Friday, 16 July 2010
Wii love learning (DL dated 14 July 2010)from
The following article is from the Digital Life (DL) of the Straits Times dated 14 July 2010, Wednesday, by JOYCE CHUA.
Maris Stella High students use an interactive screen system in class which they helped to develop. JOYCE CHUA reports
Mention the Wii Remote and large-screen TV and the idea of fun and games comes to mind.
However, at Maris Stella High, they are the ingredients of a breakthrough system which takes learning to the next level.
The Wii Remote, used with game consoles from Nintendo, is a key component in an interactive screen system developed by the staff and students of Maris Stella High.
Dubbed the Student Interactive Screen (SIS), this system has made learning more fun, collaborative and interactive at the school.
During a Maths class, for example, groups of students can tackle complex algebraic equations on the screen and then save the notes and sketches they have scribbled directly in their laptops. They can then easily share the content.
The school said that compared to the traditional classroom whiteboard, this system has made students more proactive during lessons. Building it from scratch, instead of buying a commercial system, has also saved the school thousands of dollars.
Secondary 3 student Lim Yu Liang feels that the new learning method has allowed him to speak his mind more easily, hence boosting his self-confidence.
The staff of Maris Stella High came to know of the technology through a YouTube video posted by Johnny Chung Lee, a researcher at Microsoft Applied Sciences and a Carnegie Mellon PhD holder.
In his video, Lee demonstrated how a Wii Remote can turn any flat surface into an interactive screen with multi-touch capabilities. His clip has had over 3.2million views since it was uploaded in late 2007.
With the information and software provided by Lee on his website, Maris Stella High developed a working prototype in September last year.
The school has since developed three different versions: a classroom version, a portable version and one using a mini-projector instead of a TV.
The classroom and portable versions both use a 32-inch LCD TV, while the mini-projector version uses a small projector to display images on any flat surface, turning these surfaces into interactive screens.
Creating an interactive screen system from scratch helps cut costs, said a spokesman for Maris Stella High. An in-house system costs less than $1,000 to assemble, while commercial systems cost about $5,000 to $10,000 each.
What is unique about the SIS is that students play a crucial part in making the system work. All students are required to make their own infrared LED pen from schematics given to them during the compulsory Design and Technology classes.
The main objective is to help students lead discussions and engage in self-learning, while the teachers guide and facilitate the process.
'The use of the SIS has helped me become a more independent learner,' said Denzel Low, a Secondary 3 student who uses the SIS for various subjects, including Maths.
It will not be surprising to see other schools adopting this technology, said a Maris Stella High spokesman. It has already shared its expertise with over 20 schools, including Raffles Girls' School and Woodlands Secondary School.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
An Example of Japanese Atrocities in Singapore during World War 2 (Original title: 'I was chopped, I fell and fainted' )
The following a report by By K.C. Vijayan in the Straits Times dated 15 march 2010.
IN EARLY 1942, Mr Yew Kian Chang and eight other men in their 20s were roused by a squad of Japanese military police from their dormitory in Bukit Timah.
They were marched, hands tied, to a nearby railway track and made to squat there.The next day, they were beheaded one by one.
Mr Yew was the last. When the metre-long blade struck his neck, he fainted and was left for dead.
But the Singaporean, now 93, survived the horror, which he recounted last month to oral archivists seeking to preserve the remnants of stories about the Japanese Occupation during World War II.
The National Archives of Singapore's Oral History Centre has collected more than 870 hours of testimony from 261 survivors. But Mr Yew's is one of a kind. He is the only one to have lived to tell about being nearly beheaded.
The closest parallel is an account by Washington-based Barbara Scharnhorst, now 77, whose father had been with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Singapore and was beheaded by the Japanese in Bahau, Malaya.
Oral History Specialist Lye Soo Choon said the centre had embarked on collecting accounts for several years, but time was running out to get to the whole truth of the Occupation.
The Japanese Military Administration that ruled Singapore left almost no written records behind in Singapore regarding its work.
'The newspaper and magazines they published present only one perspective of the Occupation,' she said. 'It was to close the gap in our knowledge of our past that the Oral History Centre launched the project on the Japanese Occupation.'
The Straits Times visited the nonagenarian in a four-room flat in Bukit Batok where he lives with his wife, not far from the railway tracks in Bukit Gombak where his life had hung on the edge of a sword more than 60 years ago.
Mr Yew's unlucky compatriots were all single, like him. The married men, who lived in another block nearby, were not taken.
As he marched, the Fujian native was resigned to his fate.
'It was night, I was afraid and did not dare to look around,' he said in Hakka with his daughter translating. The next afternoon, they were taken one at a time, made to walk a few metres to lower ground and had their heads felled in a single blow by a sword wielded by a Japanese soldier.
There was no interrogation before the killing began.
'There was no commotion, no noise, no struggle. I felt resigned and did not resist and walked without feeling,' he recalled.
