OPINION: 55 percent of foreign scholars get second-lower class honours or worse

Singaporemind.blogspot.com, 19 Feb 2012
Here's a part of a report on answer from Sim Ann who is the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education:
"She offered an indicator of how well foreign scholarship
holders perform: Around 45 per cent complete their undergraduate studies with a
second-upper class honours or better; only 32 per cent of Singaporeans do as
well." - Straits Times, "Foreign scholars closely tracked", 18 Feb 2011.[Link]
She was trying to say the foreign scholars we attract are of some quality in her answer to MP Yee - actually not too reassuring since 55% of foreign scholars get 2nd lower or worse . Actually there are better ways to answer Vee's question. Since he was asking about whether foreign scholars fulfil their obligation to work locally, all she needs to do is give us numbers to show that most of them do stay in Singapore to work after they graduate. If she can't give the numbers, it shows that the govt doesn't bother to track these scholars. In terms of scholastic performance, all she needed to do is show us the GPA of these students in the past few years to show there is no fall in standard and what GPA is required for them to retain their scholarship. Full story