by 10Joules
Thanks to the 2 hour long lunchbreak for staff in NUS, Joy and I had a good hour-long chat in the International Relations Office (IRO) of NUS, waiting for staff to return. Good thing offices here in NUS do not operate like those in the civil sector back home, where air-conditioning is turned off during lunchbreak.
While I was on the topic of our beloved University, I lamented on how many undergraduates here are blissfully unaware of how the university actually works, blissfully thinking that NUS is but an institute of education, like primary school, like secondary school, like JC.
Many fail to realise that NUS is ultimately an enterprise - a business entity. And keeping that in mind, anything and everything that they have done or will do, is for and will be for the economic benefit of the company or the group of companies called NUS.
Ok, I'm sorry I couldn't resist putting this pic of USS Enterprise hereDespite fancy descriptions like "Knowledge Enterprise" stuck onto the sides of our shuttle buses, many undergraduates remain oblivious of the fact that to NUS, the objective is not to serve the role of an educator but the production and sale of knowledge.
That is why on several occasion, undergraduates feel that they are neglected in favor of their professor's own research projects. But who can blame them? With 'productivity' quotas set by the university for these 'employees', professors have no choice but to work on overdrive to produce more research and academic papers.
I just saw an article in MyPaper, lamenting on the lack of safety of students after nightfall in our polytechnics and universities and demanding that the administration step up campus security. But of course, this is another case of a person forgetting the fact that universities and polytechnics are business entities, and extra security personnel means extra costs and higher costs translates to lower profits. The only potential gain from this would be in the form of intangible goodwill from a few customers(students). But then again, students are not the only, and definitely not the main source of income for the university. And since student safety is almost never a criteria in famous university rankings like the THES, the intangibles arising from these extra services will hardly justify the cost incurred, unless say, the MOE decides to set up some campus security grant or something of the sort.
The essence of enterprise can even be detected in the campus accomodation system. As it stands, students are only guaranteed accomodation for a year on campus (2 years for international students). The management of course claims that this system will enable more students to experience the life of living on campus, but they stop short of mentioning that fact that a statistics from the alumni association, ALUMNUS show that students who have stayed on campus before have a much higher tendency to make donations to the university as alumni after they graduate.
Of course the list goes on, like exhange programmes, competitions, seminars, etc. Just view it from a enterprise's perspective and you'll see the rationale behind a lot of things that they do.
At this point in the article, I believe that it's best that I point out that this article is not for the purpose of degrading the institutes of higher educations in Singapore. For who can blame them? They(the universities) are not charity organisations, and they have staff salaries and bills that need to be paid, equipment to maintain. And who can deny that great universities must be supported by rich coffers? Just look at the state funded universities in neighbouring Malaysia - examples of counterparts which are not run as efficient enterprises.
I found out from Joy that in Indonesia, university admissions can be gained via 2 routes, academically and through donations. Of course, any university in the world will definitely accept a student whose dad donated a whole sports hall to the university, but these cases are rare. What's special in the Indon system is that donation-admission is official. Kind of like the primary school admissions here in Singapore where you see parents making donations and doing voluntary services at their future schools of choice for their children.
But, then again, who can really complain about NUS when you can enjoy ''free'' coffee and aircon in a comfortably furnished IRO, talk to your friend while a cute canadian chick sitting just opposite waiting with us stealing glances and flashing dazzling smiles at yours truly? xD
