An Oversea Education

I remember this newspaper headline that goes something like this "You can have an education even if you attend colleage'. It set my mind thinking about whether or not universities in Singapore are providing an education, as oppose to professional skills. Personally, I did not have the chance to attend a local university because I had taken the "poly" path. Nevertheless, my study in a university in Australia has been worth the while, not for the paper qualification that I earned, but for a different perspective towards education.

Thirteen years of mainstream schooling I had until the age of 19 but I can hardly remember anything that is so interesting to share about, for everyone else has the same stories. I know that lecture notes is one of the free stuffs that comes along with the tuition fee. Either they are pre-printed or they are projected on the screen to be quickly copied down. More recently I attended a class conducted by the local exchange and the trainer reluctantly gave out a set of notes. The policy is that the students had paid for their course fees and they deserved these notes - as though the notes is the only thing that they bring back with. Or at least if the students fell asleep or failed to learn anything, they get a set of notes, which hopefully it becomes useful someday if they happen to read them when their coffee cup accidentally rested on the stack. Fortunately to me, I can re-create these notes myself now through my attentiveness and understanding ability in class. So where is the perspective from the oversea education?

In University, we had a lecturer who always came into the class, without projector, without whiteboard marker, without printouts and without notes. A thick bearded 6-footer, an enthusiatic virologist, Professor McKenzie. He would always engage us in his delivery each time he stepped into the room and made us get away with the idea the world had almost come to its end. The influenza pandamic - the Spanish Flu (H5N1 if I still remember) - killed millions worldwide. Incidentally, the bird flu today is of similar strain.

Being sure that what he said was definitely going to be in the exam, how could he give lectures without any reference materials? Not in Singapore - I guess. Our 6-credit course had only 2 hours of lecture per week, which meant that there would be another 4 hours of catching up in the library. Which reference book to use? - that's our own problem to solve. What if I skip or miss the class? Then I will end up not knowing what topic was covered. Not too sure in Singapore but I think we would still be able to refer to the syllabus or go back to the lecturer and collect our well-deserved lecture notes.