Are NUS/NTU graduates creative?

NUS and NTU are Singapore's leading Universities. Their graduates are locally very respected in Singapore. No doubt, they have studied long and hard. Yet, I have cause to wonder, are these graduates creative?

Recently, I had a conversation with an American who works in an American company working in a creative industry. It is a famous American company, so I shall have to leave clues out of this account, lest it be identified. Let it be said, however, that the work that this company does straddles a couple of major creative industries with global reach.

Now, this American was observing to me about hiring practices which puzzled him. You see, one of the senior managers in the local branch of this global company was a Singaporean graduate of NTU. It was part of this manager's job to choose whom to hire to do the creative jobs that they had vacant. What troubled my acquaintance was just who this Singaporean was hiring - and why. Every single time a creative job came up, this Singaporean NTU graduate manager would look through the pile of CVs he had in front of him and select the Singaporean NUS and NTU graduates who had the best academic records. He picked the ones whose grades glistened...whose resumes dripped with A grades. Now, if you are Singaporean you will probably be nodding at this point, thinking that this is the right thing to do and is only natural. However, my American's experience with the people that were hired in this way, says otherwise. You see, the problem with these NTU and NUS graduates is that THEY COULD NEVER DO THE JOBS.

If you are Singaporean, and conditioned to believe in grades as the be all and end all of education, you might be shocked at this. I shall explain for you. The problem was that these NTU and NUS graduates with the great grades were UNABLE TO BE CREATIVE. Their resumes looked wonderful. They had jumped successfully through every academic hoop along the way - but something was missing. They had learnt to pass exams and shine in that situation - but they had never learnt how to think creatively. They were, according to my American acquaintance, unable to do the job, in every single case. They were just not good employees of this creative company.

Interestingly, have a guess who WERE the most creative employees of this company? The Indonesians were. That is right, employees who had grown up and been educated in Indonesia were the best workers in creative jobs, at this American company. The second best were the Thais - my American contact remarked that they were creative and had a good work attitude, as well.

So, this problem with NTU and NUS graduates being uncreative, is not a problem that applies to all graduates, everywhere. It doesn't apply to the Indonesian graduates from overseas - nor to the Thais (or he noted the Vietnamese)...but it does apply to the Singaporean graduates of NTU and NUS.

This leads me to understand that the type of education being received by Singaporeans in Singapore is creating graduates who might be competent in an academic sense and able to handle known and familiar tasks, in structured environments (isn't the whole of Singapore one big structured environment?) - but they are not creative. At the end of their long and arduous education, there is little creativity left in them.

Now, this really didn't come as a surprise to me, having taught in the Singaporean system at all levels, and witnessed the dearth of creativity at close hand. What did surprise me, however, was that Indonesians (who are customarily looked down upon, by many Singaporeans, perhaps because their young women tend to be maids in Singaporean households), were the most creative of all the races (other than "Americans" was implicit in his observations) employed in this large, global American company.

Many Singaporeans clamour to get their child into NTU or NUS. Yet, do they understand what the results of such an education are? Do they really want those results? Do they want an academically competent, but creatively incompetent child? If so, NUS and NTU - and the whole Singaporean education system - are perfect. However, if you would like to have a creative child...perhaps it might be best to send them overseas to Indonesia or Thailand!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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The NUS Asian University ranking.

NUS has placed 10th among Asian universities in the latest ranking survey by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), the company which provides the annual Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings.

Local academics are unhappy about this, especially considering that the same company gave NUS a 4th place ranking in Asia, last year. NUS President Tan Chorh Chuan even said that the University was still trying to understand how their placement had come about.

For my part, there is no mystery to this at all. The answer lies in the change that has been made in the way the rankings are done. Up until last year, there was a "citations per faculty" category, in which NUS did well. A citation is when an academic makes an official reference to a paper written by another, in writing his/her own paper. It is a means of giving credit for work used or commented on. This year, however, this "citations per faculty" category has been broken down into two separate categories: "papers per faculty" and "citations per paper". Under this new schema, NUS received a perfect score for "papers per faculty"...however, and this is critical, it did NOT receive a good score for "citations per paper".