The men were not blindfolded. He was the last.
Clad in a singlet, shorts and China-made cloth-shoes, he walked to the spot where he was to die, and knelt down.
'When I was chopped, I fell and fainted,' he said.
It is believed he fell as soon as the blade hit him just below the neck and the downward slide of the blade missed the vital areas. The Japanese left him for dead.
Mr Yew believes he lay unconscious for more than a day, 'then I heard the voice of my grandfather as if in a dream, calling me to get up and run'.
With his hands still tied, he got up and fled to a friend who treated the wound on his neck with herbs. But maggots appeared in the gaping flesh after some days.
'My friend told me there was nothing more he could do and I had to seek medical help.'
Mr Yew found help at the Nanyang Clinic in the North Bridge Road area. After months of recovery, he fled to Endau, an agricultural settlement in Johor, Malaya, where he remained till the end of the war.
Till this day, a deep scar is visible on the back of his neck.
When the war ended, he returned to Singapore before going to China to find a bride.
He has been married for more than 65 years to Madam Lee Ah Hang, now 85, and they have eight grown-up children and several grandchildren.
Mr Yew was a carpenter by trade before and after the war. He went on to become a construction foreman and site supervisor before retiring in his late 60s.
Long ago, he had made peace with the unspeakable. 'I have no ill-feelings towards the Japanese soldiers who chopped me at that time. I thought they were just following instructions,' he said.
A Japanese group of peace activists, whose aim is to promote better understanding among the Japanese about the atrocities that took place in the region, visited Mr Yew last month.
Its spokesman Yoshiyuki Onogi told The Straits Times in an e-mail yesterday: 'To directly hear the story from someone like Mr Yew is rare, valuable and momentous to let ordinary Japanese people learn historical facts related to Japan during World War II.
'He may be the last possible person who can bear witness to the first-hand experience of the horrible massacre.'
The hard truth about soft skills
The following is an article by Janadas Devan, Review Editor in the Sunday Times dated 14th March 2010.
==========================================
A holistic education entails more than teaching a little of everything
By Janadas Devan, Review Editor
In 2006, Cambridge University, the London School of Economics and a few other British universities issued a warning to prospective students that they would not gain admission if they did 'soft' A-level subjects. Cambridge University's list of soft options included information and communication studies, design, sports studies and dance.
'To be a realistic applicant, a student will normally need to be offering two traditional academic subjects,' a Cambridge University prospectus warned. 'For example, mathematics, history and business studies would be an acceptable combination. However, history, business studies and media studies would not.'
Contrast that to the headline for the front-page story in this newspaper last Wednesday on Education Minister Ng Eng Hen's speech in Parliament: 'Schools to develop 'soft skills''.
To be sure, the minister didn't propose to make these 'soft skills and values' examinable A-level subjects. But there was no mistaking the fact they weren't to be dismissed by virtue of their softness either.
Referring to them as '21st century skills', Dr Ng spoke of nurturing in each child 'a confident person, who can tell right from wrong, is adaptable and resilient, knows himself, is discerning in judgment, communicates effectively and takes responsibility for his own learning'.
Schools are to develop in their charges 'social and emotional competencies' - everything from developing 'care and concern for others' to establishing 'positive relationships' - as well as a list of 'key competencies for a globalised world': among them, 'global awareness and cross-cultural skills, civic literacy, and critical thinking, information and communication skills'.
To someone as decidedly of the 20th century as I am, it all sounded rather alarmingly New Agey - as indeed the term 'holistic education' in the brochure accompanying the minister's speech suggested.
'Holistic', by the way, comes from 'holism' - from the Greek holos, 'all' - a term coined by that strange man Field Marshall J.C. Smuts to describe the tendency in nature to produce ordered wholes, like organisms, from disparate units. Smuts, a philosopher of some distinction, was also a military leader in the Boer War and the segregationist prime minister of South Africa from 1919 to 1924, and again from 1939 to 1948.
The essence of holism though goes back much further than Smuts and can be summed up by Aristotle's famous dictum: 'The whole is more than the sum of its parts.' I, however, leery of New Agey emanations, can't hear 'holistic' or 'holism' without thinking of 'holes' - as in the head.
And that wasn't the only reason I found myself fidgeting when I read the report announcing schools were to develop 'soft skills'. For someone of my generation, it takes some getting used to hearing the word 'soft' being pronounced by a politician without a sneer.
The only context I recall the word 'soft' being used by politicians of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's or Dr Goh Keng Swee's vintage was in formulations such as 'soft culture', 'soft-headed' (meaning foolish, silly) or 'softy' (meaning weak). If they used 'soft' positively - as when referring to the limited virtue of being 'soft-spoken' or 'soft-hearted' - it would be followed immediately by the qualification 'but hard-headed'.
Soft skills or values had no place in their rugged society. Even the values now considered part of our 'soft' equipment - telling right from wrong, resilience, adaptability, responsibility - were considered decidedly 'hard' then. That 'soft' can now appear in so positive a light - that the Government can be promoting 'holism' - is nothing short of revolutionary.
