Though presidential hopeful Dr Tony Tan has won the ringing
endorsement of senior PAP leaders in the last few days with PAP’s
Secretary-General Lee Hsien Loong calling him a ‘unifying’ figure
for all Singaporeans, it appears that he will not have the support
of many young Singaporeans who are still angry at him for depriving
them educational opportunities at home.
As a former PAP education minister in the 1990s, Dr Tony Tan was
responsible for the PAP’s open-door policy to foreign students
which had brought thousands of them from China, India and elsewhere
to study in Singapore universities on government scholarships which
paid for their tuition fees and monthly living allowances among
other things.
“Singapore will not have enough graduates to service
the economy in the year 2000, and steps will have to be taken to
boost the intake at the universities here, while attracting more
graduates from abroad as well,” Dr Tony Tan said way back
in 1997.
When asked if measures would be put in to protect Singapore
students from competition, Dr Tony Tan replied callously:
’There is no way in which you are going to be able to
protect either Singaporeans or Singapore because we are a small
country.’
(Source: Straits Times, 1998)
Due to Dr Tony Tan’s pro-foreigner education policies, many
Singaporeans missed out on places in local universities and had to
further their tertiary education overseas, a fact not lost on a NTU
graduate who said:
“Tony Tan is responsible for one of the greatest policy
errors that will cause great, untold harm to Singapore. His foreign
students policies have caused an entire generation of Singaporeans
to lose loyalty for Singapore.
Which citizens would not lose their feelings for the
country if they are discriminated in the very country whom they
have sacrificed 2.5 years of their lives under a humiliating
military conscription service. Some of the so-called foreign
scholars were really mediocre. Even I got better results(2nd-upper
honours) than many of them. Go and get NTU to open up their
records. Ask NTU School of EEE to reveal how many so-called foreign
scholars got 2nd-lower honours and below. It is a simple matter to
verify.”
梁琬婷 is disgusted at
Dr Tony Tan’s refusal to do more to help Singaporeans:
“If pap cannot even manage and protect the citizens in a
small country, what use are they then? Why still vote for them for
so many decades? And why should we vote for TT to be the President
since he is not even trying to protect the citizens?
爱国爱民视之如子乃z,但在他们身上却看不到!”
Chia CC wondered if Dr Tony Tan will be a president for
Singaporeans or foreigners:
“Wow, looks like Tony was the traitor who formulated the
PAP policy of “NS for Singaporeans, but free varsity places and
jobs for foreigners”. If he gets to be President, perhaps he will
end up looking after foreigners better than the citizens who voted
him into office!!”
Katherine Ho asked why she should vote for somebody who cared
for foreigners more than Singaporeans:
“This Tony Tan will never fight for us like what late Mr
Ong did. so why do we need a president that feeds on us but betrays
us. like a common saying goes: “ïf one keeps a dog, it will at
least show gratefulness”. But for him, it will be like keeping a
dog so that it can bark at you or even bite you
anytime!”
With public opposition against the PAP regime at an all-time
high, the PAP may not risk a contest which Dr Tony Tan may well
lose based on its growing unpopularity. The two other contenders
are likely to be disqualified as Dr Tan Cheng Bock is the
non-executive chairman of a company while Mr Tan Kin Lian is the
CEO of a cooperative, not a company and hence they do not meet the
requirements posited by the Council of Presidential advisers
technically.
Dr Tony Tan is likely to become Singapore’s next ‘elected’
president without fighting a contest like his predecessor S R
Nathan who has earn millions of dollars from Singaporeans by
keeping ‘quiet’ and doing ‘little’.
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53272.1
For over two decades, Dr Tony Tan oversaw university education
as its Minister-in-charge.
In the late 1990s, the Singapore government convened a panel, under
the direction of DPM Dr Tony Tan to re-examine university admission
criteria. One of the pressing problems seen by the government at
the time was that Singapore’s low birth rate, in part caused
by misguided eugenics population
policies, had resulted in fewer and fewer
graduates entering universities. As reported in the Straits Times on 1st August
1997:
* MORE GRADUATES NEEDED: Singapore will not have enough
graduates to service the economy in the year 2000, and steps will
have to be taken to boost the intake at the universities
here, while attracting more graduates from abroad as well, said
Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan, who oversees university
education.
The panel was set up in 1998 and held its first meeting on 17th
April 1998. Although Dr Tony Tan was not on the panel, he was the
minister overall in charge of it. Apart from the projected shortage
of skilled graduates, one of the other reasons for reviewing
university admission criteria was to address the perception that it
was almost entirely academic based with no consideration for
extra-curricular achievements. The other, seemingly innocuous goal,
was to transform the local universities of NUS and NTU into
world-class universities.
Right from the start in 1998, Dr Tony Tan ruled that a
policy which limits foreigners or protects Singaporean students and
graduates was not on the table:
One student had asked if the Government would implement policies
that would protect Singaporeans facing competition from foreigners,
for jobs as well as university places.
Dr Tan answered: “There is no way in which you are going
to be able to protect either Singaporeans or Singapore because we
are a small country.
“We don’t set prices. We are a price-taker, not a price-setter,”
he said on Thursday.
