Originally posted by robertteh:
Vito_corleone,
[b]Your statement of facts represents a
completely honest reversal of views about scholastic excellence as
adopted by PSC. In their view which no doubt
reflects that of MM Lee, scholars are the talents even if in name
or on assumptions Singapore needs to create jobs.
I agree with you that from my own personal observation, scholars
are as good as the paper their qualifications are printed on until
really they have proven themselves individually in some projects or
real-world performance.
However our MM will not listen and insists on his way of presuming
scholars to be true talents even after seeing so many
non-performance by so many scholars. To me academic ability is just
about the only talents our many scholars possess but scholars have
been conveniently used politically to further the one-party system
in our case for the past 40 years.
What Singapore needs now after so many years of siphoning off
scholars for political control is to throw them out to the open and
let them prove their worth in becoming entrepreneurs in the real
world and then accept them as our potential leaders in all fields.
Singapore is now very weak scientifically and technologically
behind Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Europe because of such shallow
assumptions made about scholars. There has been a major lapse in
in-depth judgmental thinking about who are talents and true
entrepreneurs for our economic success.
Only having revised our assumptions about scholars into a more
practical-minded master plan to turn scholars into real
entrepreneurs and technological talents will MM or Singapore
succeed in the so-called meritocracy. Without such honest reversal
of policy error, we are wasting public monies by all kinds of
scholar schemes which come to naught at the end. The old policy
about scholars is not convincing or logical as a lot of unproven
academic people are being pushed to take charge of responsibility
which do not bear results. What is judgmental or presumptuous will
remain so for many more years. It is a farce it is still the major
policy in today's real world of competitive entrepreneurship and
creativity. Sigh !!! 
[/b]
Actually, i see the value in using academic excellence as a
criteria for choosing people to take up key positions. After all,
how else can one gauge the abilitity of another? At the very least,
good academics would tell you that the person concerned is not
afraid of hard work, and is able to understand abstract
issues.
However, i feel that one should not look at academic ability to the
exclusion of all other criteria. If one has been able to prove
himself in the real world, then his lack of academic qualifications
should not be a bar to him being given an opportunity.