In part, that revolution was enabled by the changing fortunes of 'soft' in the wider global culture, spawned by the glamour of 'software'. Originally referring in the 19th century to 'perishable goods', it was applied to computer programs in the 1960s, to distinguish them from computer 'hardware'. That in turn led to a whole host of other soft-hard binary oppositions, in which 'soft' invariably appeared superior to 'hard' - as in 'soft power' as opposed to 'hard power', 'soft knowledge' (systems) as opposed to 'hard know-ledge' (technology), and so on. Thus soft came to suggest fine, and hard, crude; soft, mind and hard, matter; soft, creative and hard, mechanical.
Still, the fact that Cambridge University and LSE can be warning students of pursuing 'soft options', while here in Singapore, schools are being urged to nurture 'soft skills', suggests there is something else going on:
While the West, especially Britain and the United States, after a prolonged flirtation with soft options in education, is trying to claw its way back to the traditional centre, Singapore, after a prolonged insistence on rigour, seems to be discovering there is something to be said for a 'kinder and gentler' approach, after all.
Its new emphasis on the arts and sports is an attempt to recover some of the grace and delight that we may have lost as a result of a narrow insistence on academic rigour. There can hardly be a parent who would object to this.
At the risk of being unpopular, though, let me sound three warnings.
First, contrary to the suggestion in the word 'soft', there is nothing easy about art, music or literature. We can't insist on uniformly high standards for all students in these areas, but we shouldn't allow the assumption to take root that the 'soft' subjects are easy.
Second, contrary to the suggestion in the word 'hard', there is nothing lumpish about the sciences. Again, we can't insist on uniformly high standards for all in these areas, but we shouldn't allow the assumption to take root that the 'hard' subjects can't be as full of surprise and delight - as creative and human - as the 'soft' ones.
And finally, being 'holistic' entails more than adding together the parts - a bit of maths, a bit of art, a bit of civics, a bit of sports, et cetera. The whole is more than the sum of its parts - but only if the parts are actively made whole. If it is easy to be holistic, to reconcile what C.P. Snow once called 'the two cultures', any number of famous programmes - Harvard's 'core curriculum', Chicago's 'Great Books', et cetera - would have accomplished the feat. They haven't.
I'll discuss why and what we might do about this enormous challenge in my next column.
==========================================
A holistic education entails more than teaching a little of everything
By Janadas Devan, Review Editor
In 2006, Cambridge University, the London School of Economics and a few other British universities issued a warning to prospective students that they would not gain admission if they did 'soft' A-level subjects. Cambridge University's list of soft options included information and communication studies, design, sports studies and dance.
'To be a realistic applicant, a student will normally need to be offering two traditional academic subjects,' a Cambridge University prospectus warned. 'For example, mathematics, history and business studies would be an acceptable combination. However, history, business studies and media studies would not.'
Contrast that to the headline for the front-page story in this newspaper last Wednesday on Education Minister Ng Eng Hen's speech in Parliament: 'Schools to develop 'soft skills''.
To be sure, the minister didn't propose to make these 'soft skills and values' examinable A-level subjects. But there was no mistaking the fact they weren't to be dismissed by virtue of their softness either.
Referring to them as '21st century skills', Dr Ng spoke of nurturing in each child 'a confident person, who can tell right from wrong, is adaptable and resilient, knows himself, is discerning in judgment, communicates effectively and takes responsibility for his own learning'.
Schools are to develop in their charges 'social and emotional competencies' - everything from developing 'care and concern for others' to establishing 'positive relationships' - as well as a list of 'key competencies for a globalised world': among them, 'global awareness and cross-cultural skills, civic literacy, and critical thinking, information and communication skills'.
To someone as decidedly of the 20th century as I am, it all sounded rather alarmingly New Agey - as indeed the term 'holistic education' in the brochure accompanying the minister's speech suggested.
'Holistic', by the way, comes from 'holism' - from the Greek holos, 'all' - a term coined by that strange man Field Marshall J.C. Smuts to describe the tendency in nature to produce ordered wholes, like organisms, from disparate units. Smuts, a philosopher of some distinction, was also a military leader in the Boer War and the segregationist prime minister of South Africa from 1919 to 1924, and again from 1939 to 1948.
The essence of holism though goes back much further than Smuts and can be summed up by Aristotle's famous dictum: 'The whole is more than the sum of its parts.' I, however, leery of New Agey emanations, can't hear 'holistic' or 'holism' without thinking of 'holes' - as in the head.
And that wasn't the only reason I found myself fidgeting when I read the report announcing schools were to develop 'soft skills'. For someone of my generation, it takes some getting used to hearing the word 'soft' being pronounced by a politician without a sneer.
