Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Sex Blogger and Secretive NUS

I finally decide to write something about this chap because his name will appear again like Sun Xu had.

Many people wanted him to be expelled. Without looking at the bigger picture which it impossible since NUS is so secretive (I am happy to never had given a dime to my Alma Mater) we cannot understand why he wasn't expelled.

Obama supports gay marriage but can you imagine him encouraging his two daughters to have a lesbian relationship? Likewise the personal and family decisions LKY made were often out of sync with those in public policy if you interpolate them to his family and frienships. Such are the hazards of those offices where you are responsible for many people, institutions and especially society. NUS is in this category.

Looks like there is not even enough information to make some informed guesses why Alvin Tan wasn't expelled. However we can draw some conclusions where NUS leaders might want or tolerate where the university is heading. Wherever Singapore might want to be tomorrow, NUS wants to get there before the rest of society follows. This is also what AWARE wanted to do for the status and opportunities for women in Singapore. But NUS, AWARE and what other organizations there may be do not represent the bulk of Singapore society. The PAP and WP try to fill that role and they are as careful as the majority with social experimentation. Ironically  the political leadership is not willing to impose the more conservative values of our society on the universities. Why? I think it is because NUS must be given a free hand to successfully compete against foreign top colleges. Now if every college is heading for the cliff (I assume you have some knowledge of the moral history of universities), NUS will join the herd too unless it has contrarian leaders. So when the Education Minister gave NUS his vote of confidence, he agrees that competing with foreign colleges on international terms is the way to go. Is this wise? We had at the dawn of the new century merged our banks to better compete when others were also merging and getting bigger. It turned out to be an overly exciting ride which ended in tears. Like banking consolidation there is no public discussion how we run our universities and where its leaders are taking it is the right one for Singapore. The National Conversation which I have opted out isn't about direction but making the ride more enjoyable. It is assumed that the road we are taking is not leading to hell. Like my daughter often complained that we cannot keep growing by adding people because our land isn't growing; she and other young hearts are being ignored.

I don't agree with the secretive way which NUS is run and so I have always consigned to the wastepaper basket every request for donation. If NUS cannot even trust it had educated, I don't see why we should support them with our money. But what do they care? They would just go to the government to get the tax payer to pay up and also hiking fees ever so regularly.

No comments:

Post a Comment