MAIN AND DEVELOPMENT ESTIMATES OF SINGAPORE - FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR 1ST APRIL, 1988 TO 31ST MARCH, 1989
Sir, the topic of admission into the National University of Singapore (NUS) has been touched on by many Members today. This topic has also been included among the subjects dealt with in the Report of the Parliamentary Estimates Committee which was presented to Parliament on 15th February this year. In its Report the Estimates Committee urged the Ministry of Education to review the NUS admission policy and to make funds available to tertiary institutions with a view to providing more opportunities to our citizens to receive tertiary education. Sir, in view of the considerable public interest in this subject, I would like to speak on the matter in some detail. Sir, the worry among parents and students and Members of this House, as expressed by speeches today, seems to be primarily because places in the NUS are determined by manpower projections, able students may, because of the limited number of places that are available, find themselves unable to obtain places in the NUS even though they may have obtained satisfactory grades in the 'A' level examinations. I think this is the crux of the speeches that have been made by the Members this afternoon. Sir, I really wish that the problem was simply an insufficient number of university places because these had been limited by over-conservative manpower projections. If this is so, then it is a management problem and can be resolved without too much difficulty, as we have done by increasing the number of students admitted into the NUS by 50% over the last six years - from 4,370 students in 1982 to 6,530 students last year. Unfortunately, the real problem is more basic and more complicated. Surprising as it may sound, the real problem is that, even up to last year, 1987, our schools and junior colleges could not produce enough students who were able to show, though meeting the NUS admission standards, that they had the ability to cope with the academic requirements of the courses conducted by NUS and NTI and thereby benefit from a university education that is very heavily subsidized, up to 85% by the State. Let me explain in greater detail. There are three points which Members have to consider. The first point is the minimum requirements, the second point is the actual application process and the third point is the level of NUS admission standards. On the first point, Sir, Members must not confuse the NUS standards to qualify for admission with the University's minimum requirements to apply for admission. These are two different matters. The University's minimum requirements are, as the name implies, minimum requirements for a student to be eligible, not to qualify, but to apply for admission. Essentially these minimum requirements to apply for admission are: (1) Two 'A' level passes which are obtained at one and the same examination. (2) A minimum grade of C6 in English at 'O' level, and (3) A minimum grade of D7 in Second Language at 'AO' level. For a student who does not meet the Second Language requirement but who subsequently qualifies for admission because of his good performance in his other subjects, he can still be admitted but he will have to make up the Second Language requirement by passing a special University examination during the course of his studies in the University. Just because a student is eligible to apply for admission, it does not mean that he automatically qualifies for admission. This is in a way not so much different than when a person applies for a job or a scholarship. The minimum requirements are usually set at a fairly low level in order to open the field to as many applicants as possible. But simply meeting the minimum requirements does not mean that the applicant will automatically get the job or the scholarship. It all depends on the competition. Sir, in this matter of minimum requirements, the point is made very clear in the University's Handbook called "Instructions to candidates who are applying for admission". With your permission, Sir, I will just read out the relevant section from this Handbook. It says under section 5, the minimum requirements: 'Satisfying the minimum requirements means only eligibility to apply for admission to the University or to the Nanyang Technological Institute. Selection for admission is based on competition among all eligible candidates for the places available in the Faculty concerned. Selection shall be solely within the discretion of the University or the NTI.' I think, Sir, this is a matter which all applicants are told when they apply to the University and, as it states here quite clearly, the minimum requirements are the requirements to apply for admission, not the requirements to qualify for admission. I thought I should make this point clear because there has been some confusion on this matter. Now, Sir, the second point. The second point which Members should note is that students do not apply for admission to the University. The students apply to be admitted to particular courses in the University, NUS or the NTI. Each applicant for admission is given a choice of four courses for study in his application and he can list them in his order of preference. The number of places in each course is determined by projected manpower requirements. I think that this is only sensible because it would obviously be foolish for us to produce thousands of, say, Arts and Social Science graduates when all our manpower projections show that it will be engineers whom we will need most and who will find it easiest to get jobs when they graduate. When a student sends in his application, he is considered first for admission to the course of his first choice, and then if he is unsuccessful he will be considered for his other three choices in the order