Society knowledge level sharply up, so does graduate unemplo
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Be prepared, life is getting tougher!
Littlespeck.com
Graduates
The numbers rise
Society knowledge level sharply up, so does graduate unemployment. By Seah Chiang Nee.
Jun 6, 2005
REGULAR visitors here who make it a point to chat up ordinary Singaporeans would have already discovered some of what I'm about to write.
In one sentence, the general skill of the population has risen sharply, and so has the number of those who are unemployed.
They could, for example, encounter a taxi driver who can rationalise currency fluctuations or advise on promising stocks to invest in because he is a retrenched broker or a former corporate manager.
At Sim Lim Tower, the scrawny-looking computer salesman could have a diploma in electronic engineering and would be able - if willing - to advise on the latest free software.
The same well-educated people could be seen in many parts of the city selling anything from water chestnuts and soft toys on a pushcart to a million-dollar condo or a complex insurance policy.
Graduates give private tuition, teach swimming, operate photo studios and provide many other everyday services.
At the higher levels, Singaporeans (or Permanent Residents) repair jumbo jets, separate Siamese twins, do research on stem cells and work on other high-tech projects.
This transformation has become apparent because more and more people have emerged from institutions of higher learning during the past decade.
As the global economy got tougher and jobs fewer, the response of the citizens has been an explosive, costly investment in higher learning for their children - not a pullback.
Many parents, who only went to secondary school themselves, have dug deep into their pockets to send their children for higher studies locally and abroad.
They include the economically hit who take up bank loans to do it.
The statistics tell the story. With a birth rate of only 34,000, Singapore has sent 22,000 youths to university a year - 12,000 locally and 10,000 abroad.
They do not include post-graduate students or enrolments in polytechnics for a three-year diploma course.
Yesterday, the new campus of Singapore Management University (SMU) - the state's third - was completed at a cost of more than S$400mil.
However, some 20% to 30% of the students are foreigners, the majority of whom end up working and becoming PRs here.
Of the 10,000 Singaporeans who sign up in foreign institutions, some 6,000 go to Australia; most of the rest choose the United States and the United Kingdom (1,500 each).
It's not hard to explain this academic rush. Smallish Singapore without natural resources has always viewed its people as its only economic asset.
The government helped shape it by offering scholarships and civil service jobs or political appointments to bright students.
The culture is prevalent. Since my early reporting years here, Singaporeans of all races have been capable of extreme sacrifice when it comes to their children's education.
I remember going to the public libraries and finding all the seats taken by tiny tots accompanied by their grandparents, who would sit staring at them for hours as they read storybooks.
The impact has become highly visible today.
"You can safely assume almost every Singaporean between 18 and 24 is a student in a tertiary institution," said a businessman in transport. "Throw a stone and you'll probably hit a graduate."
More grads also means more unemployed grads. It is also causing disaffection against the government.
Statistics in June 2004 showed 103,000 residents unemployed, of which some 18,000 (about 17.5%) were graduates and 12,000 (11.6%) were diploma holders.
In 1998, only 16.5% of retrenched workers had a tertiary education. Today, they form 29% of the total unemployed.
The dislocation stems from migration of jobs from rich to poorer nations, as well as a huge intake of foreigners as PRs and citizens (about 30,000 a year) to top up a depleting population.
Almost every Singaporean has a sad tale to tell. After working five years in a foreign firm, the 30-year-old son of an old friend of mine was recently retrenched.
The mechanical engineer diploma holder, who was earning S$2,400 a month, was replaced by a Permanent Resident from Myanmar with a master's degree who was willing to accept S$1,600 a month. He has since found a new job that pays some 20% lower.
Singapore's new generation is discovering something their peers in other countries had known long ago - that a university degree does not guarantee the good life.
The afflicted are getting a useful lesson of life in the real world where nothing is laid out for them.
As a result, some of them have developed self-reliance or gained first-hand experience in business or valuable experience in survival.
Thousands provide private tuitions, work as "temps", or sign up contract work for a fixed period while waiting to land that permanent job.
"We've learned one thing. Life has to go on," said an electronic engineer who has operated a photo service for companies after publishing his own book and holding his own exhibition. But life is still very tough.
Others have opened small spas or food outlets supplying imported food, or run clinics for pets.
Many have returned from abroad with business ideas they are prepared to try. Some failed miserably, a few have succeeded well enough to expand into franchises.
Educators with Western teaching skills have started kindergartens; IT engineers repair computers or provide software and web consultancy.
The "hub" concept involving high technical skills from foreign firms, media, health and education has increased jobs for graduates.
Recently, I encountered a firm that accepts multimedia assignments from global corporations, world TV networks and the Singapore government to produce PR or TV documentaries and magazines.
A local university will soon start a degree course to prepare Singaporeans for two large integrated resorts and casinos due to start in 2009.
But the biggest impact is job-seeking in non-traditional countries.
Thousands of ambitious youths - with their new knowledge - have ventured to work in booming economies that include China, Vietnam, South Africa and the Gulf states.
Last week, a news report said more youths are signing up in private schools to study the Shanghai dialect. The flourishing Chinese city could expect more Singaporeans heading that way. -
yah , i agree with you.. anymore to comment..?
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Singapore's educational system is political - meritoracy in name.
Grades and academic performance are the key features of Singapore system.
Results : It produces a nation of academic with people generally sold to the belief that by possessing some paper qualification especially of straight "A"s and university degrees of certain grades from certain universities recognised everything will be taken care of.
Such a system makes the students over-confident neglecting application of knowledge, creativity and entrepreneurship which the education system hardly develop.
A broad-based education adopted by Finland, Switzerland and Denmark and to a certain extent Taiwan emphasises on developing, using and applying existing knowledge in whatever fields even non-traditional and non-academic ones in real business start-ups.
The latter broad-based education approach is more practical and will help both the good and not-so-good students to be interested in study and knowledge application not pure study for study sake or paper chase.
No wonder today, Singapore is suffering from a lack of entrepreneurs and it is high time our students are prepared to apply knowledge and not just obtain academic grades to show off or satisfy only political goals. Politically a population believing in study and getting university education is good for governing as no one will object to promoting academically qualified to become our administrators. Practically this kind of meritocratic educational approach of the past produces many academically qualified people who are competing for limited jobs. It will continue to add to our high-educated unemployed or under-employed.
The above-stated comments were given in feedbacks to Feedback Unit two years ago. What do they do except to send Dr. Tony Tan to Europe to study their model of education.
Government has to wake up and wake up fast that academical approach to education is incorrect and narrow-minded and politically motivated. It will not make us economically competitive or produce more entrepreneurs. The upbringing of our students in schools to make them entrepreneurs should be a much more important and bigger goal than smallist politically motivated meritocracy.
As I am writing this now, many of our top computer and IT graduates are joining other countries because they could serve in the right technologically advanced industries which Singapore is lacking in because of narrow-minded approach in developing its own excellence.
The above-stated post is a repeat of my many postings to Feedback Unit on this topic but apart from justicications more TV programmes showing a few success stories here and there among schools, what have changes in terms of major governing philosophy or polcies affecting education and production of next generation of industrial leaders to serve our country.
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I just read an article that said contrary to what was commonly believed most terrorists were reasonably well educated, mainly up to college level with some graduates. Let hope our graduates won't become so disillusioned that they turn to terrorism.