THE post-graduate programmes in the National University of
Singapore (NUS) law faculty are open to students from all around
the world - except Singapore.
At least that's the way it appears on the faculty's website.
Are Singaporeans being marginalised on their own turf?
There are five categories of scholarships on offer: Research
Scholarship, the Graduate Scholarship for Asean Nationals, the
Faculty Graduate Scholarships (FGS), the Scholarship for Young
Asian Academics, and the Microsoft Scholarship.
Only the Research Scholarship is open to Singaporeans.
The rest are open to a range of nationalities and come with the
qualifier 'except Singapore citizens and permanent residents'.
That has riled some netizens and students.
Blogger Mr Wang wrote: 'It is clear that in our country today,
citizenship... turns out to be a liability.'
Mr Wang, who could not be contacted, compared NUS Law's
scholarship distribution to that of the University of Cambridge.
Its law faculty website displays eight categories of scholarships
and funding programmes for post-graduate students, none of which
exclude British citizens.
In fact, one of the eight is exclusively for citizens from
Britain and Commonwealth countries.
Netizens' outrage
Mr Wang's blog postings sparked reactions among other netizens,
most of whom questioned the exclusion of Singaporeans in the NUS
Law post-graduate scholarships.
But Associate Professor Alan Tan, the vice-dean of Graduate
Programmes in NUS Law, insisted it was wrong to say Singaporeans
are excluded from most of the scholarships.
He said it was necessary to look at the number of recipients in
each scholarship category and that the FGS category is, in fact,
open to Singaporeans despite the NUS Law website stating
otherwise.
But he did not clarify why it was not made clear on the
website.
Prof Tan said about 10 to 12 students are awarded the
scholarship each year but declined to reveal how many were
Singaporeans or PRs.
There is no cap on the number of Research Scholarships - which
are open to Singaporeans - given out yearly. He did not give exact
numbers on how many were given out, or how many were awarded to
Singaporeans.
In comparison, only one or two scholarships are given for the
other three categories.
Prof Tan said the difference between the profile of NUS Law's
post-graduate students and that of its undergraduates should also
be taken into account.
'The LLM does not qualify the holder for practice in Singapore.
It is the undergraduate LLB degree that qualifies the holder,' he
said.
'As such, the bulk of our undergraduate students are
Singaporeans, but the proportion is reversed for post-graduate
students.'
'Mostly non-S'poreans'
He said 98 per cent of the latter are non-Singaporeans, 'because
Singaporeans very rarely apply to take post-graduate courses. They
prefer to go overseas'.
Prof Tan said NUS encourages Singaporeans who have obtained the
LLB to pursue an LLM abroad 'because we feel they should obtain
overseas exposure'.
Said an NUS Law Year 3 undergraduate who declined to be named:
'If you want to practise law here, the LLM is not necessary, but if
I had to pursue an LLM, I would take up NUS' programme because it's
much more cost-effective even without a scholarship.'
The fees for Singaporeans applying for a Masters in NUS Law
Faculty are significantly lower because of subsidies - $5,890 for
most programmes, compared to $14,730 for foreigners, according to
NUS.
Recent graduate and NUS Law valedictorian Zhuo Wenzhao said the
NUS masters' programmes have 'many modules that are similar to
those offered to undergrads', so local students graduating with an
NUS Law LLB may 'feel they're doing the same thing '.
The 25-year-old chose to pursue a joint programme by NUS and New
York University (NYU) which allowed him to get his LLB from NUS and
LLM from NYU in four years.
However, Mr Zhuo added: 'Even if Singaporeans make up the
minority of the post-graduate student population, there is no need
to exclude Singaporeans in terms of eligibility.
'This would ensure that scholarships are awarded based on
merit.'
its really fair to say we are making a joke out of ourselves.
some comments are better left unsaid.