which he himself has indicated. Of course, it is easier for a student to get a place in a course which has a large intake, like Engineering, than it is for a student to get a place in a course where the intake is very small, for example, Medicine. It is important here for the student to be realistic about the chances of his getting into any particular course. If the applicant sends in an application form and says that the only course which he will consider is, for example, Medicine, or Law, then he makes it very difficult because if he does not get his first choice, then he has got no other options because he has not made use of the other three choices which have been made available to him by the University. Similarly, Sir, if a student after passing the 'O' level wants to study Science and applies for a junior college, and then he puts down that he wants to go to Hwa Chong or RJC or NJC and nowhere else, then he is obviously running a very big risk, unless of course he is a very good student and is very confident of his or her own chances. But, Sir, this arrangement, where the student is given four choices, ensures the maximum opportunity so that every applicant who qualifies for admission will be given a place in a course in the NUS or the NTI, although the course may not be the student's first choice. In this connection, Sir, I welcome the suggestion from the Members for West Coast and Fengshan that we should publicize more the various manpower projections for various jobs so that students and parents can make a more realistic choice and a more informed choice about what careers their children should follow. The third point, Sir, and this is, I think, the most crucial point which we should ask ourselves, is whether the NUS admission standards are unduly high. I think this is a point which has been brought forward by many Members today. Generally, Sir, my view is that I do not think so. The NUS admission standards are set at a level which is comparable to that of the well-established British "red-brick" universities, for example, Birmingham, Bristol or Manchester. The reason why they are set at this level is because, from experience, the lecturers know that if they admit students who cannot meet this level of admission standards, then the students are unlikely to be able to pass their examinations and complete their courses at the NUS or the NTI. I would take, Sir, as a concrete example the case of Engineering, the faculty with the largest intake, simply because engineering graduates, being the most versatile, are the type of professionals who are most needed and would therefore find it easiest to get jobs when they graduate. For 1986, the university had targetted to admit 1,170 students into the Engineering course. This is because the manpower projections by the Ministry of Trade and Industry had indicated that we would need at least this number of engineers by the time the 1986 cohort graduates in 1990. But, Sir, the number that the university could actually admit in that year was only 994, a shortfall of 176 students. This means that the university had 176 places available in the Engineering faculty which could not be taken up because there were not sufficient students of the right quality. This number of 994 was only after the university had taken in a number of borderline or marginal students, as was mentioned by the Member for Fengshan, where the faculty had serious doubts as to whether these students had the academic ability to meet the requirements of the NUS or NTI Engineering course. In other words, after giving these marginal or borderline students the benefit of the doubt and letting them in, the university still could not find enough students of the right standard to fill the number of places which the university had available. 1986 was not a rare occurrence. The situation was the same in 1987. The number of places available for Engineering in 1987 was 1,230 and the number of those who could be admitted was 1,150, a shortfall of 80 students. When the faculty in 1986 and 1987 had to admit these borderline students in order to take up the places which were available in Engineering, the faculty did so with reservations because they knew that this would result eventually in higher failure rates. This must be the case and indeed this has turned out to be actually the case. Failure rates in the Engineering first-year examinations are higher than the university's average, and I regret to say it has reached 10% in some years. On that basis, Sir, Members can imagine the failure rates which will result if the university does not maintain a reasonable level of admission standards or, as has been suggested from time to time, the university simply admits all students who meet the minimum requirements to apply for admission. The NUS admission standards are not designed to keep students out, but to ensure that those students who are admitted into the NUS or the NTI have at least a reasonable probability of being able to pass the examinations and to finish their courses. These standards are not dependent on the level of the 'A' level results every year. In other words, they do not go higher whenever the 'A' level results get better. I can assure the Member for Paya Lebar that this is not the case. If we do not have these reasonable admission standards, then the result is a higher failure rate, more trauma for the students, a waste of time and effort by the lecturers and a great deal of unnecessary expenditure first by the university, the taxpayer and, finally, by the students and the parents themselves. Now, Sir, I come to the next point which is the Report of the Estimates Committee and, in particular, the table showing the number of applications for admission into NUS and the percentage of applicants which were accepted for the years 1982 to 1987. This table shows that for 1986 