The only context I recall the word 'soft' being used by politicians of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's or Dr Goh Keng Swee's vintage was in formulations such as 'soft culture', 'soft-headed' (meaning foolish, silly) or 'softy' (meaning weak). If they used 'soft' positively - as when referring to the limited virtue of being 'soft-spoken' or 'soft-hearted' - it would be followed immediately by the qualification 'but hard-headed'.
Soft skills or values had no place in their rugged society. Even the values now considered part of our 'soft' equipment - telling right from wrong, resilience, adaptability, responsibility - were considered decidedly 'hard' then. That 'soft' can now appear in so positive a light - that the Government can be promoting 'holism' - is nothing short of revolutionary.
In part, that revolution was enabled by the changing fortunes of 'soft' in the wider global culture, spawned by the glamour of 'software'. Originally referring in the 19th century to 'perishable goods', it was applied to computer programs in the 1960s, to distinguish them from computer 'hardware'. That in turn led to a whole host of other soft-hard binary oppositions, in which 'soft' invariably appeared superior to 'hard' - as in 'soft power' as opposed to 'hard power', 'soft knowledge' (systems) as opposed to 'hard know-ledge' (technology), and so on. Thus soft came to suggest fine, and hard, crude; soft, mind and hard, matter; soft, creative and hard, mechanical.
Still, the fact that Cambridge University and LSE can be warning students of pursuing 'soft options', while here in Singapore, schools are being urged to nurture 'soft skills', suggests there is something else going on:
While the West, especially Britain and the United States, after a prolonged flirtation with soft options in education, is trying to claw its way back to the traditional centre, Singapore, after a prolonged insistence on rigour, seems to be discovering there is something to be said for a 'kinder and gentler' approach, after all.
Its new emphasis on the arts and sports is an attempt to recover some of the grace and delight that we may have lost as a result of a narrow insistence on academic rigour. There can hardly be a parent who would object to this.
At the risk of being unpopular, though, let me sound three warnings.
First, contrary to the suggestion in the word 'soft', there is nothing easy about art, music or literature. We can't insist on uniformly high standards for all students in these areas, but we shouldn't allow the assumption to take root that the 'soft' subjects are easy.
Second, contrary to the suggestion in the word 'hard', there is nothing lumpish about the sciences. Again, we can't insist on uniformly high standards for all in these areas, but we shouldn't allow the assumption to take root that the 'hard' subjects can't be as full of surprise and delight - as creative and human - as the 'soft' ones.
And finally, being 'holistic' entails more than adding together the parts - a bit of maths, a bit of art, a bit of civics, a bit of sports, et cetera. The whole is more than the sum of its parts - but only if the parts are actively made whole. If it is easy to be holistic, to reconcile what C.P. Snow once called 'the two cultures', any number of famous programmes - Harvard's 'core curriculum', Chicago's 'Great Books', et cetera - would have accomplished the feat. They haven't.
I'll discuss why and what we might do about this enormous challenge in my next column.
Free maths lesson and more on YouTube
The following is a report by By Bhagyashree Garekar, US Correspondent in the Straits Times dated 15th march 2010, Monday.
---------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON: What started out as a mathematics lesson for a school-going cousin is today a video library of 1,200 tutorials on YouTube, used daily by thousands who want to master things as complex as differential calculus or as simple as carry-over addition.
The creator of this popular tutorial trove is Mr Salman Khan, a former Silicon Valley hedge fund analyst who said his video clips - no longer than 20 minutes each - help make up for some of the deficiencies in traditional classroom learning. Apart from maths, for which he is mostly known, he deals with physics, chemistry, biology, economics, statistics and finance for learners ranging from kindergarten children to college sophomores.
The 33-year-old employs simple software programmes to draw diagrams, chart graphs and write words as he talks enthusiastically about the topic.
The videos get about 60,000 views a day with a total of 12 million views since he began posting them online five years ago, said Mr Khan.
Among the 200,000 visitors a month that his website http://www.khanacademy.org/ attracts are students from Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy, Sweden, India, the Middle East and Singapore.
The MBA graduate from Harvard Business School, who also has a bachelor's in Mathematics and a master's in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had never imagined a career as a tutor. But in 2004, he got roped in to help his cousin with pre-algebra. They lived in different cities, so the tutoring had to be online.
Before long, other family and friends joined in and his student population grew to more than a dozen. Scheduling lessons became a complicated affair and he ended up recording the lessons and posting them on YouTube where, unexpectedly, students across the world began accessing them.
Ms Pei Chi, a biomedical engineering student at Singapore's Temasek Polytechnic, is one of them. For the last year or so, she has been using the Khan videos to get up to speed on maths, which has been her weakness. 'Not all teachers are perfect so it's good to be able to get some extra help to improve my scores,' she said.
After some years of making the videos at night while working full-time during the day, Mr Khan decided to incorporate the not-for-profit Khan Academy in 2008 and last September quit his job.
