MY university life was a blur. I probably consumed enough alcohol to stun or kill a herd of elephants. Smoked may fair contribute to global warming by melting a few icebergs. Neither do I have any recollection of ever attending a single lecture, not one where I didn’t either lapse into a coma or found myself waking up in an empty lecture hall. Fortunately despite my out-of-control university life, there were a few things that remained steadfastly dependable. You know what I mean don’t you? Stuff like trains running on time, girls saying “I will call you, pleeeeeeeze don’t call us loser!” on the follow up date, the sun making its appearance every morning which would otherwise make an ordinary life unbearable. One of these irrefutable constants had to be my lecturers. In those days – neither I nor any of my colleagues thought much of them. For starters there was an almost surreal and detached quality about all of them. They were shambolic, barely coherent mumblers. The ones who were genuinely intellectually stimulating were invariably far better at writing than at lecturing, so it made more sense to head to the library and read their yarns than try to stay awake with faint pity as all of us tried not to lapse into a comatose state.
Despite their flaws the lecturers and academics I knew were people who were truly committed to the ideal of real education. They were passionate about their work, people and planet. They believed rightly or wrong what they were doing embodied a noble ideal which involved molding hundreds of us into future leaders in industry and government (if only they really knew how I turned out I’ve probably have to give them all CPR!). Looking back, it seems a stretch, but believe it or not that was how it was. They (our lecturers) really meant it. They had to mean it, otherwise the whole thing would mean nothing.
Only that was then and as I reflect now on the whole UNSW Asia fiasco, I can’t help but feel something’s amiss. I can’t put my finger on it, not just yet, but if I am pressed: – “something is very wrong somewhere when academics start prioritizing money ahead of education and students” – would do quite nicely to describe the long tail of my decaying impression of present day education. Read the rest of this entry »
THE INTELLIGENT SINGAPOREAN 