and 1987 approximately only half the number of applicants were accepted in those two years. I believe this is the point which was highlighted by the Estimates Committee. Before drawing conclusions, I think that it is worthwhile to have a closer look at these statistics and for this purpose I have asked the university to do a more detailed analysis of the admission profile of applicants for these two years 1986 and 1987 which have been highlighted by the Estimates Committee. The details are given in a schedule (Cols. 1131 - 1132) which, with your permission, Sir, I will ask the Clerk of Parliament to distribute. [Copies of schedule distributed to Members.] schedule - NUS/NTI Admission Profile of Applications/Offers of Admission by Citizenship (Cols. 1131 - 1132) If Members will look at the schedule, they will see that the schedule divides the applicants into three categories. The first category, ie, the first two columns, relates to those students who took their 'A' levels one year prior to application to the NUS. The second category, which is the next two columns, relates to all other applicants from Singapore and the last one is applicants from non-Singaporean students. Sir, if Members were to look at the first two columns which relate to applicants from Singapore who took their 'A' levels one year prior to application, they will see that in 1986 out of 7,644 such applicants, 4,907 or approximately 64% were admitted. For 1987, the figures are 8,302 applicants, 5,372 were accepted or 65%. This means that in these two years, roughly about two out of every three Singaporean applicants who took their 'A' levels one year prior to admission were accepted by the NUS. This percentage of two out of three is significantly higher than the 50% of applicants accepted which formed the thrust of the comments from the Estimates Committee. It is worthwhile to bring this point to the notice of Members. To complete the picture, I will go on to the next group which are the Singaporean applicants other than those who took the 'A' levels one year prior to application. The percentage of those admitted here is much lower, 23% in 1986 and 20% in 1987. The reason is that this second group comprises a very varied group of applicants. For example, among them are national servicemen who actually have already been admitted to the NUS but who are applying to change their courses. Also, from time to time, we have applicants from students who have taken their examinations many years ago or from those who have applied unsuccessfully on earlier occasions. The third group is the applications from non-Singaporean students. Here the percentage, as Members will see, is also quite low, comprising about 27-28% for 1986 and 1987. I think this point was brought up by the Member for Geylang Serai so I will talk a little bit about why we still have to admit foreign students into the NUS. The non-Singapore students who are admitted into the NUS are required to meet much higher standards than those for Singaporean students. This, in my view, is only right so that the numbers will not be large for it is right and proper that the bulk of places in NUS and NTI should be taken up by our own Singaporean students. But, Sir, with all these worries which have been expressed by parents, by students and by backbenchers about admission to the NUS, we may wonder why we continue to admit foreign students and also, as the Member has just asked, whether admission of such foreign students would be at the expense of Singapore students. I have discussed this matter quite fully in the Budget debate in 1985 but to refresh Members' memory, let me repeat the reasons again. We in Singapore are a small country. Our pool of talent is limited. As I have indicated just now, for certain faculties in the university, for example, in Engineering which has a large intake of over 1,000 students every year, we simply cannot find enough Singapore students who have the academic ability to pass the university's engineering course. That is all there is to it. Unless we want to run into a shortage of trained Engineering personnel in the coming years, then we have to supplement our own manpower resources by admitting qualified students from other countries. These foreign students have to have grades which are significantly better than those for our own Singapore students before we admit them. All foreign students, as Members will know, who graduate from the NUS or NTI have to sign a bond to live and work in Singapore or at least to work for a Singapore company for at least three years after they graduate. Here I would remind Members that we are not the only country trying to attract able people to increase our manpower resources. Other countries, including the developed countries, like Australia and Canada, are doing the same. They are trying to attract able students and we are, in fact, facing fierce competition from the developed countries which are also seeking to enlarge their talent pool. Sir, besides increasing our talent pool, having foreign students in our University also gives our own Singapore students at NUS and NTI the chance to interact with students who have grown up in different societies and with different backgrounds. I think this will help our own students to get a fuller university education, ie, not only getting the required training and getting their degrees but also learning a little more about life in Singapore and in the countries around us. Such knowledge and understanding will stand our students in good stead when they graduate and then find that their employment will require them having to work with people from other countries. Sir, the fact that we have been able to attract a number of able foreign students to study at NUS and NTI and subsequently to live and work in Singapore is not for the benefit of the foreign students but for the