Now this is a very telling and quite damaging observation being made by QS. "Citations per paper" is a direct measurement of the quality and significance of a paper. If a paper makes a significant contribution or has a useful or interesting idea in it, it will be cited often. If, however, a paper is a largely a waste of, well, paper, it will either not be cited at all, or be cited rarely. That NUS fell down on "citations per paper" tells us one awkward fact about NUS - they may be producing a lot of papers, but the quality is just not there: many of their papers are of indifferent quality compared to that produced in the rest of Asia. Were that not so, they would not have secured a poor ranking in this intra-Asian comparison, in the area of "citations per paper".

It seems that NUS have not understood the idea of "quality over quantity". It is all very well flooding the world with large numbers of papers, but if those papers are not actually very good, there isn't much point to it.

NUS has fallen in the Asian rankings for a very clear reason: a measure of the quality of papers written has been introduced and, in this respect, NUS is not strong.

Rather than pretending to be amazed or puzzled by this assessment by QS, NUS should learn from what they are being told. They really need to work not on the quantity of research output but on making sure that the research was worth doing in the first place, and was well done, when done. Quality papers are what make the academic world sit up and take notice: not a deluge of mediocre ones.

There is no mileage in casting doubt on QS' methods or intentions - for they have previously ranked NUS highly. What has happened this time, is that QS have REFINED their measurements. This new survey, far from being, as local academics portray it, misleading or misconceived, is, in fact, likely to be a much more accurate picture of the true standing of NUS in the academic world. This is clear because the only substantial change in the way of measuring, is to introduce research quality into the picture. Previously, NUS had been rewarded for sheer quantity.

If NUS wants to be a truly world-beating University, it needs to start producing seminal work - work that changes the world. QS' ranking states quite clearly that that is not what NUS is presently doing - were it so, NUS would have shone not in the number of papers, but in their citations.

The funny thing is, I know how much Singaporeans love competitions and ranking tables. Now, that the means of ranking has changed, perhaps Singapore's Universities will change the way they go about their work, purely to get a better ranking. I wouldn't be surprised to see a creeping up of quality, simply out of sheer competitiveness.

We shall see.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Starting at NUS High

Today, Ainan did his first class at NUS High, in Chemistry.

There is no doubt that Ainan is the youngest student there has ever been at the National University of Singapore High School for Mathematics and Science. Ainan, however, has cultivated an interesting age-blindness.

I asked him:

"How old are the other students in your class?"

He was quiet a moment, then said: "I don't know."

In a way, it seemed he was deciding not to let himself know. By not seeing their age, perhaps he was hoping that they wouldn't see his age - and therefore he would fit in, better. It is an interesting stance on the issue. I feel he doesn't want to get into a conscious awareness of the age issue. He prefers just to focus on the content of the class.

He enjoyed the class and was in a positive mood afterwards, though he did note that the level wasn't as high as he felt he could manage. We will see how the place shapes up over time. It may be that they always lag behind his actual level - or it may be that they will catch up at some point. This is, I feel, always a problem in matching a child of particular gifts with an educational system. Sometimes the system may not respond rapidly enough to the child's changing needs. This is one I will have to watch to see how they adjust, over time.

At least, now, though, he is actually studying science formally. Today was his first theoretical science class. All that he has previously achieved has been outside the context of a school: it has all been homestudy with a book, and with his Dad. We will have to see if NUS High School will bring anything new to the table for him. My hope is that he will learn things there that I could not have taught him myself - but I am not sure if that is a realistic hope. It would be good to think that they could add some unique value to the situation. I will just have to wait and see.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and no months, Tiarnan, seventeen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

NUS High School: the academic staff

I have learnt something unusual about the National University of Singapore (NUS) High School. All of its staff are University Professors.

