龙门　　：：　Dragon Gate

Uproar today amongst a number of my MBA cohort. NTU have decided to revise their grading system for graduate students, and are moving to a GPA system. This was announced a little while ago, but the implications slipped under most peoples' radar. Instead of just using A, B, C etc on our official transcripts, they will use a more detailed system: A+, A, A-, B+, and so on. Not so important, perhaps, but it means that for my cohort, and for us only, our final trimesters' marks will use the new system, while the trimesters we've completed will use the old system - on our final transcripts, the ones that may of us will have to show to employers. A number of people feel that this will be confusing, and will undermine the credibility of of our older marks. After protests, it seems that NTU (this is the university's decision BTW, not the business school) have said that the policy is fixed and will not be reversed, but our transcripts will have a postscript to explain the change in policy.

For me it isn't really a big issue, I think: I've already got my post-MBA job, and any jobs after that should be more influenced by my performance here than by my transcript. However, I am annoyed by the way this has been done: it's been announced at short notice, and there's no possibility of change. It's for the university's convenience, and any students who are adversely affected will have to lump it. Why is it that universities around the world are realizing that students are customers and need to be treated as such, and yet Singaporean universities appear to think this doesn't apply to them?

This seems a good place to mention an interesting site that I found via tomorrow.sg: Imagine Singapore in 2025. It's worth a read and, who knows, may benefit from contributions from foreign students. Also, from Asia Times, Singapore tries to be naughty, which also comments on Singaporean education.

Other links:

• China's bumpy drive toward tech progress
• In Asia's Chinese diaspora, are loyalties divided? - A question: if a) the article I link to is correct, b) Singapore wants to overcome its population crisis by attracting new citizens from abroad and c) Singapore wants to maintain the current racial proportions, with ethnic Chinese as the majority - how can these a, b and c be reconciled?
• China: middle kingdom, world centre
• Learn the lingo and we'll be in business: a Scottish Member of Parliament on why British children need to be learning Mandarin
• China: The New Silk Road - Morgan Stanley's Andy Xie goes to western China. Starts with economic analysis, ends as travel brochure...