benefit of Singapore. Sir, in 1985 I mentioned that I would regard a reasonable percentage of foreign students in the University to be of the order of 20%. As Members can see from the schedule, in 1986 and 1987 the number of foreign students admitted as a percentage of the total number admitted has, in fact, been much lower. For 1986 the figure was 15%; 1987 even lower, 13%. If this percentage continues to decline, I would regard it as a something to worry about and something which has to be taken up by the Ministry and the University. Now, Sir, I come to the question asked by the Member for Kolam Ayer as to what the Government is doing for the approximately one-third of 'A' level applicants who were not successful in gaining admission to the NUS. Sir, the question is not how can the Government provide places for these students. I think the real question is, should these students aim for university education? Or even a more basic question, should they have gone to junior college in the first place? It is somewhat unfortunate, Sir, that with this stress on gaining university degrees, many students, whose chances of gaining admission to the University are marginal, still go to our junior colleges after their 'O' levels. They pass their 'A' level examinations with poor results, marginal results, and subsequently find themselves unable to get admission to the NUS. I think, Sir, for many of these students, for example those with more than 15 points for first language and best four other subjects, it would have benefitted them more if they had gone to our polytechnics. Because in the polytechnics they would have acquired skills which would later enable them to find ready employment with good salaries and they would also not have to face the trauma of failure either in their 'A' levels or subsequently when they try to get admission into the NUS. Sir, in this connection, I would like to refer Members to a letter in the Forum Page of the Straits Times on 14th March. I think what the letter says is quite relevant. The letter is headed: "Polytechnic students have chosen well. Too much emphasis on need for an 'A' level education". I would just quote a few paragraphs from this letter. '... an A level education - particularly in the Arts/Social Science and Science streams - remains very academic as A level is an academic qualification par excellence. On the other hand, polytechnic education is practical oriented and the diploma is internationally recognised. All students who now stand on the threshold of a JC [Junior College] or polytechnic entry should consider the latter [ie. the polytechnic] as a very real first option. With the resources that the Government is currently spending on both polytechnics [ie Ngee Ann Polytechnic and the Singapore Polytechnic], they are rapidly enhancing their good reputations as centres of educational excellence in Singapore. Only if a student has very firm career ambitions and only if these necessitate a university degree (e.g. medicine /dentistry), should he/she head in this direction. The future prosperity of Singapore depends very much on the nation's graduates with technical/business qualifications and, in many respects, the two polytechnics are the best equipped institutions to offer the type of courses a modern technological society demands. Many of the post 0 level students will feel proud when they receive their acceptance into a polytechnic course. They will have chosen well! Signed Peter C.N. Hardstone (Dr)' Sir, I think there is much in this letter which constitutes sound advice which parents and students would do well to consider seriously. Finally, Sir, a word about university education, academic standards and employment of graduates. Students who go to the NUS spend time, effort and money and they should obtain at the end, when they pass their examinations, a degree which is internationally recognized and which bears the stamp of high quality. If we do not maintain rigorous standards of admission, instruction and examination, then the degrees of the NUS and the NTI will become devalued in time. And although, Sir, we may have more university graduates, the degrees which they get will no longer be of much value. Then it will not be long before we face the problem of graduate unemployment which has been a big problem in many developing countries. On this matter, Sir, I believe that it is instructive to note what the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohammad, said recently in reply to a question which was put to him by a magazine called Malaysian Business (1 January 1988). I would like to quote from his reply. The question from the magazine is as follows: 'Unemployment is becoming a serious problem, graduate unemployment a new one. Some academics feel that there are too many graduates being produced; others feel that too many are sent off to second-rate universities abroad and there are those who claim that overall educational standards, especially at tertiary level, are dropping. Thus they call for a more balanced human resource policy. Comment?' The answer from Dr Mahathir, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, is as follows: 'This is wisdom from hindsight. Now that they see it they say it's wrong. But at that time they were calling for more universities, they wanted more students sent abroad. So we did. And they couldn't get into all the best universities because there simply weren't enough places. And it's costly so they got into the less known universities. But there're still quite a lot of them who've done quite well after graduation. What do you do? I agree with some of the points. I don't like this stress on academics. It only turns out a lot of critics ... who know how to run things but who've never actually run anything. First I'd like to see hard-working people. I'd like to see more technicians, more