Now, clearly the intention in arranging for all of the staff at the school to be University academics, is that they would bring to bear a deeper knowledge of their subject to the benefit of their students. Gifted students would be less likely to bump into the knowledge ceilings of the staff - or at least, they would not be so readily reachable, as in the case with a typical teacher.

However, there is a problem, that I foresee. Would a staff of academics be well-equipped to teach to school age children? The needs of the children differ from those of student age, in that a different approach may be required to teach them. Academic staff may find it more difficult to relate to school age children than they would to the usual student they are accustomed to.

Yet, I don't yet know the situation in NUS High from experience. It might work very well. The Professors here, in Singapore, may actually be good teachers able to reach children of all ages. I don't know - but I hope so.

It wasn't the case when I went to Cambridge University, in the 1980s. There the academics were very good at their subject, but had neither training nor flair for teaching in general. It was a very rare Cambridge academic who had any interest or ability in teaching. It was almost universal to have lectures presented by academics whose real interest lay elsewhere: their research. The students appeared to be an inconvenience to them.

I was very disappointed in my experience of Cambridge University - and it all came down to the undeniable fact that the staff were specialized academics, not teachers, at heart. At the core of it, they simply didn't want to teach. At least, that is the impression that was left with me, after three years there.

There were exceptions. There were rare wonderful teachers with a passion for communicating their subject to others. Above all of these, in my memory, was Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, a Classicist, working in the History of Science, in particular the Ancient Greeks. He was almost alone, in my experience, in making any effort to communicate directly with his students. He was warm, welcoming, engaging, interesting, and more importantly, interested. If the Professors at NUS High are like Professor Lloyd, it will be a great experience for Ainan and a great asset to Singapore. I hope, however, that they are not like so many other Professors were at Cambridge: uninterested, self-absorbed, poor communicators and, in some cases, frankly lazy.

My feeling is that the Professors at NUS High will take their teaching roles more seriously than those at Cambridge did. That is my hope. Should that not be the case, I will let you know. But, given the importance of education in Singapore, and the relatively high status of teaching, here, compared to its status in the UK, I rather think they will be more motivated to teach well, and more proud of doing so.

Here is a final thought. All of the staff at NUS High are Professors. Students at NUS High may take any number of University modules that they wish. Is that not, in effect, then, a University for kids?

(If you would like to read more about Ainan, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The NUS High School meeting.

I met with the Principal of NUS High School, yesterday.

The meeting was several hours long and covered many areas. Ainan and my wife were both present. Apart from ascertaining Ainan's understanding of Chemistry and ability to learn science in general, through questions and posers, in areas old and areas new - including Physics (which he solved, without prior knowledge, thankfully), we discussed much of what could and could not be done for Ainan.

There is much I cannot say, at this stage, for I do not want to prejudice matters moving forward. Yet I do wish to raise certain concerns. Firstly, they have never had a child of Ainan's age before - and do not have any prior experience with this degree of precocity. He gave examples of highly precocious children who have begun to deal with material of a comparable level, from the maths discipline (they have no other scientific prodigies, at all) - but these were all twelve or thirteen years old, or more. Ainan is almost twice as precocious as the next most precocious children, therefore.

Throughout the discussions with the Gifted Education Branch the word "flexibility" has been used, and another phrase: "No barriers". I felt, in the meeting, that the Principal was not entirely comfortable with these requirements. He spoke, instead, of "no exemptions", "no exceptions", and said things like: "If we do that for one, they will all want it". His reasoning was not, therefore, consonant with what I had been led to expect was the procedure. There are, therefore, tensions in the system over how to handle a child such as Ainan. There is little or no experience of children like Ainan - and little or no willingness to make the range of accommodations that would be necessary to create an ideal situation.

I got the impression that it was very much that Ainan was expected to adjust himself to fit in, and that adjustments would not be made to fit him, better. The system would not alter: the occupant of the system must. This attitude does not take into account his age.

So, although as you may have read in the previous posts the NUS High School presents opportunities to secure a degree, and a broad education, it also presents problems that will need to be overcome.

