Fourth University Coming Up

The government has decided to open a fourth university. It has been decided that the fourth university will have a unique characteristic of its own, and have its own identity. The new university will have its own strengths and will not only provide more places for university students but also provide more variety as well. From what I infer, this university caters more to polytechnic students as compared to junior college students. Yet the university should not restrict its intake to only polytechnic students, and will give everyone a wider variety of subjects and degrees to choose from.

A mere 23 percent of every batch make it into Singapore universities. PM Lee hopes that with the new university, 30 percent of the batch will be able to receive tertiary education in Singapore, and Singaporeans will be more educated, thus increasing the standard of Singaporeans.

I believe another factor Singapore wants to have a fourth university is due to the increasing brain drain from Singapore. Many students who have completed polytechnics decide to go oversea for further education and they remain there. In the long run, many of Singapore’s competent people will be working overseas instead of contributing to Singapore. As such, I believe the fourth university also hopes to attract more people to study in Singapore, from both overseas and in Singapore, and wishes to prevent further brain drain from Singapore.

The fourth university should also cause a positive impact on the current universities in Singapore. While the current universities of Singapore enjoy many intakes, the fourth university will add pressure to the current universities, forcing them to think of new ways that showcase their strengths over other universities. When there is a variety, people will compare which university would best cater their interests. With the inclusion of the fourth university, it will help to keep all the universities in Singapore current and updated and in the forefront of leading research.

However, I think the government should be more careful when planning the fourth university. The closure of the University of New South Wales Asia is evidence that it is not easy to manage a university. The fourth university will be public-funded and thus we should not waste tax-payers money if the fourth university should fail. The government should closely investigate what had gone wrong with UNSW Asia and not repeat mistakes from UNSW Asia. UNSW Asia had an established and reputable name, but yet it failed. Thus we should tread carefully when planning the 4^th University.

I believe the 4^th university will help many polytechnics in Singapore and am looking forward to it.

Man who lost himself in greed and China food scares

This article is here taken from Straits Times on 15/7/07, with the article title "Man who lost himself in greed" (Ms Quah, if the link cannot be reached can you search using the RI Newslink on asknlearn?)

This article is about the greed of an official tarnishing the image of “Made in China” products.

Over the course of a few years, many products from China have proven themselves to be substandard. These include recently, toothpaste and pork bun as well as the fake eggs from further back.

The reason many products of China are substandard is due to the fact that China began its food and drug supervision late and its foundations are thus weak. The recent scandal of buns being made from cardboard soaked in caustic soda, flavoured with fatty pork and seasonings has caused even Chinese to be afraid of their own goods.

The Chinese government is trying to salvage the image of the China brand by cracking down on shady operators and trying a “tit-for-tat” strategy to ban American products. Also, recently when Indonesia issued a warning over the safety of imported China goods, China in return banned fish imports from Indonesia.

The report in the Straits times on July 31 says the pork bun scandal was actually fabricated news to generate greater newspaper readership, as there is fierce competition between news agencies. Yet, many speculate that this is a cover-up and many Chinese are still afraid of eating buns.

All this goes shows a general lack of integrity in the people of China, regardless of the business they are in. Toy manufacturers have bad paint; infant milk powder is toxic; antibiotics are substandard, and even the media is faking reports. This general trend of dishonesty is worrying.

I believe the reason behind all these sub-standard products is corruption and greed, which all boils down to lack of integrity. Many of the state officials are aware of underground activities and factories producing sub-standard goods. The reason these factories are still intact is due to corruption as in the case of Zheng Xiaoyu. When it comes to businesses, cutting costs is an important factor. However, these Chinese have been overcome by greed, and disregard human life.

In comparison to Singapore, I think that one of the reasons that China is so corrupt is because China is too large. Being a vast country with poor infrastructure, it is difficult to crack down on lawlessness. Besides, many in rural areas are not well educated and so often misuse products from the West. One example would be that pesticides used in excessive amounts because farmers were not informed of proper usage.

China is trying to become a strong and vibrant nation. Yet in its attempt to do so, it is ignoring ethics and moral values. While trying to cut costs to the bare minimum, I feel that it actually makes good business sense to observe ethics. I think it is better for China to sacrifice a little in economic advancement for strong moral values and social responsibility. China should slow down its development in the cities and extend help to the rural areas to prevent such scares. In that way, it would be able to prevent such food scares.

