Wednesday, 13 December 2017

The Straits Times

In today’s edition of The Straits Times, there was an article contribution by Professor Chew Soo Hong and Provost’s Chair Professor from the Department of Economics at NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, in which he discussed whether haze clouds decision-making. Prof Chew shared findings from a first-of-its-kind natural experiment on ambient PM2.5 and decision making that he conducted with researchers from Wuhan University, which was observed in an incentivised laboratory setting in Beijing in October 2012, before PM2.5 was included as part of the air quality measure in China.  He noted that when looking at the social costs of environmental pollution, policymakers have tended to focus on the direct economic costs, but there is a need to take into account the impact of air pollution on how people make decisions.

Click here to read the article.

Monday, 11 December 2017

Lianhe Zaobao 

This was a review of a book by Associate Professor Lee Chee Hiang from the Department of Chinese Studies at NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences on charitable organisations started by the Teochew community in Singapore. The book presented new research findings on the development of such charitable organisations, the folk beliefs and customs of the Teochew community, and the early Singapore immigrant society and charity activities.

Click here to read the article in Chinese.

Wednesday, 6 December 2017

The Straits Times

This was an article contribution by Associate Professor Irene YH Ng from the Department of Social Work and Director of Social Service Research Centre at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Assoc Prof Ng discussed the longer term implications of plans to give priority primary school admission to pupils attending kindergartens operated by the Ministry of Education. She observed that this leads to a group being created that will likely be assigned a prestige label because of the ‘insiders’ benefit of priority admission. Assoc Prof Ng opined that there is a danger that the creation of a new preferential group will further segregate pupils by socio-economic status and bring the ‘arms race’ for educational success earlier to the pre-primary level, adding that such priority admission can create more intense competition among children at a young age (and their parents) and inadvertently worsen educational inequality.

Click here to read the article.

Tuesday, 28 November 2017

The Straits Times

This was an article contribution by Dr Kelvin Seah Kah Cheng from the Department of Economics at NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, in which he discussed how we can get an accurate estimate of the value of a private university degree, relative to an autonomous university degree. Dr Seah noted that as long as there is nothing special about the threshold entry requirement, other than its use in assigning students to the different types of universities, we can reasonably attribute any difference in labour market outcomes at the threshold to the effect of university choice. This is because students immediately on both sides of the threshold are likely to be similar. He added that before such an exercise is done, it would be premature to sound the death knell for private schools.

 Click here to read the article.

Friday, 24 November 2017

The Straits Times

In this monthly “Ask NUS Economist” series, Dr Kelvin Seah, Lecturer at the Department of Economics at NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, discussed whether the gender of a teacher affects a student’s academic experience. Dr Seah shared that that his study has found that both male and female students are more likely to be seen as disruptive when they are taught by a teacher of the opposite sex and with all else equal, assignment to a teacher of the same sex has a positive effect on a child’s academic experience. Dr Seah noted that having a clear understanding of how teachers and students interact will enable us to formulate appropriate policies to address any potential gender effects.

Click here to read the article.

Sunday, 19 November 2017

Lianhe Zaobao

This was a report on a public lecture co-organised by the Department of Chinese Studies at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Lianhe Zaobao held on 18 November 2017. Renowned Sinologist Professor John Minford spoke about the existence of ‘gardens’ in both Western and Eastern literary work and gave examples of the observatory garden from the Chinese classic “Dream of the Red Chamber” and the selfish giant’s garden in “The Selfish Giant” by Oscar Wilde.