This just comes to my mind after reading through the recent SG
govt decision to cut NSF period for 6 months for A level/Dip
holders.
Do you think it is feasible for Singapore to adopt a West Point (US
military academy) style of studies/commission for its
regular/scholar officer corps?
Currently, regulars become SAF officers through the following
schemes:
1. Sign on upon enlistment. Go through the standard OCS and begin
military career after that.
2. Take up one of the many different SAF scholarship schemes.
Disrupt military service for studies according to his/her
scholarship scheme. Resume training in OCS if he/she had not
completed the 42 week course prior to disruption.
Won't it be better if the SAF can group together its regulars and
scholars to one military cum educational institution?
So these people will spend four years studying and training in a
military academy, and obtain a bachelors degree with a 2LT
commission after four years. Two semesters of study per year, with
the mid-year break (~3 months) reserved for OCS style training.
There can be even a student exchange with overseas institutions in
a regular semester or two.
Academics can easily be drawn or 'borrowed' from NUS/NTU/SMU to
teach some of the courses.
The SG govt will pay for their university education, and in return
they will serve the usual bond of 6 years.
Assuming there are about 40-50 SAF scholars per year, with regulars
who aren't, this will give a total annual intake of about 100 for
this institution? You might argue that the small numbers don't
justify the setting up of such a institution, but I can think of
the distance learning degree courses in Singapore, where they
usually have small number of students per course. And here in the
US, some of the most elite universities/colleges have an entering
class in the few hundreds. For example, Caltech has a total
undergraduate population of around 900, yet it is one of the best
engineering schools in the US. Another case would be Cooper Union
in NYC, a top-notch undergrad engineering school also with a total
undergrad population of 900. For non-engineering schools, there are
those LACs (liberal arts colleges) such as Amherst, Smith,
Swarthmore etc.
NSFs selected for OCS will go through the usual 'compressed'
training period of 42 weeks.
This would also abolish the class differences amongst the SAF
scholars and non-scholar regulars. As is always been mentioned in
the PSC scholarship literature, SAFOS is at the top of the pecking
order, followed by the MS holders, ATAs and LSAs etc. This would
also allow those A level and poly regular officers a chance of a
university education. The distinction between 'scholars' and
'farmers' in the organization would be removed, since all the
regulars would graduate from the same institution.
