Posts in the Education category:

Education

Admissions and Financial Aid

Written by Provost's Office on . 60 Comments

The days following the release of the GCE ‘A’ Level Results mark the traditional peak season for university applications. I thought it is timely for me to convey some key attributes of the NUS’s policies on admission, and on the related issues of tuition fees and financial aid.

 

Admissions

 

Admission to the NUS is competitive. We receive over 30,000 applications annually, but we only have places for about 6,700 freshmen. Each application is assessed solely on merit. For certain courses, candidates are shortlisted for further assessments, and the Faculty considers each applicant’s achievements, aptitude and personal qualities in assessing the applicant’s suitability for the course and/or the profession.  An applicant’s family background, schooling history or financial circumstances will not have a bearing on the selection process. Essays are reviewed without reference to the applicant’s personal details; interviewers and selection panels do not have access to the candidate’s financial status.

 

The NUS also sets aside up to 10% of our places for Discretionary Admissions (DA). DA provides us with an avenue to consider applications from deserving students whose high school grades may not meet the entry requirements for admission into NUS, but have the potential to pursue an undergraduate education, and to contribute to the NUS community. For DA applicants, NUS will consider their contributions and achievements in other areas, beside academic grades.

 

DA students add diversity to our campus and this scheme has increased the opportunities for students with different talents, achievements and experiences to join the NUS community. Many DA students are faring well. Some years back, when I was Dean of the Faculty of Science, I admitted an applicant with weak A level results to the Faculty of Science. We noted something special about her. She had been giving tuition to support her family since she was in Secondary 3, as her father was then retrenched. Her tuition business expanded, and by the time she was in JC 2, she founded a thriving tuition centre. Her involvement in the tuition business was probably one of reasons why her A level grades had suffered. She was also actively involved in community work. In spite of her weak A level grades, she coped well academically at NUS, and was even admitted to the University Scholars Programme. Eventually, she graduated with a Second Upper Class Honours, and was selected as the valedictorian for her commencement ceremony. She is now pursuing a medical degree at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School. I am thus grateful for the DA scheme, which has allowed me to give deserving students like her a chance to benefit from an NUS education.

 

An NUS education will remain affordable and accessible to all Singaporeans who qualify for admission

 

Some students have expressed concern that students from lower income families may be discouraged from pursuing a university education due to financial difficulties. I would like to take this opportunity to assure all existing and potential students, that NUS has in place, a robust financial aid framework to ensure that an NUS education remains affordable and accessible for all Singaporeans who are admitted to the university.

 

NUS is cognizant that society regards university education as an economic leveller and a means of social mobility. For many decades, an NUS degree is an aspiration of many Singaporean families. NUS counts many first generation graduates in each cohort. This is also true for the professional courses; each year, we train many first generation accountants, architects, dentists, doctors, engineers, lawyers and pharmacists. Although the income profile of NUS students does not exactly mirror that of the general national income profile, there is a substantial number of NUS students whose per capita household incomes are at the lowest quintile.

 

We remain committed to enabling needy and deserving students to pursue their university studies with us. Every needy Singaporean admitted to the NUS will have access to sufficient funds to meet the costs of undergraduate education. Students from middle-lower income families (this applies to about half of Singaporean households) will be able to obtain sufficient funds to meet the full costs of tuition and living expenses through a combination of bursaries and loans. 

 

Enhanced Financial Aid Framework – Helping the Needy

 

For AY2012/13, NUS will be extending even more help, especially to students whose families are in the lowest 20th percentile of per capita household income. As explained in my earlier circular to all students, NUS has conducted a comprehensive review of our financial aid schemes and we have made considerable enhancements. The key features of the enhanced financial framework are first, the annual bursary quanta for the neediest Singaporean students will increase from $4,750 to over $8,000.  This will significantly reduce the loan burden for students from very low income families, and more than 1,100 needy NUS students will benefit from this bursary increase. Second, the bursary quanta awarded will be more finely means-tested according to the student’s financial circumstances. The neediest students will receive more financial aid. This acknowledges the different circumstances that the neediest students with very low household incomes face. Third, eligible local students may receive more than one bursary, up to the maximum bursary quantum prescribed for their per capita household income. Fourth, needy Singaporean students participating in academic programmes such as the University Scholars Programme, Student Exchange Programmes, etc., will be provided with proportionately higher financial support. Overall, NUS will be increasing student financial aid by $4.5 million, which will bring overall student financial aid for AY2012/13 to $9.5 million.

