By Benjamin Chiang
Once upon a dark age, people believed in a piece of paper called “a degree”.
They worshipped this degree and believed it brought riches, financial freedom, power and respect. Everybody coveted this piece of paper and they paid high prices for it. No matter how unreasonably expensive, they forked out the money.
And soon – a new type of business formed: the business of schools. They made it faster and cheaper to get this degree. And employers lustfully coveted it.
People started turning up with cheap, fast degrees and demanded higher salaries. It became a bleak winter in the world of academia. It became apparent that students were no longer interested to learn a skill, they were in there for a quick fix.
Over time, society started to ask questions: what is the point of this piece of paper? So what if a person has a certificate but is unable to cope with the realities of working life? What if this person is not able unlearn and relearn new skills?
As the world gets increasingly flatter and borders become increasingly broken down, we find ourselves in competition with people from far away countries. People who have better skills, better attitudes and can actually solve corporate problems. They may or may not have the paper qualifications to go with it, but give them a block of ice and they will make the perfect sales pitch to the eskimo.
Are our students equipped with the tenacity to deal and thrive under corporate pressure?
There is also the problem of under employment. Anecdotal evidence from interviews with graduates and human resource experts shows that even though large numbers of graduates are able to land jobs, some are underemployed – they are given work and salaries that are far below the worth of what they’re trained for.
There are a lot of jobs in Singapore yes, but are these high paying jobs? Many jobs don’t require a lot of brainwork and some really just need an extra pair of hands to do laborious work… and you can expect these not to pay very well.
We may have a very low unemployment rate, but I can’t seem to find data that shows our under employment rate. Are there enough high calibre jobs out there for the scores of graduates that we have?
In times like this, we need to question this: What is a degree for?
More at https://www.domainofexperts.com/2015/05/so-what-if-you-have-degree.html
They worshipped this degree and believed it brought riches, financial freedom, power and respect. Everybody coveted this piece of paper and they paid high prices for it. No matter how unreasonably expensive, they forked out the money.
And soon – a new type of business formed: the business of schools. They made it faster and cheaper to get this degree. And employers lustfully coveted it.
People started turning up with cheap, fast degrees and demanded higher salaries. It became a bleak winter in the world of academia. It became apparent that students were no longer interested to learn a skill, they were in there for a quick fix.
Over time, society started to ask questions: what is the point of this piece of paper? So what if a person has a certificate but is unable to cope with the realities of working life? What if this person is not able unlearn and relearn new skills?
As the world gets increasingly flatter and borders become increasingly broken down, we find ourselves in competition with people from far away countries. People who have better skills, better attitudes and can actually solve corporate problems. They may or may not have the paper qualifications to go with it, but give them a block of ice and they will make the perfect sales pitch to the eskimo.
Are our students equipped with the tenacity to deal and thrive under corporate pressure?
There is also the problem of under employment. Anecdotal evidence from interviews with graduates and human resource experts shows that even though large numbers of graduates are able to land jobs, some are underemployed – they are given work and salaries that are far below the worth of what they’re trained for.
There are a lot of jobs in Singapore yes, but are these high paying jobs? Many jobs don’t require a lot of brainwork and some really just need an extra pair of hands to do laborious work… and you can expect these not to pay very well.
We may have a very low unemployment rate, but I can’t seem to find data that shows our under employment rate. Are there enough high calibre jobs out there for the scores of graduates that we have?
In times like this, we need to question this: What is a degree for?
More at https://www.domainofexperts.com/2015/05/so-what-if-you-have-degree.html
