I’m sure many ppl have read about the ntu student who is a malaysian scholar who emailed the entire ntu student population. His main bitching point was about the standard of english that his lecturers spoke. He said that since he’s a scholar and he doesn’t have to pay sch fees, he feels indignant for other students paying 6k per yr and getting crap english, and he’s hoping to rally support for petitionin the admin

I read the email and seriously his english sucks ass, i tot he was a prc..but yea that’s besides the point. I can understand how he is feeling, in the sense that we are paying 6k a yr, we should be able to get ourselves some decent lecturers. That however is not the case in aNUS as well, where the standards of lecturers are sometimes questionable.

Being in aNUS for almost three yrs, i have been lectured by PRCs, Indians, Germans, Englishmen, Malaysian, i think thats about it. A main problem is that aNUS shifted from a teaching university to a research-intensive one. This of cos is beneficial to the university, as it would raise the profile of the uni as a research hub. Singapore as a result would also obtain more clout in the research world, be it science or arts. Professors are tenured, PhD holders are employed mainly because they can contribute primarily to the research, not because they can or want to teach.

Some of these faculty members also know that, they know that they can’t teach for nuts. Their strengths lie in research, and they are definitely experts in their fields of specialities. It becomes convenient to make it a part of their requirements for some of them to teach a relevant module to undergraduates.

Teaching however is not something that one learns to do in graduate school, or for that matter in XYZ lab. I can be an expert bike rider but that doesnt mean that i can teach a noob to ride a bike like me. It doesnt mean that i noe everything about riding and bikes, that it automatically means that i’m a good teacher.

Well i will say this, for the standard of some of the professors’ teaching, we are better off employing masters holders or fresh PhD chaps who are of cos not as expert in their fields but have the passion to teach. Let the research ppl just do research, we dun need them to come and do a poor job teaching undergrads, and i bet they can’t be bothered, judging by the standard of notes provided by some of the physics lecturers (Read: recycling notes for 3-4 sems, or direct copy-paste from textbooks). We are paying 6k odd per yr to get a good education, you are taking the money to employ research ppl and @ the same time compromising on the standards of the undergraduates, who are your main customers.

I will also never forget how Ah Bao didnt bother changing his MM1 notes to read “Sem 1 AY2004/05″ from “Sem1 AY2003/2004″; and walking into tut classes empty handed. Lecturers like him only help to kill off the interest of the students taking the module.

A good teacher not just imparts knowledge to his or her student, he or she also inspires them to want to find out more about that subject. They also serve as role models for their students. I am glad to have some very passionate teachers throughout my education, incl in nus. I will never forget how prof sow always explained things nicely to us back in yr 1 lab, and prof shen arranging extra classes for us on saturday for E&M, and also giving the class 50 bucks to buy food for lunch that day. Prof Englert may set very tough papers and tut qns but u can see that he genuinely cares for us by explaining properly as long as we too make an effort to understand QM2.

How to 十年树木，百年树人 when you dun get good gardeners?