Foreign scholars

Foreign students studying in secondary schools and JCs on government scholarships have been, for some time, a part of our school lives, particular for people like me in so-called top schools.
Previously, not having encountered them, I believed the stereotype that they were freaks whose only purpose in life was to study and nothing else. However, after ending up in a class with 8 Chinese scholars this year, I find that contrary to the stereotype, they are very much like us – they weren’t too fond of studying and homework, and they too liked having fun and being with friends.

Personally, while I don’t hold any bias against scholars themselves, I feel there are some potential improvements that could be made to the program itself.

While I haven’t managed to find any definitive official stated aim of providing scholarships, there are some obvious advantages:

1. Increase talent, which is key in today’s knowledge driven economies
2. Increase the labour force. Singaporeans aren’t having enough babies anyway.
3. Increased international exposure and goodwill
4. Raise the level of competition and (potentially) spur the Singaporeans to work harder.
5. If these scholars are successful in the future, we hope they remember us so we can benefit from it.

However, in reality, whether these advantages are realized is questionable.

A token few would raise the competition enough to spur local students to improve, but too many scholars end up dominating & take up all the opportunities, depriving local students of the opportunity to develop as well as giving local students a “hopeless” mindset that discourages them from competing. The resulting defeatist attitude and sentiment that the system favours foreigners over Singaporeans isn’t good for national unity.

The best way to counter the latter would be some sort of measures to allow the weaker Singaporeans the opportunity to get a leg up. By this, I think that motivation is the key factor – once interests can be linked to academics, motivation is a whole lot easier and performance would improve.

According to the scholars I know, the recruitment system for the majority of scholars is through successive rounds of academic tests – unless they have some special sporting talent or ability. Interestingly, there isn’t much emphasis on assessing the character here. This isn’t good – a few bad hats to a give the whole lot a bad reputation, and we should be minimising that. Perhaps running interviews, camps, etc. as part of the selection process would help greatly.

This, combined with the fact that schools often place scholars in the same classes (i.e. creating “enclaves”), limit international exposure and goodwill. What should we do to combat this? First, start selecting scholars based on character also. Second, combat negative stereotypes & encourage interaction between both sides.

The scholarship program is a potential winner, if run properly. Hopefully improvements can be done to the programme to let it realize its true potential.

Hello world!

My first attempt at a blog in 4 years, after having tried - and finding myself too lazy to blog.

My name is Michael Ong. I live in Singapore, at the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia, somewhere in Southeast Asia. I'm now currently studying in Anglo Chinese School (Independent), a junior college (i.e. high school) doing the IB programme. Like most other students my age, I intend to enroll in a university soon after graduating and hopefully get a scholarship too, though I will have to do my national service (conscription term) before that.

I suppose I'm not a very conventional person. I just don't seem to conform to most stereotypes about people (e.g. stereotypes like "nerd", "jock", "bimbo" etc).

I used to be a member of the air cadet corps in my school (here, units / squadrons are based on schools) for the last few years. Well, every year, appointments are given to the cohort of senior cadets to run the unit. Unlike most cadets, I chose not to aim for a high appointment, but rather decided to take part in the International Air Cadet Exchange and the Basic Diving course; I learned a lot more from both than getting any high appointment. At the same time, what I did as a senior was unusual in itself - I asked for, and basically got the higher ups to let me teach junior cadets aviation-related science so that they could understand more about airplanes.

Now, I'm currently in the swimming team and the science research club of my school - just following my other interests in sports in general as well as both the hard sciences and social sciences - modern international history, political science and sociology.

Given that, it seems only natural that this blog functions both as an outlet for my views on current issues as well as somewhere to showcase science stuff. The rationale is simple - through interacting with one another, we learn from one another - be it in political viewpoints or building a better mousetrap.

Also, everybody started out a newbie at some time or another. So have I, even though I am only starting to, as Isaac Newton said, discover the vast world beyond. Initially, I had trouble understanding all the technical terms, jargon and stuff and had to rely on the Internet and a multitude of kind forum posters and moderators to get answers (a big thanks to them). Hopefully, this blog can do the same for others in the same situation.

Seems a bit weird considering that this blog is functions both a an outlet for showcase of science stuff, but I never exactly conformed with the norm here, which is that both are generally incompatible and separate. And, after all, in the real world, both come together at some point or another. Note, this isn't a result of TOK or any of those nice sounding acronyms from IB, but simple common sense.

Hope everyone can connect to this blog in one way or another.

http://michaelsworkshop.blogspot.com.

Michael Ong

17 September 2008

Catamaran

My friend & I built one for a school competition. The objective was to design & build a boat that could sail the fastest, with the only rule being that it could have a maximum sail area of 1 A4 size sheet of paper.

As we weren’t told what the competition rules & conditions (especially wind) were, we could only assume a straight line path and little or no wind. Thus, we couldn't optimise the boat much other than minimise weight.

We used a catamaran design because catamarans has a much lesser risk of capsizing than monohulls and thus doesn’t need to be ballasted or widened, both which reduce speed. Wikipedia explains why.

The catamaran hulls were built from flexible Tamiya PVC sheet. We cut the shapes out, and joined 2 such shapes together to form each hull. Joining the hull together was a framework of ice cream sticks. We forgot a keel, though.

The sail was cut out from the school magazine. Holes were cut out and light paper “doors” were pasted over them, similar in concept to a check valve. This is to reduce the effect of a headwind on the boat, which would make the boat go backwards.

Total cost: 2 hours of work and $15.

Our competitors had rather different ideas. One also built a crude catamaran – using 2 bottles for the hulls and a piece of Styrofoam linking them together. Another simply used a huge piece of Styrofoam as the hull and a piece of corrugated plastic for the keel. Yet another used plastic wrap and a wire framework, which subsequently sank.

We won, though we could have been a lot faster if we had put a keel. The wind kept on changing direction, and with it our boat.