Teen Mental Disorders

This article from the Straits Times on March 12, is about a serious issue that concerns teenagers.

1 in 4 teens and young adults in developed countries have a risk that they may develop mental problems. With such frightening figures, the Institute of Mental Health invited 9 experts both foreign and local to develop a study on the identifying symptoms of people who may develop mental illnesses. This should help to prevent an onset of serious mental illnesses. A US expert has said that most mental illnesses hit teens whose brain’s frontal lobe is developing. This area particularly controls behaviour and emotion, which teens have trouble controlling. Thankfully, if there is a way to pick out such teens at an early stage, these teens may not even require the use of medicines to help them.

While Singapore does not have so many cases of teens with mental illnesses, the Institute of Mental Health has half of the outpatients having schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disease that should be treated early. This serious form of psychosis often causes patients to hallucinate or believe that others are controlling them. If treatment is delayed, medicine may become ineffective to the patient.

As such, there is a need to provide aid to the 10 percent of the teens who run a risk of such dangerous mental illnesses. After all, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. The government is already spending a third of its medical subsidies on mentally ill patients. If more teens are admitted with mental problems, the drain of medical fund would be unimaginable. Thus the government is wise to foresee this impending problem. It is important to take precautions in case it becomes a reality.

Teens often admitted to the Institute of Mental Health would be of ages 22-26. At such ages, I think they face a new phase of their life. As such, many new stress factors come into play. This would be the ages when they start to have a love life, and have to start looking for a job. If they face difficulties that they have never experienced before, they may feel despondent and may not be able to pick themselves up. Such may be the reason that many psychotic patients are around this age.

I am not of such an age yet, and I can only presume that this may be the reason for their mental illnesses. It is interesting to note that in previous generations, such problems were very rare. Also, the article states that the risk of 1 in 4 teens having mental problems only applies to developed countries. As our society improves, our pace of living has increased and this should be also one of the reasons as to why teens risk mental illnesses. As of now, I can only speculate and I will most likely understand when I reach the same age group.

Nationwide Mugging?

Look at this article from the Straits Times 19th March!

Jessica Lim has written that Singapore is becoming a mugging hub.

The reporter states that many students are mugging textbooks all day long, and are so bothered by formal assessment in schools that they find anything other than schoolwork unimportant. Besides, it is reported that a many students go for tuitions to improve their school grades. She implies that our students middy hr point about the true essence of education and merely want to do well in tests.

Jessica Lim has included several of her opinions in the article. She has backed them up with evidence—interviewing one 17-year-old student, seeing students at Changi Airport studying and a small scale survey.

However, these are anecdotal evidence do not convince me that Singapore is almost becoming a mugging hub. These anecdotal evidence only provide a small view of the situation and cannot portray the whole picture, unlike statistics. Thus I find it rather unconvincing that Singapore is a mugging hub.

Therefore I believe that the situation is not as bad as she has painted it to be. For instance, all the students in RI have to take part in CCAs and there are several CCA practices a week. Many students take pride in their CCAs and devote much of their time to CCA. As such, Singapore cannot possibly be only cultivating students who can only memorize textbooks.

In my school, classes often hold class gatherings and outings over the holidays. These social activities include playing sports, trekking, camping, all of which teach skills other than those in school textbooks. Besides, there are many community involvement projects throughout the year that students choose from and these further enchance their learning from outside curriculum. With so many skills learnt outside the textbook, Singapore cannot be having a system which “leaves no room for learning that does not beget a gold star”.

I think that she is over-generalizing the situation in Singapore just because of a few examples. A mere number of such cases is not representative of the several thousand students in Singapore. The article has become rather exaggerated, and her imaginary scenario where “factories churn out straight-A students.”

Maybe due to the fact that I am from Raffles Institution, I have a personal opinion that she is wrong, as when I compare the situation she has painted to the one in RI, it does not match. Being a student from RI may naturally affect my thinking, as RI students have often been labeled as mugging students. As such, my opinion may be swayed and I may have a biased perspective. However, I still believe that Singapore is not a mugging hub.

Homework is good

Homework is good for you. Yesterday, I just had a test and because of the fact that I had done my homework, I managed to do the questions in the test! I was so glad that I had done my homework. In fact, one question that came out in the test was similar to what I had done! This proves that homework is good for you!