 

Many students have expressed support for and welcome the enhanced Financial Aid Framework. NUS is also working hard at fund-raising, as philanthropic donations will allow us to expand the pool of funds available for financial aid. In the meantime, if you do know of any students who are struggling financially, please drop a note to financialaid@nus.edu.sg, and we will look into every case closely. For some students, their family circumstances may change midway through their studies at NUS, and as a result, they may be encountering financial adversity; please encourage them to approach us.

Education

The Bell Curve

Written by Provost's Office on . 85 Comments

I chuckled when I read this article:   Desperate undergrads pray to ‘bell curve god’

 

Superstitions aside, students correctly know that the bell curve does affect them in some way or other. However, I hope that no one is feeling haunted by the bell curve.

 

What is this ‘bell curve’ all about?

 

In probability theory, the normal distribution is a continuous probability distribution that has a bell-shaped probability density function, known as the Gaussian function, or informally, the bell curve. The normal distribution is the most prominent probability distribution, because many large sets of data are approximately normally distributed.

 

 

 

 

For example, the heights of all students in NUS are likely to be normally distributed. The weights of NUS students probably follow a normal distribution too.  Likewise, if I set exams targeted at the average competency of a group of students, and if the class is large enough, the exam scores are likely to follow a normal distribution curve. Setting such an exam is, by no means, easy. Pitch it tough, most students will fail. Set it too easy, and many will score very high grades, and the resulting scores are hardly differentiated.

 

 

Grading and Moderation

 

Differentiation is necessary for CAP purposes, and for Honours classification, and these are here to stay for the foreseeable future. Most if not all major universities have variants of degree classes or GPA scores.  And because of the need for differentiation, many institutions from North America to Asia, use the bell curve as a mechanism to moderate marks.

 

Module requirements may encompass different modes of assessment such as tutorial presentations, laboratory reports, projects, essays, as well as mid-term and final examinations.  Grading may be based on absolute performance, relative performance, or a combination of the two.  Higher-level modules with small enrolments typically grade a student based on his absolute performance; larger lower-level modules take into account a student’s performance vis-à-vis the other students in the same module. Where necessary, the final grade which a student receives for a module may be subject to moderation.

 

One important reason for grade moderation is that examiners come from diverse academic backgrounds and may be accustomed to different marking regimes.  While we do make every effort to make sure modules are designed with clear learning outcomes, and professors are responsible to ensure their exams are pitched at the right level, grade moderation will prevent grade inflation or deflation, and helps to achieve consistency in assessment grading across modules. 

 

 

 

How NUS Applies the Bell Curve

 

At the end of the semester, a student is awarded a grade (and not specific marks) for each course taken. As such, NUS adopts a ‘recommended grade distribution’ in the following manner. I shall illustrate with an example – bear in mind that this is meant for illustrative purposes and is not the actual distribution that we are currently practising.

 

Example of a Recommended Grade Distribution: 

Grade A+, A, A- B+,B, B- C+,C D, F
Proportion Not more than 25% Not more than 40% About 30% Not more than 5%

   

One could compute the average grade point:

(5 x 0.17 + 4.5 x 0.08 + 4 x 0.14 + 3.5 x 0.13 + 3 x 0.13 + 2.5 x 0.15 + 2 x 0.15 + 1 x 0.05)

which is approximately 3.34, or roughly B grade.

And here are 3 possible course grade profile scenarios after moderation. For the first module, the test/exam may have been too easy, resulting in high cut-off marks for each grade. The average mark was 83 for a class of 630. The department will also look at the paper before moderation.

 

 

 

In the next scenario, the resulting cut-off marks for each grade after moderation, are moderate.

 

 

In this final scenario, the resulting cut-off marks for each grade after moderation are rather low.

 

 

 

I must emphasize that the recommended grade distribution is not applied blindly, and there are ample opportunities, within reason, for discretion and flexibility.  

