Friday, March 24, 2006
The Dragon Awakens Part 2..Aye, good to see the tagboard filling up quite fast, with comments related to Uncle Gary's mass email. In fact, his email saga even made a page's report on today's edition of The New Paper.
Now, lets cut to the chase. You have to admit, Gary did bring up some pretty good points. Hall conditions and especially, the hike in school fees. The latter, true, according to CNA, we may not seem to bother about it. Truth be told, there are those of us, who are coming to school, thanks to that bond which the bank, or for the matter, a loan pays us. To say that we do not bother about it, would be an understatement. But, at the end of the day, we all try finding means to cover the hike. Having a protest about it, that too, an open one, would be rather daft.
Next up, the standard of English used by our lecturers. He was pretty smart, to have added the following phrase: "I know I do not use good English", in order to prevent a further rap here. English proficiency, is a
good-to-have, but
not a must-have. I recall reading somewhere, that the rankings of the universities, is done based on the academic progress of graduates, and their success rate at finding a job upon graduation,
NOT ON THE STANDARD OF ENGLISH USED.True, as JJ and Sadhana mentioned, we do have our overseas lecturers. But you cannot possibly blame them, if they happen to have a strong accent, or if their pronounciation is bad in itself. Ultimately, they were all taught that way, back in their native countries. Singaporean lecturers-wise, I believe the lecturers and tutors who have taught me thus far, have been known to use a reasonable standard of English. In short, one that is
COMPREHENDIBLE..
By replacing a lecturer with someone who is far more eloquent, does not mean an increase in As in the cohort. Its common-sense, that it is up to the individual and his/her ability to comprehend the lesson. Besides, we do have foreign students, and throwing in an eloquent tutor/lecturer would further confuse them, bearing in mind most of them had to take an English proficiency test upon entering NTU. So that request, is just plain selfish, and dare I say, redundant.
Finally, there are the living conditions of the hall. I can only think of Hall 7 being the problematic hall, because they now lack drinking water supply. As for the rest, I am pretty sure they are decent enough, barring a few defects. C'mon, if anything, live and let live. The authorities over at my hall conduct checks rather frequently, so I do not see why the question on living conditions need to be brought up. In fact, we had our chairs changed, with the supposed SGD200 ones. Hey, welfare what? That's one way of improving living condititons eh?
I am very sure, that our Student Union is there, for a reason, and not to just give away "goodie bags, free ice creams, free T-shirt, free this free that". Lets give them credit, they have done quite a bit so far, and to ask for more, is rather shameless.
Therefore, Mr Gary, you come across, as a really huge whiny. There are proper channels to feedback such stuff to the school, and I am very sure, mass-emailing the whole school is NOT ONE OF THEM. That, clearly, is unethical. Sums up the amount of respect you have for the school.
To sum up sentiments in school, we aren't really bothered about his wide-spread calls for protest. As Mr Tan Woon Lea said to the TNP, "Singaporean students will not bother and foreign students are too busy. We are all apathetic."
3:24 PM
supernova lit up.