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Sunday, Apr 26, 2015 - 19:43 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Degrees Of Separation

So, news of the week: there have been good vibes from an Indian construction worker coming to the rescue of an unattended toddler, which sadly appears to have been overshadowed by the ongoing unearthing of mostly-foreign talent claiming dubious degrees, which began with the discovery that a recent naturalised employee of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) had listed an MBA from the Southern Pacific University on her LinkedIn profile.

One could wonder if this should qualify as newsworthy, and it appears that the longevity of the issue has been fanned by what has been seen as attempted cover-ups, with the popular SPH-owned Hardwarezone Forums deleting several lengthy threads on the subject. I'd suspect that the indignation would probably have naturally died down with the passage of a fortnight otherwise, but the heavy-handed crude censorship has instead spurred netizens to dig up multiple other cases.

The IDA's stance has remained consistent, as they have continually defended their hiring as due to the applicant's bachelor's degree, as well as her relevant work experience. They have been backed by a vocal former NMP, who emphasized the difference between a totally fraudulent claim (i.e. claiming a qualification from Harvard, while not having one [but, it's not super hard now]), against simply having one from an unaccredited university, which he states to be a-ok, as long as it's properly discounted by the employer.

Before we continue, a couple of clarifications:
  • There seems little doubt that Southern Pacific University can be accurately described as a "degree mill", by all indications
  • The University of Mumbai, the bachelor's institution, is on the other hand completely legit, if not very highly ranked (well, depending on the criteria used)

As it stands: the employee in question has deleted her offending LinkedIn account, while sections of the online lynch mob are railing against her bachelor's being described as "reputable", while starting a petition to fire her, and continuing to dredge up similar cases, which unfortunately are not in short supply.

Personally, my opinion is that the IDA should stand their ground in this particular case - it is fairly ironic that this particular subset of netizens, who are so often against credentialism, appear to be against work experience coming into play this time; moreover, it is not unreasonable that the employee was unaware that SPU was disreputable.

Basically, the netizens' fury boils down to:
  • Why she can get cushy civil service iron rice bowl job with a discounted MBA and a so-so bachelor's degree?
  • And why I/my spouse/my parent/my friend cannot?

Which in turn feeds into:
  • Why government keep saying that we already have too many university graduates
  • And limit places at local universities, supposedly so as to keep the standard of Singaporean graduates high
  • And then turn around and hire non/newly-minted locals with lackluster paper qualifications?
  • Why they so like that ah?

...which is not a completely unreasonable sentiment either.

All said, the authorities' attitude on this has been fairly clear, from past evidence:
  • You can claim an MBA from SPU, a PhD from Kuching Kulap College, a Double DPhil from Global World International Institute, whatever - as long as those entities are registered somewhere, then it's the employer's problem as to whether they acknowledge it
  • You cannot claim to have a degree, when you do not actually have one. Of course, this usually applies to established universities, since one would hardly forge a diploma from Kuching Kulap College (though we might be surprised, I don't know)

And thus, and as reasoned in the long post on this topic when it surfaced back in 2008, we should probably not rely overly on the "official" rankings of universities; maintaining fairness in hiring decisions is, however, a totally different beast.

And about jobs, quite a lot of them may be lost, if the S.League (remember, with dot) has its plug pulled. Having described it as being stuck in a doomed cycle of doom barely half a year ago, and noting that it needed long-term assurance to work, which probably wouldn't happen because there has been little indication that the fellows in charge actually ever gave much of a shit - it was coming.

About comments that the S.League will limp on, because Singapore Pools are still making money from bets on local football, this more or less sums up the state of sport here. Not many obligations in play here, sorry Camus.

But, great news! It's finally been confirmed that the government will work for you, even if you didn't vote for them! And here I was worried that the sorry support given to opposition wards was actually the best they could do...



Bookmark clearance time:


Somehow, food's still an issue in today's world...




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