He sees no limit to the videos he can create. 'I concentrated on maths and science because that's where there is the greatest need,' he said from his home in Mountain View, California. He wants to provide lessons in 'nearly everything' from grammar to philosophy to law.
Nor does the tutoring end with the videos. Users can sign into a Web application that can generate endless problems on any given topic for students to solve. If they get stuck, there are hints on how to proceed to the next step and links to explanatory videos. Behind the screen, an analytical tool keeps track of the student's progress.
'It closes the loop in the traditional classroom model,' said Mr Khan. 'In a class, the teacher delivers a lecture aimed at an average student, followed by homework where there is little help if the student has difficulties, followed in turn, by tests and then the class moves on to the next lesson, no matter if the student has scored a C.'
The Khan Academy improves on this by allowing self-paced learning that provides plenty of practice until the student achieves proficiency defined as scoring 10 answers right in a row. Only then does he move on to the next level.
All this, for free. Mr Khan relies on his rheumatologist wife to bring home the bacon. They have an infant son. He earns about US$1,500 (S$2,100) a month from the advertising that YouTube inserts into the video and shares with him - enough to pay for the servers and the broadband. He hopes to be self-sustaining in a year, and is in talks with philanthropic foundations so he can expand his operation.
Mr Paul Pickett, a father of five in Salt Lake City, Utah, said two of his children, aged nine and 14, benefited from Mr Khan's website. 'The schools helped but they have limited budgets and limited time. And I could not afford private tutors.'
While videos are Mr Khan's calling card now, he envisages in the long run a worldwide virtual school where students can interact with one another in a learning environment.
---------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON: What started out as a mathematics lesson for a school-going cousin is today a video library of 1,200 tutorials on YouTube, used daily by thousands who want to master things as complex as differential calculus or as simple as carry-over addition.
The creator of this popular tutorial trove is Mr Salman Khan, a former Silicon Valley hedge fund analyst who said his video clips - no longer than 20 minutes each - help make up for some of the deficiencies in traditional classroom learning. Apart from maths, for which he is mostly known, he deals with physics, chemistry, biology, economics, statistics and finance for learners ranging from kindergarten children to college sophomores.
The 33-year-old employs simple software programmes to draw diagrams, chart graphs and write words as he talks enthusiastically about the topic.
The videos get about 60,000 views a day with a total of 12 million views since he began posting them online five years ago, said Mr Khan.
Among the 200,000 visitors a month that his website http://www.khanacademy.org/ attracts are students from Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy, Sweden, India, the Middle East and Singapore.
The MBA graduate from Harvard Business School, who also has a bachelor's in Mathematics and a master's in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had never imagined a career as a tutor. But in 2004, he got roped in to help his cousin with pre-algebra. They lived in different cities, so the tutoring had to be online.
Before long, other family and friends joined in and his student population grew to more than a dozen. Scheduling lessons became a complicated affair and he ended up recording the lessons and posting them on YouTube where, unexpectedly, students across the world began accessing them.
Ms Pei Chi, a biomedical engineering student at Singapore's Temasek Polytechnic, is one of them. For the last year or so, she has been using the Khan videos to get up to speed on maths, which has been her weakness. 'Not all teachers are perfect so it's good to be able to get some extra help to improve my scores,' she said.
After some years of making the videos at night while working full-time during the day, Mr Khan decided to incorporate the not-for-profit Khan Academy in 2008 and last September quit his job.
He sees no limit to the videos he can create. 'I concentrated on maths and science because that's where there is the greatest need,' he said from his home in Mountain View, California. He wants to provide lessons in 'nearly everything' from grammar to philosophy to law.
Nor does the tutoring end with the videos. Users can sign into a Web application that can generate endless problems on any given topic for students to solve. If they get stuck, there are hints on how to proceed to the next step and links to explanatory videos. Behind the screen, an analytical tool keeps track of the student's progress.
'It closes the loop in the traditional classroom model,' said Mr Khan. 'In a class, the teacher delivers a lecture aimed at an average student, followed by homework where there is little help if the student has difficulties, followed in turn, by tests and then the class moves on to the next lesson, no matter if the student has scored a C.'
The Khan Academy improves on this by allowing self-paced learning that provides plenty of practice until the student achieves proficiency defined as scoring 10 answers right in a row. Only then does he move on to the next level.
All this, for free. Mr Khan relies on his rheumatologist wife to bring home the bacon. They have an infant son. He earns about US$1,500 (S$2,100) a month from the advertising that YouTube inserts into the video and shares with him - enough to pay for the servers and the broadband. He hopes to be self-sustaining in a year, and is in talks with philanthropic foundations so he can expand his operation.
Mr Paul Pickett, a father of five in Salt Lake City, Utah, said two of his children, aged nine and 14, benefited from Mr Khan's website. 'The schools helped but they have limited budgets and limited time. And I could not afford private tutors.'
While videos are Mr Khan's calling card now, he envisages in the long run a worldwide virtual school where students can interact with one another in a learning environment.