In a similar vein with Minister George Yeo, who rebutted MP Tan
Cheng Bock later in
1999 on grounds that Singapore should not
adopt Singaporeans first policy when it came to jobs, DPM Tony Tan
was adamant that Singaporeans
should not get preferential treatment
whether competing for jobs or places in local universities.
Fast-forward a year later, when it was becoming apparent that
Singapore still needed more graduates to service its economy lest
economic growth slows, a report appeared in the Straits
Times questioning if the government should
increase the intake of university students at local universities
NTU and NUS due to an increasing number of Singaporean students who
were unable to qualify for local university, and had to resort to
expensive educational opportunities overseas, the vast majority of
them being polytechnic graduates who had been shut out of local
universities without being told a good reason why (given the
non-transparent nature of university admission critierion):
To make matters worse, it was becoming apparent that Singapore
was losing talent because of this overseas brain drain. Taking the
case of Tan Teck Chuan:
After completing his national service, he joined Ngee Ann
Polytechnic where he began his winning streak, sweeping more than
10 book prizes, a scholarship and the first Tay Eng Soon gold medal
for outstanding work as a diploma student in building services.
Then came decision time. He could wait for another eight months
and try for a place at the National University of Singapore or the
Nanyang Technological University.
If he clinched a place, it would mean studying for another four
years as he would not be allowed to skip the first year because his
polytechnic course was not considered relevant.
His other option: Go to Cardiff University and aim for an
honours degree in two years.
NUS and NTU do not reveal how they calculate the entry points
for polytechnic graduates, but Mr Tan knew that besides his
polytechnic grades, his O-level results and work experience would
be taken into account. On that basis, he did not rate
his chances highly.
On the other hand, he had a firm offer from Cardiff, one of the
top five universities in mechanical engineering in Britain.
The choice was clear, but the two-year stint in Wales did not
come cheap though – $60,000 to be exact.
At the end of it all, Teck Chuan said that he wished he had a
chance at local universities:
Although he appreciated the value of the overseas exposure, Mr
Tan told Insight he wished that Singapore had given him and others
like him the opportunity to pursue tertiary education here – at
less cost to himself and his family.
“People ask me why was I not satisfied with a poly diploma. But
let’s face it, in Singapore, what counts is a degree.
“And by the end of my poly course, I knew I had the
ability to do a degree in two or three years, so I don’t see why I
don’t deserve that shot at a university degree – right here at
home.”
To be clear, Teck Chuan was not just one out of a few
Singaporeans who missed out opportunities at local universities.
The articles goes on to say that UK universities usually found that
Singaporeans were model students:
Officials of Leeds, Glasgow, Leicester and Loughborough
Universities note that Singaporeans are model students who pass
with first class or second-upper honours.
The University of Glasgow alone had 20 first class and 40
second-upper class honours among the graduating batch of
Singaporeans last year.
Here is where DPM Tony Tan’s role came into play. DPM Tan said
that while more graduates are needed to keep the economy going
(a shortfall of graduates was expected even if NTU and NUS
increased their intake), but that increasing the intake
was ruled out for fear that it might
“lower their standards” and cause them to become “unmanageable”.
His solution? Part of it was to instead increase the
intake of foreign students from overseas (similar to
overseas recruitment, no?) so as to retain education
standards, done probably in part to ensure NUS and NTU were seen as
world class education institutions which foreigners would flock
to:
Deputy Prime Minister Dr Tony Tan revealed in Parliament that
projections by the Ministry of Trade and Industry indicated that
Singapore needed 17,000 graduates a year to service its
economy.
With an intake of about 10,000 or 11,000 to NUS and NTU, there
would still be a shortfall.
He ruled out expanding the intake at NUS and NTU, saying
that it could lower their standards and cause them to
become unmanageable “mega-universities”.
The better options were to increase the number of
tertiary-level institutions and recruit students from
overseas.
In other words, if one is looking to blame any minister for the
huge influx of foreign students in local Singapore universities and
the huge brain drain of polytechnic graduates who leave for
overseas university education (who are unfairly penalised due to
consideration of ‘O’ Level grades), DPM Tony Tan appears to be the
minister responsible.
In his quest to ensure the Singapore economy had enough
graduates to keep it going and while also trying to boost local
university standards and international appeal, DPM Tony Tan set in
motion the policy which discriminated against local students in
favour of foreign students who, in some apparent cases are not able
to qualify for their own country’s competitive university entrance
exams.
Is this not a clear case of putting foreign students ahead of
locals? All in the name of boosting the image of NUS/NTU over that
of the locals. To make matters worse, CPF money cannot be used for
education overseas. Polytechnic students who had to go overseas or
resort to expensive college education through distance learning
have DPM Tony Tan to thank for putting foreign students overseas
ahead of locals.
It would not be the least bit suprising if it eventually emerged
that DPM Tony Tan was the brains behind the policy which explicitly
invites foreign students fully sponsored by the Singapore
government (and its taxpayers) to study in NUS/NTU and offers them
a PR (without the obligation of National Service) upon graduation.
Such an ill thought policy marginalises local talents and swells
the ranks of non-committed PRs who are in Singapore only as a
stepping stone to overseas universities. Here’s an account by
a forumer of how such a reverse-discriminatory policy worked.
Now DPM Tony Tan says he might run for President. Well when the
voting comes, Singaporeans should keep in mind the above.
.
Defennder