He expressed doubts about Ainan using the labs. He made it clear that he wanted Ainan to "go slow". He spoke of a six year course. All of these things do not take into account Ainan's individuality or his particular ability to learn very fast. The picture he mapped out for Ainan, basically does not seem to understand the degree of precocity exhibited or its full implications for an appropriate education.

The most worrying thing he said was that: "I don't want his chemistry to get too far ahead of the other things." This shows a particular failure to understand the nature of prodigy - who always have a very strong peak, along with whatever other talents they have. He seemed to be saying that it was better to impede his progress in Chemistry than let it race ahead of everything. That is not the right thing to do at all. What would be better is to give him opportunities to bring everything else up to the standard of his Chemistry - which could be done in a few months, with access to good teachers. I suggested it. His response: "I don't have the resources...and I have six hundred other students, too." The implication was clear: why should I do that for him, and not for them?

He made it clear that no individualization would occur to accommodate the presence of Ainan, despite the fact that he would be about half the age of their youngest students.

He did judge, though, at the end, that Ainan was the best scientific mind he had ever met for a Primary student, there being no other in his knowledge, as precocious. Perhaps he should think on that, for a while, and understand that, as I said to him at the end: "An exceptional situation requires an exceptional response." I wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. It was something he could agree with, I think, logically, but not temperamentally.

However, the meeting was a productive one. I got to understand more of what was on offer: to gain an initial perception of the problems and possibilities it presented. None of the problems are insurmoutable - if there is the will to overcome them. My main remnant worry is that I am not sure that that will is there. The possibilities, however, if the problems are overcome, are great. Ainan could finally have access to the educational opportunities he needs.

NUS High School, Singapore: what is it?

NUS High School, Singapore is rather different from what I had understood. It is not just a High School, but a closet University, too.

Let me explain. NUS High School for Maths and Science (to give it, its proper title) was established by the National University of Singapore (NUS), to foster excellence in maths and science and to cater for the best students in the country, in these areas. It provides a wide, modular curriculum covering Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Art, History, Geography, Music, Astronomy, Robotics, Languages and other subjects, too. The student is required to pick and choose within credit requirements in each area. As I understand it, this is probably why it is called a "High School" - for modular credit based systems are an American standard, as I understand it (correct me if I am wrong). As students progress through what is normally a six year course, the preponderance of maths and science grows, and that of humanities diminishes. In this, it is unlike a traditional American High School, in that the outcome is predetermined, to a degree: the assumption is a specialization in science, and this is built into the structure of the place.

Yet, there are differences between this school and a traditional American High School. NUS High School acts as a junior department of the National University of Singapore, itself. It does this through a facility that I was unaware of until the interview, today (which I should discuss in a different post). NUS High School allows its pupils to take modules from the National University of Singapore, itself. These modules can be used in two ways: one, is as credit towards the NUS High School Diploma; the other is as credit towards...you guessed it...a B.Sc (Bachelor of Science) Degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

This option of taking modules from the University is not restricted in scope, at all. In fact, ANY module at the National University of Singapore, may be taken while a person is a student at NUS High School. This means that a student of NUS High can build up credits towards a Degree at the National University of Singapore, as much as they like. Indeed, there is only one thing that I was informed of that prevents dual graduation (that is simultaneous graduation from the High School and the University): there is presently a blanket one year minimum residential requirement, for all students, at the National University of Singapore. That could be a stumbling block: how would Ainan cope with living in University residences, as a child, among adults? There could be all sorts of problems there. I can only hope for an exception on that one, I think.

So, there is a seamless transition between NUS High School and the National University of Singapore: they are, in essence, part of the same greater organization. This is news to me. I had not known that they were one in anything other than name.

Thus, on taking up a place at NUS High, Ainan, seven, would, in due course, be able to take University courses, in a modular fashion, towards his first degree. This gives me hope that arrangements can be made for him to study new material at his level, which would further his interest and understanding.

Perhaps everything will work out.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, and his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, thirteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html. I also write of child prodigy, gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)