We can ask questions, but better wait for the Singapore Police to complete their investigation before we make any conclusion. You are an Indonesian, and I am a Singaportean. And I share the grief over the needless and senseless death of such a promising young man.

Look, all Singapore scholars are bounded by performance indicators (i.e. grades).

And when an Indonesian student fails these performance indicators and stabs an academic staff, there is ho-ha and whatever baseless conspiracy theories on the academic staff and NTU.

I can only gather some of you are fans of Cho Seung-Hui or reading too much Bourne books. And get this, I believe the police has not released the body to the relatives so how do the relatives claim that there not slash mark on the wrist ? (I am no Horatio)

Either way, remember the Flor Contemplacion case in 1991, how the Philippines accused us of “framing” a an innocent person. Eventually, after spending millions of dollars (Phili govt) going around the world to look for answers, the Amercian doctors agreed with singapore doctors who conducted the initial autopsy that it is actually a murder case.

Subsequently, in order not to lose face, the Filippinos and some lovy-dovy Singaporeans conveniently “erase” that portion from their minds when Flor Contemplacion is mentioned.

So it begs the question as to why we are allowing such kinds of foreigners into our universities when honest singaporeans are being deprived of places??

Who administers these scholarships? Who takes care of their welfare? Who guides their development? Who ensures that these scholarships given out actually met their goals?

Or does our government just distribute our cash to foreigners for free?

Where do u get all your exqusite info & latest scoop ? is it from CSI ?

What is the use of a talent that harbours malicious intent? To resort to violence as a means of solving problems? Is that what we want in society? Are we more concerned about 1 life, or the possible lives lost? Can we recall the gunning shock in US’ Virginia Tech?

Yes, education is a vital platform for guiding students. But can 4 years of tertiary education, or the lack of proper guidance as some would argue, contribute to a person’s impulse to cause harm?

Or is the behaviour innate? Something that was characteristic of a person since young? Did the person have a history of bottling up emotions and having rare, yet unreasonably explosive outburst?

During his formative years, was a person taught to deal with stress? Did he come to realise the ramifications of any action he partook? Did he understand what violence meant?

Bottomline is, can we blame the university? Or is it the years of formal education when one is most impressionable, that is the one to be subjected to flaming? We can continue pointing fingers… but where does the blame game end?

In any case, my condolences to his family for the loss. Its a terrible heartache for any parent to see their children leave before they do.

From my opinion, why S’porean students are unwilling to take up Post-Grad, is not they are unable to face the challenges of the Post-grad studies.

It is that they also have other concerns in life not just certs/ better-paying jobs/ research.

They have their families rooted here. An avg, male s’porean would be around 24 when he graduated from uni. Some slower ones, i.e. who went through longer education route to reached Uni, would be around 26-27. Some even older.

From the high cost of living in S’pore and the paltry sum of the PhD scholarship stipend, i.e. $1.8K to $2.5K / mth (w/o CPF) it can hardly cover the living expenses. Even how passionate he/she is into research, they still have to be realistic and decide what is the most viable. Moreover, they still have their NS reservist, yearly IPPT.

So logically speaking, a male s’porean would have more liabilities then a foreign student.

Also, a PhD offers depth of knowledge into a specific field. Those who never go for a PhD can choose to have a diversity of knowledge. i actually have spoken to some prof. and feel that their knowledge is not wide enough. they only have dept.

It is a combination of ppl from all walks that make this world possible. Not just PhDs.

Moreover, MM, PM and even some of the cabinet ministers, do not have PhDs. (dun talk abt honourary PhD).

Hope this clear your misunderstandings

Best Regards
Poor Undergrad

If not results, then what is your yardstick? Like What winston churchill said: “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. Democracy have been made a mockery in ZImbabwe and maybe Russia etc etc. Their governments abuses democracy. So are u saying that democracy is not effective (Most western countries and USA of cos are democracies) ? What about communism then? Is it more effective? Monachry? Despotism?

It might be the worst u could say of just looking at a grade alone, but what about the rest of the methods u might want to offer someone a scholarship? Are there any other methods to look at how u offer a scholarship? Maintaining a 3.5 is not just about intelligence btw, it also heavily depends on cold hard work to study and study….So, a boss hiring may look a grade in 2 ways, 1)”This guy is damm smart and damm proficient in his field of study.” or 2)”This guy is damm hardworking to achieve such a grade”. Either way, they are positive . U may say grades and results are not good ways to look at hiring someone but they are the best of all the WAYS u could tink of hiring someone. Its not about being rigid, since he is offered AND accepted the scholarship, he should know wat he is in for (Good grades, hard work etc etc). If not, there are hell of others out there will want it.

Pls more and more graduate students, pls speak out. One more concern is also, most singaporean students are not willing to take up graduate studies. Or those who have taken graduate studies have better opportunity to secure a better scholarship, and thus under guidance of better professor. On the other hand, international students is taking the graduate studies as a platform to enter singapore for career and life. They might be able to take all the pressure by thinking of the future in singapore.

if you want to have another case of NTU doing damage control, just google “abrar yusra”, “gold medal” and “engineering eee”. check the admission year and graduation year, and please point out the irregularities

I am not too sure that other countries are as strick as Singapore on this issue. We may have been too harsh.
By being so rigid on scholars performace, are there any evidence that our scholars are better than those of other countries ?

Is there any evidence that sticking rigidly to the 3.5 has led to scholars contributing more to society ? This issue of the effectiveness of sticking
rigidly to this criteria has been well discuss and documented by others.
Sufficient to say that there are enough doubts being raised to continue
using it.