Monday, 21 December 2009
Even undergrads are getting tuition (by Terrence Voon in the Sunday Times dated 20 December 2009)
When Ms Jean Phua began attending classes in business finance earlier this year, she found she could not keep up.
Desperate for help, the 23-year-old - who was then pursuing a bachelor's degree in marketing at SIM University - turned to a time-honoured Singapore tradition: tuition.
After a three-week crash course in the subject from a private tutor, she scored a credit and graduated last month.
'I was rusty with numbers and the lectures were very fast-paced,' she recalled. 'Each class had about 200 students, so it was hard to get the lecturer's attention.'
An increasing number of undergraduates have been bitten by the tuition bug, joining their younger counterparts from primary and secondary schools and junior colleges.
To meet the burgeoning demand, more private tutors and tuition agencies are offering their services to university students.
Agencies like Home Tuition Care say they have been getting at least one inquiry a month from undergraduates.
At StarTutor, coordinator Gavin Liu estimates that he has seen 30 undergraduate clients over the last two years.
'These are mostly private university students or working adults who don't have time to attend classes,' he said.
'Some just want to catch up on their coursework before their exams.'
Tutors like private economics teacher Kevin Chow have seen a spike in the number of university students who turned to them for help.
He now conducts small-group classes for up to four undergraduates each semester - compared to none a few years ago.
The increase, he said, could be due to rising pressure for students to do well in tertiary institutions.
'For undergraduates, their degree is usually their last hurdle before they enter the workforce,' said the 29-year-old, who also coaches JC students. 'It's more vital for them to do better.'
Unlike their younger counterparts, undergraduates usually do not need long-term help. Tutors say they are hired for just one or two months, but will charge a premium for their services.
Tuition fees range between $40 and $300 an hour. University professors and former lecturers often command higher rates.
Primary to junior college students are usually charged between $15 and $45 an hour.
Popular subjects among undergraduates include accounting, engineering, business finance and even advanced mathematics.
Mr Ng E-Jay, a private mathematics tutor who is pursuing a PhD in maths at the National University of Singapore, provides one-on-one home tuition for undergraduates and even uses free Internet call service Skype to help them with their coursework over the phone.
He says the needs of his students are usually very specific.
'They just require some explanation in basic concepts, like business students who need help with statistics, or economics students who want a good foundation in maths,' explained the 32-year-old.
Some enterprising undergraduates are even offering tuition to their peers.
Mr Alan Phua, a final-year business management undergraduate from Singapore Management University (SMU), has provided economics and accounting tuition for six university students this year - all referred to him by a tuition agency.
Said the 26-year-old, who is also a teaching assistant at SMU: 'When I teach my students, I also revise my own work and go further in my own studies.'
While most of the students who take up tuition are Singaporeans from local and private universities, there are also foreigners who have turned to tuition to help them make the grade.
Ms Beenita Stephenson, a Thai who is pursuing her MBA at James Cook University, says tuition was the only way for her to overcome her weakness in accounting subjects.
'I was scared because I had never studied accounting before,' said the 29-year-old. 'I want to make sure that I do well, and tuition is the best way to guarantee that.'
Desperate for help, the 23-year-old - who was then pursuing a bachelor's degree in marketing at SIM University - turned to a time-honoured Singapore tradition: tuition.
After a three-week crash course in the subject from a private tutor, she scored a credit and graduated last month.
'I was rusty with numbers and the lectures were very fast-paced,' she recalled. 'Each class had about 200 students, so it was hard to get the lecturer's attention.'
An increasing number of undergraduates have been bitten by the tuition bug, joining their younger counterparts from primary and secondary schools and junior colleges.
To meet the burgeoning demand, more private tutors and tuition agencies are offering their services to university students.
Agencies like Home Tuition Care say they have been getting at least one inquiry a month from undergraduates.
At StarTutor, coordinator Gavin Liu estimates that he has seen 30 undergraduate clients over the last two years.
'These are mostly private university students or working adults who don't have time to attend classes,' he said.
'Some just want to catch up on their coursework before their exams.'
Tutors like private economics teacher Kevin Chow have seen a spike in the number of university students who turned to them for help.
He now conducts small-group classes for up to four undergraduates each semester - compared to none a few years ago.
The increase, he said, could be due to rising pressure for students to do well in tertiary institutions.
'For undergraduates, their degree is usually their last hurdle before they enter the workforce,' said the 29-year-old, who also coaches JC students. 'It's more vital for them to do better.'
Unlike their younger counterparts, undergraduates usually do not need long-term help. Tutors say they are hired for just one or two months, but will charge a premium for their services.
Tuition fees range between $40 and $300 an hour. University professors and former lecturers often command higher rates.
Primary to junior college students are usually charged between $15 and $45 an hour.
Popular subjects among undergraduates include accounting, engineering, business finance and even advanced mathematics.