  • First, the class size must be large enough, preferably above 30. For smaller classes, Professors are given discretion on an appropriate grade distribution because small sets of data may not be normally distributed.
  • Second, we are not looking for a perfect fit, i.e., we usually ignore small deviations. 
  • Third, if Professors have strong reasons to deviate from the recommended grade distribution, we are usually amenable to acceding to their requests. For example,  some modules belonging to special programs in the various Faculties/Schools have their own distributions.
  • Fourth, we sometimes also look at the CAP profiles of a class, and tweak the grade distributions appropriately. For example, if many students with high CAP choose a particular course, it will not be fair to apply the recommended grade distribution to this class. Another example: for Honours classes comprising students with an average CAP of at least 3.5, the grade distribution will be skewed higher.

 

Additionally, much goes on post-exams, before the grades are finalized and released to students. First, the grade profiles for individual modules are examined and compared at the Department level, and then across Departments at the Faculty level. All grades are carefully scrutinized by Department and Faculty Boards of Examiners before they are submitted to the Board of Undergraduate Studies and the Board of Graduate Studies for approval. Further checks are conducted at the University level by the Board of Undergraduate Studies and Board of Graduate Studies to ensure that there is consistency of assessment across Faculties/Schools.

 

In conclusion, I hope that this post has given a better picture of how the bell curve works at the NUS, and hopefully this helps to alleviate some bell curve anxiety. The bell curve is used primarily as a tool to moderate grades, and as a guide to prevent grade inflation or deflation. We do not apply the bell curve mindlessly or excessively. Students are sometimes worried about falling on a ‘wrong side’ of the bell curve. Do not worry too much, more often than not, we err on helping students along.

 

Here’s also wishing everyone a joyous Lunar New Year!

 

Education, Student life

Career Workshops for NUS Students

Written by Provost's Office on . 39 Comments

There is a pressing need to raise the career preparation skills of NUS graduates. In a recent survey of major employers of graduates in Singapore, 70% opined that NUS graduates are lacking in this area. This is what employers are saying about NUS graduates:

  • ‘I was shocked to see an NUS graduate dressed casually in jeans for the interview, thinking that it is appropriate, because it is at Sentosa.’
  • ‘Only half of the interviewees did proper research about our company.’ This feedback was received from one of the largest companies in Singapore.
  • ‘Students can sell themselves better by putting important things upfront. For example, they should highlight their CAP score if they did well academically.  Students are quite shy, and are too modest. They should try to market themselves better and ask more questions.’ This feedback was received from an American MNC.
  • ‘Local graduates are excellent at breaking down problems and delivering results. But they undersell themselves and do not get opportunities they deserve as they are being overshadowed by the vocal and domineering personalities from the US.”
  • And one of Singapore’s largest graduate recruiters wrote ‘Some candidates were neither prepared nor appropriately dressed for interviews. In terms of ratings of performance among the 3 local universities,
    • for Oral Communications: SMU 1, NUS 2, NTU 3;
    • for Maturity: SMU 1, NUS 2, NTU 3;
    • for Grooming: SMU 1, NTU 2, NUS 3.’

Clearly, this is a gap we need to fill.

What should the university do, and how can we help our graduates?

Let me share more about the current situation.

Career preparation workshops are being offered to students on an optional basis, and they do not carry academic credits. Last year, the NUS Career Centre (NCC) offered a suite of 5 workshops (comprising Career Planning, Resume Writing, Interview Skills, Networking Skills, and Business Etiquette and Corporate Dressing). Each workshop was a 2 to 3 hour session, and students were charged $8 to $10 per workshop. The workshops are offered to students at highly subsidized rates, and a nominal fee is levied to prevent no-shows.

Of the 25,000 undergraduates enrolled at the NUS, only 1,500 students attended at least one workshop, and amongst them, 320 of them attended all 5 workshops. Of the 320 students who completed the suite of workshops, about 150 are from Pharmacy, because they had an astute Head of Department, who saw the importance of the workshops, and had made them compulsory for final year Pharmacy students.

