS since May to complain about how his daughter was rejected by NUS/NTU and he attributed the rejection to foreign students.

Don

[Admin]

Referring to Don's issue: I have observed and recieved multiple feedbacks from NTU and NUS students regarding their utmost anger over the local students: foreign students’ ratio. What concern me more are the comments about the immigration law over the PR offering towards foreign students before their graduation, thereby effectively shifting the ratio to appease the public. If this is true, we should not put the students in the backseat on this topic but should readily engage them in addressing the government’s policies in doing so.

Jacky

[Admin]

The cap on foreign students is placed upon matriculation, that is to say, a max of 20% foreigner can enter local university in every cohort. PR was offered much later when they are in school due to the fact government wants to retain these foreigners that we have trained, not so much as to shift the foreign: local ratio coz this ratio is already fixed during their matriculation. I think this is a matter of clarifying the misunderstanding in policies.

Don

[Admin]

Next, scholarship concerns, which had sparked major disturbance to local Uni students on why the foreign students are getting full scholarships into Singapore to study while some of the local top grads from poly and JC students with equal standards from middle class families aren't given the same treatment. Further chats with some of them from NTU economics and engineering faculty highlighted that they see a need to regulate the student's scholarships to the best performers based on yearly results rather than "once you're in keep to a 2nd class and you're safe" mentality for the foreign students. How true is this?

Jacky

[Admin]

Jacky, perhaps you can clarify on foreigners given full scholarship into Singapore and local top grads aren’t given same treatment? I might be wrong, but as far as I know, full scholarships for foreigners are given only to ASEAN scholars, which is a small minority of foreign students. The rest of the foreign students are on reduced tuition fee scheme, meaning they pay the same amount of school fee as local students. However, these students need to work in Singapore for min. 3 years after they graduate before they can work elsewhere otherwise they will have to repay the tuition waiver. For local students, scholarships are based on competitive basis.

The issue on regulating students’ scholarship, I believe it is up to university’s admin. At NUS, all scholarship is subjected to yearly review. If a scholar’s CAP (something like GPA) is less than 4.0, his scholarship will be revoked. Not sure about NTU’s policy (Ethan, maybe you can tell us how NTU is like?)

Don