Mr Ng E-Jay, a private mathematics tutor who is pursuing a PhD in maths at the National University of Singapore, provides one-on-one home tuition for undergraduates and even uses free Internet call service Skype to help them with their coursework over the phone.
He says the needs of his students are usually very specific.
'They just require some explanation in basic concepts, like business students who need help with statistics, or economics students who want a good foundation in maths,' explained the 32-year-old.
Some enterprising undergraduates are even offering tuition to their peers.
Mr Alan Phua, a final-year business management undergraduate from Singapore Management University (SMU), has provided economics and accounting tuition for six university students this year - all referred to him by a tuition agency.
Said the 26-year-old, who is also a teaching assistant at SMU: 'When I teach my students, I also revise my own work and go further in my own studies.'
While most of the students who take up tuition are Singaporeans from local and private universities, there are also foreigners who have turned to tuition to help them make the grade.
Ms Beenita Stephenson, a Thai who is pursuing her MBA at James Cook University, says tuition was the only way for her to overcome her weakness in accounting subjects.
'I was scared because I had never studied accounting before,' said the 29-year-old. 'I want to make sure that I do well, and tuition is the best way to guarantee that.'
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Investment strategy pays dividends (from Sunday Times dated 2009-11-29)
By Lorna Tan, Senior Correspondent
Savvy investor gets $24,000 a year in dividends and that covers his basic needs
Mr Ng Wai Chung is a senior associate in IT governance at Singapore Mercantile Exchange. He invests almost his entire salary in stocks, which he monitors daily. He and his wife, quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, live with his parents.
Imagine having a payout from your investments that more than covers your monthly expenses.
Canny investor Ng Wai Chung is in this happy position at the age of 34.
Mr Ng, a senior IT manager - and an author of investment books - achieved this a year ago. But rather than retire, he stays in full-time employment.
His investment income stream is the result of a plan he set in motion three years ago. That was when he decided to sell his investments in unit trusts and buy stocks that pay high dividends.
'Today, I am able to yield about $24,000 a year on my investment portfolio, enough to cover my expenses in most months," he said.
This enviable portfolio consists of real estate investment trusts (Reits) and shares that yield high dividends, such as mainboard-listed Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Dividends are the portions of profits which a company distributes to shareholders.
Mr Ng has an engineering degree and a master's in Applied Finance from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained the latter part-time while working.
The senior associate in IT governance at commodity and futures exchange Singapore Mercantile Exchange has published three books on finance: Growing Your Tree Of Prosperity (2005), followed by Harvesting The Fruits Of Prosperity (2007), and this year, Sowing The Seeds Of Prosperity. They are available in bookshops.
Mr Ng is married to quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, 31. They have no children.
Q: Are you a spender or saver?
Very much a saver. In most months, my expenses are paid fully from my investment income, which arrives every quarter in the form of dividends. However, I dip into my work income for discretionary expenses, such as a trip to Korea. I can save up to 100 per cent of my salary in some months.
Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?
I have only one credit card. I use it to save money by making purchases over the Internet. Normally, my credit card charges do not exceed $500 monthly. I try and pay the bill even before I receive the statement. I withdraw about $400 from the ATM about twice or three times a month.
Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?
I invest 80 per cent to 100 per cent of my take-home pay directly in the stock market.
I had about $130,000 in my stock portfolio early this year; this has grown to $250,000 from capital gains as well as monthly cash injections from my savings. I have about 20 counters.
About half my portfolio consists of business trusts like Cityspring Infrastructure and Hyflux Water, or shipping trusts such as First Shipping and Pacific Shipping which, on average, give dividend yields of about 10 per cent. The rest are Reits like Suntec and Cambridge, which give me similar yields.
With the economic recovery, I'm focused on channelling my income into income stocks like SPH and Singapore Post, which will give me about 7 per cent yields. I have also invested about $30,000 of my Central Provident Fund savings in stocks such as M1, StarHub, Lippo Mapletree Reit and Cambridge Reit.
Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?
My financial habits were shaped mostly by my years as a kid hanging out in my parents' pet shop at Shaw Centre in the 1980s. Life was hard. My parents were at the mercy of the landlord and the consumer. As an adult, I crave job and income security. I am very averse to debt.
Q: How did you get interested in investing?
In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment know-ledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.
When I stock-pick, I find out first how much in dividends have been paid out over the past year. I used to aim for 10 per cent but have now lowered this to 6 per cent to 8 per cent. I check if there are any red flags raised by auditors. The free cashflow (operating cashflow minus capital expenditure) must exceed dividends declared. This ensures a company can sustain the dividends. Once the yield drops to, say, 4 per cent, I switch to a better counter. I monitor my portfolio daily.
Q: What property do you own?
I am an only child; I live with my parents in Woodlands - my dad picked up a single-storey semi-detached house in the early 1970s for $70,000. The current value is estimated to be $1.6 million. I do not own any property.
Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?
