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Apr 15, 2010
UNIVERSITY ADMISSION
JC students deserve priority
POLYTECHNICS lure students with glossy brochures and spiels about their fabulous courses, but fail to tell them how difficult it is for them to enter local universities via the poly route.
How many 16-year-olds will forgo sexy-sounding courses like communications and finance over subjects like physics, chemistry or mathematics?
Ironically, these polytechnic brochures often boast of how many of their graduates enter university. But they are silent on the reality that employers value degrees more than diplomas.
Polytechnic graduates cannot have it both ways. They must know the Government spends more to train a polytechnic graduate than a junior college (JC) student.
So they cannot expect a second bite of the cherry with the same priority in university admission as JC students who complete two years of school and hold only an A-level certificate.
Polytechnics pride themselves on hands-on training while JCs arm a student with more in-depth grounding in core subjects to prepare them for university.
To JC students, university is and has always been their final destination. To poly students, their end point, in Singapore at least, should be their diploma.
If they want to go beyond that in Singapore, they should choose the JC route. If they do not qualify, it is not the Government's fault.
Nothing should stop them from pursuing their dream overseas, but they cannot expect greater access to local universities just because it is costlier to study abroad.
A place in a good local university is a limited resource and should go to the most deserving; in this case, those who qualify for JC and have consciously decided to take the JC path to prepare themselves for a university education and not a diploma.
In the past, a JC education was called 'pre-university' education, and it is precisely that.
So it is time polytechnic graduates accepted the implications of their decision to choose between polytechnics and JCs, and not gripe that the system is unfair.
Lee Beng Tat
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Well, I'm not going to comment further on how ironic and wrong this post is really... I think most who are well-informed, will know the other side of the story.
Although, I gotta say, I'm glad to the poly teaching for giving a tight slap across the face at times, and showing us the harsh reality of life. Something that I feel is at times lacking in the sheltered JC curriculum... although I got to feel for them.. frankly, if you don't make it in the JC system, you are screwed with a half-a$$ed A levels cert.. that brings you nowhere.. can't blame them for feeling the stressed and tensed about the future...
But yeah, if even the elite JCs are moving towards the more hands-on poly approach, something must be done right... too bad really if this hands-on approach creates better employees and students...
maybe the other side he should be looking at is, if you know that you are going to be screwed, and unlikely to get into the top cohort of JCs... maybe one should just be humbler and settle for the poly route.. get a diploma, work a few years.. then get a degree from a private institute.. but yeah.. like I said.. sadly.. our sheltered curriculum don't really show us these harsh facts of life, till its too late..