Should we then mandate the workshops as a compulsory graduation requirement? If we maintain status quo, the take-up rate of the career preparation workshops is not likely to improve. Interestingly, in a recent survey involving more than 3,000 NUS students, 56% supported the idea of the university implementing compulsory career preparation workshops; 11% of the respondents were unsupportive.  At the NUS Business School, career preparation workshops are not compulsory. Yet, students prioritize these learning opportunities and nearly 95% of their students elect to attend them sequentially over 3 to 4 years.

We then sought to understand why NUS students are not signing up to attend career preparation workshops. The student survey further revealed that top 3 reasons were:

  1. I do not have time! (40%)
  2. The workshops clash with my lectures/tutorials. (25%) We were certainly puzzled by this response as many workshops are held on weekends.
  3. I am not aware of these career development workshops. (25%)

After much deliberation, we have decided to defer the ‘compulsion’ measure for now, and will instead adopt a moderate approach.

Over the next 3 years, we will nudge all students from the Faculties/Schools of Arts and Social Sciences, Computing, Design and Environment, Engineering and Science, to complete the suite of 5 workshops. The workshops will be offered free-of-charge.

Here are the implementation plans:

(1) An Opt-Out System for Freshmen

  • Each freshman will be assigned to attend the 5 workshops in one of the two semesters in AY2012/13. Students who do not wish to attend will have to provide good reasons to the NCC.

(2) An Opt-In System for the Graduating Cohort

  • For existing students, career preparation workshops will be offered to you in your graduating year, and we will facilitate your attendance by ensuring that the workshop schedules do not clash with your formal classes.  You will have to register to attend these workshops.

To conduct these programs on a large scale, the NCC will be recruiting more career counsellors; many workshops will also be outsourced to competent vendors. Notes and resource materials will be prepared and made available online, so that the workshops are more hands-on and practice-oriented. On top of the 5 first-tier career preparation workshops, the NCC will also offer many additional courses under the umbrella of the ‘Future Ready Programme’. Some target specific skills; others are industry-specific.

The workshops by themselves are no guarantee that NUS graduates will become expert job hunters after attending them.  But, our aim is to sensitize our students, right at the onset of their university life, to the importance of planning and preparing for their future careers. Better earlier than later, as students can then start to think and plan their curriculum, education and projects accordingly, to hone expertise and experience and to develop a credible portfolio towards their career goals.

For students who do not have stellar CAP scores, please do not give up, or be overly discouraged.  It is heartening to note that many top employers such as Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Keppel Corporation, Proctor & Gamble, ExxonMobil and others, have shared that they are moving away from CAP to look at strong CCA qualities and soft skills. One firm shared that ‘We do not look at grades, but how the graduates present themselves. Core values such as integrity, and encouraging a non-defeatist, positive attitude is vital to success in society.’ Do take heart, and press on with your job hunt.

In short, we will be making career preparation workshops as accessible and convenient for students to attend them, and in so doing, we hope to ‘nudge’ students towards making beneficial decisions. We sincerely hope that our students will take up these opportunities to enrich themselves, and to enhance their employability.

Education

Global Competition

Written by Provost's Office on . 47 Comments

How can NUS nurture graduates who are able to compete against the millions of other graduates?

In March this year, Evan Osnos, an American reporter for the New Yorker based in Beijing, appeared on The Colbert Report and revealed a startling fact. “There are more Chinese kids right now learning English than there are American kids learning English. Think about that for a second.” He declared to a rather bewildered Stephen Colbert.[1]

Not just the Americans, we too here in NUS, Singapore, are cognizant that global competition is real. Last year, China’s universities and colleges produced over 6 million graduates, up from 2 million graduates just in 2003. We must thus enable and ensure that our graduates, though small in numbers, are competitive, and are a notch above the others.

Our challenge is cut out for us. The top 50 universities in China take in about 0.1% of China’s yearly cohort of newborns, which numbers in the millions. The three public universities in Singapore take in collectively about 25% of Singapore’s yearly cohort of roughly about 45,000 (new births, 18 years ago). Just based on pure statistics, China’s top universities already have a head start over us in NUS in terms of the calibre of undergraduates.

In light of this, how will our graduates compete with other top Asian graduates?

