A TR Emeritus (TRE) reader posted a comment [Link] on TRE yesterday (19 Mar) highlighting that a Junior College (JC) is looking for English tutors for its international scholars.
TRE went into the Govt procurement portal site, GeBiz, to confirm and found that, indeed, there were 2 tenders being called by Tampines Junior College for English tutors to help its international scholars. Presumably, the English tuition will be offered free of charge to the foreign scholars and they do not have to pay anything.
Both tenders were published on Monday (18 Mar) and will close next week on 26 March 2013.
One of them is for hiring General Paper (GP) tutors for the foreign scholars [Link]:
The other seeks GCE ‘O’ level tutors, presumably in English, for the foreign scholars [Link]:
One can only surmise that the standard of English of these foreign scholars is not good enough and that is why they need extra English tuition, for both foundational ‘O’ level English as well as GP, which they will take for their ‘A’ levels at the end of their studies at Tampines Junior College.
The question arises: Why is Singapore taking in sub-standard foreign scholars requiring tuition?
The further question arises: Are they scholars in the first place if their English is so crappy?
The TRE reader exclaims, “TUITION FOR FOREIGN SCHOLARS!!! Can someone tell me what is going on?”
“How do these foreign scholars get the scholarships to enter JC if their English is not even up to ‘O’ level standard? Why give them a place in JC and deprive our Singaporean students a place? Isn’t this discrimination against Singaporeans!!!!”
If language is an issue, why not make these scholars study an extra year and get their ‘O’ level English up to par before enrolling them in JC? After all, many of our own Singaporean scholars who go to France, Germany and Japan to study have to do an extra year in the language of the respective country before enrolling.
Paying for extra English tuition for these foreign scholars in JC will inevitably lead to the question why weaker Singaporeans in the same JC are not given free tuition too.
The reader goes on to say, “GP tuition for foreign scholars??? Does it mean our Singaporean students are ALL so good in GP that none of them needs tuition? Why do we pay so much scholarship $$$$ for foreign scholars whose GP is not as good as our local students?”
“Shouldn’t we spend the money to improve the GP standard of our weaker local students? Why are we awarding scholarship $$$$ to sub-standard foreign scholars and then spend more $$$$ to bring them up to standard so they can compete against our own local Singaporean students for a place in University!!!!???? ALL USING LOCAL SINGAPOREAN TAX PAYERS’ MONEY!!!”
From this simple episode at JC level, it is no wonder that our ordinary youth, like our adults, think that “foreign talents” have more privileges than native Singaporeans.
Source: TRE website
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