PM Lawrence Wong's NDR - Education Portions
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In MOE secondary/pre u schools, the official percentage given is around 5% of the cohort are international students. I think we can divide these international students into two groups:
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those awarded scholarships (around 1%. See link A). From unofficial source/scholars’ sharing, they don’t get to choose the secondary school. And during JAE, they need to meet higher standard than Singaporean for JC enrolments. See links B. Just like our local universities setting the bar higher for international students.
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those enrolled through AEIS (around 4%), they compete with Singaporean on equal ground, but they need to pay very much higher school fees.
Links B
https://www.reddit.com/r/SGExams/comments/17z3w5v/do_asean_scholars_get_randomly_assigned_to_high/http://aseanscholarstory.blogspot.com/p/schooling-in-singapore.html?m=1
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@doodbug said in PM Lawrence Wong's NDR - Education Portions:
Just thinking aloud - over the years the reputation of Singapore’s schools has grown. We already have a significant pool applying via the AEIS. Is there still a need to offer that many scholarships?
Honestly I don’t think there is as much issue with AEIS kids as they do pay fees at whatever rate set by MOE - and it gets pretty hefty at the JC stage.
You are right to say that since there is a significant pool applying under AEIS, then there is no real need to give out so many free scholarships. I can understand the need to continue to attract foreign students as we cannot cut ourselves totally off from them, so I am ok with the idea of offering scholarships to foreign students BUT we need to find out why some Singaporeans are unhappy and i think our govt is deaf to all the feedback.
Bond free is too generous. FOC air-tickets, accommodation, monthly allowance, paid school fees etc. Singapore citizens break bond, very likely need to pay back substantial liquidated damages if they were to enjoy a similar package using Ah gong’s money.
Bond free scholarships, if the PRCs are grateful to us and willing to serve Singapore for a few years after graduation, then I guess Singaporeans will still be fine with such an arrangement. THE WORST thing is after these PRCs enjoy all the benefits, they post on Rednote (XHS):
“申请牛剑的小伙伴都在把新加坡当跳板”
This above is an extract from Rednote(XHS) of a former SM1 scholar. You think how many millions of people have read that? You think Singaporeans like to feel like fools, pay for their studies, offer them a pathway to the best schools in the world and still get mocked for.
I recall some years back, a NTU PRC scholar posted some nasty comments about Singapore and Singaporeans. It caused an uproar. NTU expelled him after an investigation. This incident caused a lot Singaporeans to be unhappy.
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This video is on interviewing a lady from the first batch (20 years ago) of SM1 scholars from PRC. She was from Hangzhou, came over to study in NUSH as a secondary 3 students.
https://youtu.be/eSuNBsyfGog?si=rDHP3dOC57Gi96Y5
The elephant in the room was talk about: the question whether is it worth giving away scholarships to PRC students, knowing they may not stay on in Singapore to contribute. The lady replied, there were 19 scholars in her batch. After JC, half of them continue their university studies in Singapore. The other half studied in US, Europe and Canada . She chose to study in Switzerland. After they graduated, most of them came back to Singapore to work. She was one of them and she has her own family in Singapore now. Those that did not return to Singapore to work, went back to China but joined companies with links to Singapore. Towards the end of the interview, they praise the wisdom of Singapore in attracting talents by giving out these scholarships.
Apparently SM1 scholarship programme was halted during COVID-19. Now it has been reintroduced as Business China’s Spore Education Scholarship.
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SM1 scheme started in 1991 with 19 of them. AEIS enrolment from China then was probably very low as well. XHS did not exist then.
I think the assimilation, absorption, acculturation and integration prospects were far stronger then.
Fast forward, we are in 2025. AEIS has presumably increased. Chinese schools and universities have improved by leaps and bounds. China has recorded amazing growth in the past 35 years. We don’t have the exact numbers, but we do know that the SM1 stream probably recruits more than 300 kids a year at one stage (there is also an SM2 stream that was added).
It’s a question of whether the policy is still relevant and if so, whether it needs to be tweaked (whether in shape, form or numbers).
That said, one of kid’s school did not have SM1 scholars - only had ASEAN scholars, whereas another of my kid’s school had both ASEAN and SM1 scholars. There are AEIS kids in many schools now.
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@bbbay
What happened 20 years ago doesn’t mean it’s still the same today as the world is evolving so fast.If half of them chose to continue their studies in Singapore Unis and the other half who chose to go overseas uni, upon graduation, most of them still returned to Singapore while those who chose to go back China, joined companies with links to Singapore, that would sound like 99% of her batch still contributed back to SG?
Don’t think govt ever release statistics on how many PRCs non-bonded scholars who left SG for Ivy League, subsequently return to SG to serve Singapore. Most people I asked around, think it’s impossible for the non-bonded PRCs to want to return to serve us. The best if govt is willing to show us the statistics from 20yrs and do not have this “carry-on” syndrome without a thorough review of the numbers.
If the event, if they chose not to come back, it’s their choice, since their scholarship is non bonded. But please behave decently, having benefited from our generosity, please stop making unnecessary social media posts to make us look like fools being taken advantage of.
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I presumed you are saying AEIS students are good enough to serve our purpose and we do not have to offer scholarships now.
Scholars are like out of few thousand applicants, pick the top student. AEIS is like out of few thousands applicants, pick 4 at random. The quality will be different. That is likely the reason why we are still keeping the scholarship option.
I think the lady in the video meant she was the 1st batch SM1 scholar for NUSH. Other schools’ SM1 scholars could be from earlier years.
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Reason why I shared that 1 video, is to offer a positive view, to offset the negative social media example that you shared. So it’s may not be true it’s all bad. 2nd reason I shared that video is to show using Spore as stepping board to overseas universities may not mean we are at the losing end of the deal. Most of them still come back to settle in Spore. The video may not be conclusive. But it shows the possibilities, just like there will always be possibilities that scholars do not pay back to Spore. Now the question is which groups is prevalence? No official stats, else we will not be discussing it here. A few bad investments plus tens of good investments is still a success to us.
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The lady being interviewed was an invited guest who can’t say much negative stuff otherwise.
The example I shared earlier was posted in June 2024 on XHS by a SM1 scholar.
One can’t compare the thinking of PRC scholars 20yrs ago vs those today…
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This post by an ASEAN scholar seems to allude to her fellow scholars not even being from the cream of the crop of their country:
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How many postings of using Spore only as a stepping board are there on XHS?
Anyway, SM1 scholarship replacement, the Business China’s Spore education scholarship, has a footnote on scholars shall attend Business China’s events. That could be a way of getting some commitments from the scholars
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