A key advantage that NUS graduates have over graduates of other Asian countries is our competence in English. That said, Chinese students are beginning to understand the importance of acquiring English, as Osnos had pointed out. According to this article, the demand for English teachers is insatiable and there are as many as 300 million Chinese people are learning English. This ‘English advantage’ will not hold out for long.

How now?

In my previous blog posts, (hyperlink: https://blog.nus.edu.sg/provost/2011/10/03/global-readiness-of-nus-graduates/) I had commented on the importance of global readiness and of having effective writing and communications skills. (https://blog.nus.edu.sg/provost/2011/10/18/writing-and-communications/) These are but some of many other attributes which we believe will better equip our graduates to compete globally.

One other important attribute is the competitive spirit of NUS graduates. Let me elaborate. On the university’s part, we have taken care to provide an array of free activities to aid NUS undergraduates in their development. For example, the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning (http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/) organizes free workshops on communications skills, on making effective presentations, etc., and there are also numerous job fairs and career workshops that the NUS Career Centre and individual Faculties/Schools provide for their students.

That NUS students do not seem keen attending job fairs, career workshops or communication skills workshops has been a point of our concern. This is in spite of arranging for workshops to be held during the weekends to avoid timetable clashes. I will be interested to understand why.

We are one of the world’s smallest countries, with a resident population of nearly 3.8 million people, a territory of 700 sq. km and no natural resources. By conventional wisdom, Singapore should be a rather insignificant country. Yet, Singapore has remarkably defied the odds to progress from third world to first in a single generation. This little country has evolved to become a global city that is a focal point for talent, enterprise, cultures and ideas from across the world. It is often said that Singapore ‘punches above her weight’, be it in economics or in diplomacy.

The physical and economic realities have not changed. Singapore has stayed ahead because we are continually a step faster and better than others. Can we continue to stay ahead? As NUS is a crucial part of the Singapore system, how can we enhance NUS education to nurture graduates who are competitive in the global workplace, and allow Singapore to stay ahead?

[1] (http://www.aoltv.com/2011/03/02/stephen-colbert-learns-a-startling-fact-about-chinas-educationa/)

(http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/375913/march-01-2011/evan-osnos)

Education, Student life, UTown

Getting Enough Sleep

Written by Provost's Office on . 27 Comments

Here is a recent string of tweets on UTown:

  • “utown is packed and my friends couldn’t find a seat”;
  • “found an awesome spot to study in utown”;
  • “camping at utown”;
  • “utown lvl 1 to 3 r all full, going to ctrl lib to mug instead”;
  • ”redbull giving out energy drinks at utown”;
  • “oh, so now sec 4 kiddos are studying at utown”;
  • “security doing checks on ppl in utown. Apparently too many NTU people crashing our study rooms already”;
  • “Utown is fully packed on a Saturday! Stop studying so hard dearest NUS”; ….

This is the Reading Period, which means that exams are around the corner. Our students are all ‘mugging’ hard, hoping to ‘squeeze in’ as much content into their heads as possible. UTown has proven to be a popular study spot and outsiders are also gate-crashing the compound! We are taking steps to ensure that our facilities are accessible only to NUS students.

To me, sleep is most vital, particularly during this trying period. Everyone’s physical make-up is different and our sleep requirements vary. But, insufficient sleep will lead to drastically decreased daytime alertness, and suboptimal performance.

Perhaps that’s why zombies are sometimes associated with sleep deprivation.

Studies have shown that a person’s performance, after 2 continuous weeks of less than 6 hours of daily sleep, can be as dysfunctional as someone who has gone without sleep for the past 48 hours at a stretch. I guess many of our students are in either situation now.

And students have devised ways and means to stay awake. My son told me that a 6-pack of Red Bull can keep him up for the entire night, and it is much cheaper and more effective than 2 cups of Starbucks coffee. This explains why Red Bull is giving out free drinks at UTown. From Wikipedia, Red Bull is plenty of caffeine plus sugar, and conventional (and scientific) wisdom suggests that one should not depend on that for too long!

This is a stressful period for many. Thus, the Counseling and Psychological Centre has been conducting classes and stress-relief clinics; the Centre conducted a ‘Stress No More’ class at UTown last week.

Whatever you do, do rest and sleep well!