Poly & JC Graduand

Recently, there were people discussing about Polytechnic graduands who should not be given a place in local university (Strait Time Discussion). STTeam: "POLYTECHNICS lure students with glossy brochures and spiels about their fabulous courses, but fail to tell them how difficult it is for them to enter local universities via the poly route."

From my opinion, I think JC and Polytechnic students should be treated equally by their result and how well a person did but not giving more opportunity to JC students and a minimum opportunity for Polytechnic students. Singapore universities (NUS, NTU, SMU, SUTD) should take care of its own citizens by not opening a huge door to foreign students although their reasons could be promoting bonds and friendships with foreign countries or just that foreign students who came to our University are more elite but still they need to reduce the huge 20%.

Comparing between JC and Polytechnic students, I think that JC students are more static; they will just study their best for the notes given to them. Polytechnic students tend to be more dynamic; they learn through project works, experiments and explorations. Studying is not only their main reason, polytechnic students also have other hidden talents that are not included into their examination result. For instead, I was a student from School of Chemical knowing professional Excel programming; I did a lot of complicated Excel languages with each cell possibly containing more than 1000 formula characters. With this skill I have, I don't have a certificate to prove that I am expert in this field and Excel is really a software that every companies use nowadays. Whereas JC students put in more effort in stuffs that can affect their academic result. JC students can get distinction in their CCA because when there is a grading system that encourages them to put in more efforts, they will challenge it no matter if they have or don't having interests. Therefore, do not judge Polytechnic students down.

I have seen secondary school students getting an excellent O level result who choose Polytechnic path over JC since they prefer the lifestyle of Polytechnic. I have also came across students who got 20 for their L1R5 choosing JC as a path and eventually got into the local university with a barely passed result, this is liked a steal.

In the past, only 5% of the Polytechnic students were eligible for local university. Now we can see the number increasing to 20%. We can also see an increasing percentage of O level students choosing Polytechnic over JC. This was why the the local university had decided to accept more Polytechnic students as they realised that there were an increasing number of students who were once from Polytechnic got a better result than the JC students.

This article is not against the JC students but it is an explanation for people who complained about the local university system against the Polytechnic students which was unfair. To ensure the competitiveness of Singapore, Singapore's university should open more doors for Polytechnic and JC students to get admitted into the university. Our purpose is to ensure a highly educated Singaporean so everybody will be talented enough to contribute to the Singapore economy.

I also seen quotation such as "Only the best should get a place". From my opinion, I think everybody should be given a place to ensure the competitiveness of Singaporean to the economy by expanding the local university rather than limiting the expertise in Singapore.

I also seen quotation that is "We cannot simply increase places indefinitely without comprising standards." I still think that everyone should be given an unlimited opportunity in term of education but it still can be standardized by not giving away honour to students easily. Everybody should be given a chance to compete.

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