Mekong Posted August 11, 2013 Report Share Posted August 11, 2013 There have been no Nobel Laureates educated in Singapore or Singaporeans overseas, but hey why let facts get into a bullshit rant! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think_too_mut Posted August 11, 2013 Report Share Posted August 11, 2013 There is a ridiculous process happening in Australia, unprecedented in human history (of democratic countries): the country and people have nothing but a damage from the mining boom. Hilarious it is: a handful of mining companies pay no tax on their gigantic profits by re-investing it into more mining fields. The government, instead of dancing in the streets, is struggling and going to rise taxes to fill the deficit. Perversely, Australia whose infrastructure is where Asians were 20 years ago is mutely watching, being left behind and de-industrialized. Even more ridiculous it is when you see opposition battling the government over "spending spree" on "National Broadband Network" which is supposed to bring Australia to the "lightening speed" of 20 (twenty) Mbps. That is 20 % of where Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong were 15 years ago and 2% of where they are now. Today, my Internet is 1.6 Gbps for 30$, unlimited. 200MB (6 times speed of transfer from local hard disk) download, 100MBps upload. Instead of using profits from the national wealth to improve everything, Australian people have only damage: Mining workers (5% of the Oz workforce) where truck drivers are on 220K a year (like B-747 captains), have lifted the real estate prices for everyone else so normal people are priced out into the sticks or 100 people come to "auction" a rental property. Stupidity of unseen proportions and a caricature of capitalism. At that, in that sinking winning feeling, some even pull Nobel prize laureates! Better shut up and not say you have ever heard of one. How are they watching what is happening? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think_too_mut Posted August 11, 2013 Report Share Posted August 11, 2013 Now I remember where it was: The Sydney Morning Herald wrote about it. For this tread, it shows how useless elite science (Nobel Prize winners on the premises) can be. America has more Nobelists than anyone but their high school leavers are nearly morons. Even Australians are better than them. This excerpt says what the main advantage of Asian education systems is: The successful school systems studied - Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea - had several philosophies in common. They placed great value in the early stages of teacher education (Singaporean teaching students are paid civil servants), they provided teachers with mentors and they treated teachers as researchers. Whole article: Australian students lag Asia by three years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 IMO, education starts at home! Dirt poor families can and have produced intelligent offspring... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huumlaar Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 TTM, agree totally, I think the NBN is a bit of a mis spend, as lower cost solution are available, but to be fair, it does bring 1 gbps, err, in 10 years when it's finished. Thinking eventually my daughter would be in an Australian school, for summer she went to my old school, grade 7, her equivalent, had no problem except for obvious like Aussie history, and English was a little behind, otherwise it was an interesting experience, she wasn't at all behind and in front in some areas. Thai schools for the future, unknown, but also interesting her school now employs native English and Mandarin speakers, and have added an hour to the curriculum. Years ago I argued Australia was built upside down. We placed the bulk of our manufacturing in Melbourne and worse Adelaide, when in fact we should have been building up Darwin. Anyone in shipping knows that Darwin is a bit closer to Indonesia a major market, than the southern Aussie states. People laughed, an Aussie mate of mine set up a milk refinery for luxury milk products in Bangladesh, and made good, you see, when you have over 100 million people, some of them actually are rich enough to buy what you make. Australia really missed out on exporting to Indonesia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 Singapore is 30% manufacturing. Making things. And the biggest oil refinery in the world with no oil of its own. What goes out from Australia, exports, on ships, is about 10 cents per kilo. What goes out of Singapore, on cargo planes, is 112 $ per kilo. Singaporeans who graduated from Oz universities are those unfit to make it into Singapore National University or other local ones. World class they are. Who on earth would go to pay, as a foreigner, 10s of thousand of dollars a year to study in Australia while leaving world class Unis at home? Right, so every academically gifted student who wants to study their chosen course in Singapore will get a place in one of the local universities ? You're insulting the Singaporean students who come to Oz and work their guts out to get a degree, knowing full well how competitive it will be to get a job when they get off the plane back on their little island. I worked at a university, and I agree that many of the overseas students are more interested in getting residency (shame the govt keeps moving those goalposts !), but the Singaporeans I studied alongside were nothing short of fanatical. OK, so they might not grasp that you dont go to the library to chat with your mates for 3 hours (motherf....), but they were more than happy to spend hours studying each night while the rest of us got hammered. If I was going to nominate any group as lazy and ill-disciplined, it would be the 'straight from school, I know everything' Aussie brigade, many of whom didnt make it beyond the first semester. As for 'truck drivers earning 200K', those days are coming to a close and we will reap what we've sown. Such is life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 huumlaar, have you ever actually *been* to Darwin ? I had many of the same thoughts until I visited a couple of years back - its a backwater, and a ridiculously expensive one at that. We'd be better off shipping everything out of Perth, but that's no less fanciful - we built this country around the south-east because that's where the Poms chose to settle first. I've been to other parts of the Top End, and I just dont see most Australians being able to hack it up there, aircon or no aircon. Definitely no country for old men Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_Nobel_Laureates If you know anything about the funding cuts levied on Australian universities over the last 2 decades, its a minor miracle that we even *have* this list any more: http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/rankings/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekong Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 Singapore is 30% manufacturing. Making things. And the biggest oil refinery in the world with no oil of its own. Oil Refineries 1 Jamnagar India 1,240,000 Barrels per Day 2 SK Energy Ulsan Korea 1,120,000 BPD 3 Parauguana Refinery Venuzueal 940,000 BPD 4 GS Caltex Yeosu Korea 730,000 BPD 5 Exxon Mobil SIngapore 605,000 BPD Not quite the largest global refinery but nice try For the record I have worked at each of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huumlaar Posted August 13, 2013 Report Share Posted August 13, 2013 Gobble, yep, been to Darwin, a few tomes, heat doesn't bother me much but if the white blokes don't want to work, then open it up to those that do. Aussie uni's used to be great world class, a shadow of their former self and loosing ground. Perth is an interesting idea, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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