skilled workers. But this is not a popular idea, this notion of having a lot of practical people. It's so much easier to be able to say things and not do things. I'm looking for people who can do things.' On a different note, Sir, this is a more academic quote, I quote from the section on Malaysia in the 1986 Commonwealth Universities Handbook from an article written by Professor Sharom Ahmat and he talks about university access in Malaysia here: 'The issue of access to university education is potentially a politically explosive problem. One way of easing the tension is for the government to expand enrolment. However, any attempt to satisfy private demand without due coordination with social demand, that is, the potential demand for trained manpower to meet the objectives of maximum economic and social development, is an extremely dangerous position. Just because the demand for places in universities far exceeds the number of places available, that does not socially or economically justify an expansion of supply. This is because uncontrolled expansion of higher education without corresponding productive employment opportunities is not only wasteful but can create a more unstable and explosive situation. A paradox which can be seen in some countries is where, in the development process, increased investment and economic growth are often accompanied by increasing unemployment and the under-use of human resources. In order to avoid such a situation, which will be disastrous for a multi-racial Malaysia, the universities have to try to ensure that increase in enrolment is monitored in relation to employability.' Sir, I think there is much in these two quotes which we would do well to bear in mind. It is not only in the developing countries but in many of the developed countries which have over-expanded their university systems that have run into problems of overcrowded universities, dif- ficulty of maintaining standards and considerable unemployment of graduates. Sir, having said all that, I do not want to add by leaving the impression with Members that there are entirely no prospects of our ever being able to get more students to go to university. With the hard work put in by the Ministry of Education over the last eight years, we have improved our schools and junior colleges significantly. Academic standards have gone up. '0' and 'A' level results get better each year. This year, Sir, more students will be able to meet the NUS's admission standards and therefore qualify for admission. The Government will correspondingly increase the number of university places at NUS and NTI so that all qualified students will be admitted. I can therefore, Sir, give a definite answer to the question from the Member for Boon Lay when he asked whether we can ensure that all qualified students will be admitted to NUS. The answer is yes. Sir, on a broader note, this does not necessarily imply that we should simply expand the NUS indefinitely until it resembles one of the giant mega state universities in America. I think when a university becomes too large, the quality of education falls because it is not possible for lecturers then to give the type of personal attention to the students which is the hallmark of a good university education. And today with NUS having a student population of about 15,000 students (this incudes the post-graduate students), I am of the view that the NUS is in fact reaching the limit of its expansion. And as far as the NUS itself is concerned, I think that it would be preferable to maintain the level of intake at roughly the present level. Sir, I would concur with the point made by the Member for Ayer Rajah that instead of expanding the NUS we should expand the NTI. With a bigger pool of qualified students, the time is in fact opportune for NTI to establish a wider variety of courses to complement the present courses of Accountancy and Engineering which are available at the Institute today. This expansion of NTI will not only enable us to provide more university places for qualified students but it will also pave the way for NTI to develop into a full-fledged technological university by the 1990s. This has always been our objective. For this purpose, Sir, the NTI Council has set up a Committee, under the Chairmanship of the NTI President, Professor Cham Tao Soon, to look into the further expansion of NTI and what new courses should be introduced. The Committee expects to complete its deliberations and to submit its recommendations to the NTI Council and to the Ministry of Education before the end of this year. Looking further ahead, Sir, once the expansion of NTI has been completed, it is my personal hope that in due course of time, perhaps in the 1990s, we shall see in Singapore another institution at university level teaching subjects which are not taught at present at NUS or at NTI, subjects such as teaching, physical education, and I think very important, the fine arts, music, drama and dance. I think that this would form a complete structure for university education in Singapore. Sir, to sum up, the NUS and the NTI are institutions that Singapore can be proud of. They are regarded by employers and academics as being comparable to the established universities in the developed world. Graduates of NUS and NTI have shown that they can hold their own in the workplace against graduates from other well-known universities. We should not throw away decades of hard work, effort and money by revising policies of admission, instruction or examination which have served us well and which have stood the test of time. Yes, we want more university students. But they must be university students who are of the right calibre, who are properly qualified and who can obtain jobs when they graduate. Sir, this I regard as the responsibility of a responsible government. Much obliged, Sir. [Applause]