Waste Dumping

Waste Dumping By Trafigura

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17152560/

http://www.trafigura.com/trafigura_news/news/13022007.aspx

These two articles are on toxic waste dumping but are from different view points.

Trafigura has paid a hefty $197 million to the Ivory Coast government to secure the release of the three of its executives that were detained since September 2006. The money will be funded for building a disposal plant, a hospital and an independent investigation on the case.

It is ironic, however, that they are funding an independent environmental investigation on themselves which seems to defeat any attempts at impartiality. In addition, the second article by the company itself, conveniently ‘fails’ to mention the money that has been spent to release the 3 ‘innocent men’. This may be to portray itself as an honest and respectful company by not stating the figure. Trafigura would seem that it had not ‘bought’ its executives out.

The second article written from the point of view of Trafigura, is obviously more biased towards themselves. The first article is more impartial but has a tinge of sarcasm.

While an U.N. report states that the waste dumped contained chemicals lethal in high concentrations, Trafigura emphasizes that it did not unload toxic waste. It said that they the waste it offloaded was routine material derived from washing oil tanks, including caustic soda and petrochemical residues. Yet Tommy, the company that Trafigura had hired to dispose its waste, was seen dumping 528 tons of waste in the public that caused 10 people to have died and others developing allergies. Despite so, Trafigura insists that it had not carried the deadly hydrogen sulfide that caused the deaths.

While the first article paints the view that Trafigura was most likely the culprit and is blatantly denying it, I think we should understand that we have assumed that the waste Tommy was seen dumping into public was the waste that was carried by Trafigura. Besides, the repeated denial by Trafigura could be because it was wronged. Being wronged and accused of something major like this incident would be a bad feeling to anyone and thus they have repeatedly declared their innocence and implored the authorities to help prove their innocence. Furthermore, the alleged killing substance—hydrogen sulfide was claimed to be not in the waste that they carried. It is highly likely that Trafigura did not carry toxic waste dumping and we could have jumped to conclusions.

I feel that the evidence that have against Trafigura is still not compelling enough. Perhaps because I have been wronged before and understand the feeling of being wrongly accused. In some ways, I may be allowing my personal experiences and biases ‘colour’ my understanding of the Trafigura incident.

New Scheme--Workfare!

Please click on the Images to see extremely clear.


























Workfare

This article discusses the workfare bonus scheme that was introduced last year. It touches on the many benefits the scheme has brought and will continue to bring to lower income families.

The Government is depicted in this article to be highly sensitive to the needs of the needy and the scheme is a response to the widening income divide occurring in Singapore. This scheme provides extra bonus to the poor once every few months. This Workfare scheme is extremely important for workers who are tight on cash. As we all know, the GST hike will be implemented soon and this workfare will help to cushion the financial burden stemming from the GST increase. As we all know, an increase in tax on goods and services always leaves the lower income groups hardest hit.

Although this scheme does not occur on a monthly basis, it does help to relieve the financial stress for these lower income families. One very special point to note is that this scheme comes with a criterion that one must be employed in order to benefit from the Workfare scheme. This is an incentive for people to stay employed, no matter what the jobs are or how old they are. Once again, it is indicative of the Government’s policy to promote some level of self-reliance and prevent citizens from looking for financial and social crutches from the state. Besides, older citizens are encouraged to remain in the workforce while the young are encouraged not to be too picky with jobs.

Madam Tan Ah Cheung, who is a 76-year-old coffee shop assistant, gets the Workfare bonus as well. Despite her age, she still works and helps out in the family finances. As such, the family is definitely more closely bonded too.

However, some might become over-reliant on this Workfare bonus. As this scheme comes under the scrutiny of this year’s Budget day, I am sure that answers as to the cut off for eligibility of the Workfare will become a point of contention.

Yet, there are people who are unable to enjoy Workfare just because they do not have a job. Some of these jobless people are unable to find a job not because they are lazy but may have too low qualifications or may be disabled. As such, they will not get to enjoy these benefits.

The Government may help to seek out these people and assign them simple jobs. However, I understand that it may require a large amount of human resource to do so, especially when some will not want to approach for help themselves.

I may not understand how the Government works, but I do empathise with those that cannot meet these criteria for the Workfare bonus.

Furthermore, I find it somewhat uncanny that this article on helping the lower income earners has been released just before the Government’s budget announcements including details of the GST increase. The article clearly has public relations motives.