Scholarships

I was just reading this column article on yesterday's NewPaper titled "Time we reviewed our scholarship system?" The title alone caught my attention.

In this article, Ng Tze Yong actually talked about a big problem with our scholarship system and I have to agree with his viewpoint. The bond!! No. I'm not saying that we should do away with the bond. In fact, I think that the bond is an integral part of the scholarship to the extent that I think it is symbiotic.

Majority of students apply for a scholarship when they are 18. Right when they have completed and gotten their A' Level results. The problem is, at this stage in their lives, not many of them really do know what they want to do. They may end up getting a scholarship with a bond they would not be happy to serve when they realise that it's not what they want to do. That is definitely a very big problem.

Tze Yong mentioned in his article a solution. Centralise scholarships into a common pool. Companies put their money in this pool. When students get their scholarships, they'll still be bonded. But they won't have have to choose where to serve it yet. They do that only when they return from their studies, older and wiser. A central body then matchmakes them with the companies. Each scholar gives their top three choices. Each company gets their share of scholars, according to how much they put into the pool.

I think it's quite a good idea. It's a win win situation for both the comapnies and the scholar. In fact, the Singapore government has something similar already in place. It's called FIREfly. It's a human resource collaboration amongst seven statutory boards - A*STAR, EDB, EMA, IE Singapore, JTC Corporation, SPRING Singapore and STB. Maybe the private sector could do something similar. It will be a bit difficult but definitely achieveable.