My iRex Digital Reader 1000S which allows me to download electronic books for easy storage and reading. It cost $1,400. I save 60 per cent to 70 per cent compared to buying the actual books.
Q: What's your retirement plan?
None, if I can help it. Work is a function of ability, and not one's state of financial independence. My personal expectation is to increase my investment income by about $6,000 a year for each year of gainful employment. The rest largely depends on whether I can continue to remain employed and whether my health will allow it.
Q: Home is now...
The semi-detached house in Woodlands.
Q: I drive...
Sometimes I drive my wife's recently purchased weekend car, a white Hyundai Avante.
Book spurred interest in money management
'In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment knowledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.'
MR NG WAI CHUNG
WORST AND BEST BETS
Q: What has been your worst investment to date?
I had a very painful experience investing in McArthurcook Properties Securities Fund. I accumulated about 108,000 shares through 2007 and last year, and its yield was initially about 30 per cent. The price plummeted to 16 cents, from $1, when the recession hit. And last year, it stopped declaring dividends altogether. I exited in October last year at a loss of about $40,000.
Greed and my obsession for yields created an aversion to letting go of this. I learnt that I should not let my stubbornness get the better of me.
Q: And your best investment?
At the bottom of the market some time last year, I invested about $5,000 in Capital Retail China Trust at 60 cents per share. It had a dividend yield approaching 15 per cent. I have since doubled my money as the price is now $1.18. Most of my high-yielding counters have been doing well since December last year. My entire portfolio has almost doubled in size since early this year.
Savvy investor gets $24,000 a year in dividends and that covers his basic needs
Mr Ng Wai Chung is a senior associate in IT governance at Singapore Mercantile Exchange. He invests almost his entire salary in stocks, which he monitors daily. He and his wife, quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, live with his parents.
Imagine having a payout from your investments that more than covers your monthly expenses.
Canny investor Ng Wai Chung is in this happy position at the age of 34.
Mr Ng, a senior IT manager - and an author of investment books - achieved this a year ago. But rather than retire, he stays in full-time employment.
His investment income stream is the result of a plan he set in motion three years ago. That was when he decided to sell his investments in unit trusts and buy stocks that pay high dividends.
'Today, I am able to yield about $24,000 a year on my investment portfolio, enough to cover my expenses in most months," he said.
This enviable portfolio consists of real estate investment trusts (Reits) and shares that yield high dividends, such as mainboard-listed Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Dividends are the portions of profits which a company distributes to shareholders.
Mr Ng has an engineering degree and a master's in Applied Finance from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained the latter part-time while working.
The senior associate in IT governance at commodity and futures exchange Singapore Mercantile Exchange has published three books on finance: Growing Your Tree Of Prosperity (2005), followed by Harvesting The Fruits Of Prosperity (2007), and this year, Sowing The Seeds Of Prosperity. They are available in bookshops.
Mr Ng is married to quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, 31. They have no children.
Q: Are you a spender or saver?
Very much a saver. In most months, my expenses are paid fully from my investment income, which arrives every quarter in the form of dividends. However, I dip into my work income for discretionary expenses, such as a trip to Korea. I can save up to 100 per cent of my salary in some months.
Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?
I have only one credit card. I use it to save money by making purchases over the Internet. Normally, my credit card charges do not exceed $500 monthly. I try and pay the bill even before I receive the statement. I withdraw about $400 from the ATM about twice or three times a month.
Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?
I invest 80 per cent to 100 per cent of my take-home pay directly in the stock market.
I had about $130,000 in my stock portfolio early this year; this has grown to $250,000 from capital gains as well as monthly cash injections from my savings. I have about 20 counters.
About half my portfolio consists of business trusts like Cityspring Infrastructure and Hyflux Water, or shipping trusts such as First Shipping and Pacific Shipping which, on average, give dividend yields of about 10 per cent. The rest are Reits like Suntec and Cambridge, which give me similar yields.
With the economic recovery, I'm focused on channelling my income into income stocks like SPH and Singapore Post, which will give me about 7 per cent yields. I have also invested about $30,000 of my Central Provident Fund savings in stocks such as M1, StarHub, Lippo Mapletree Reit and Cambridge Reit.
Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?
My financial habits were shaped mostly by my years as a kid hanging out in my parents' pet shop at Shaw Centre in the 1980s. Life was hard. My parents were at the mercy of the landlord and the consumer. As an adult, I crave job and income security. I am very averse to debt.
Q: How did you get interested in investing?
In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment know-ledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.
When I stock-pick, I find out first how much in dividends have been paid out over the past year. I used to aim for 10 per cent but have now lowered this to 6 per cent to 8 per cent. I check if there are any red flags raised by auditors. The free cashflow (operating cashflow minus capital expenditure) must exceed dividends declared. This ensures a company can sustain the dividends. Once the yield drops to, say, 4 per cent, I switch to a better counter. I monitor my portfolio daily.
Q: What property do you own?
I am an only child; I live with my parents in Woodlands - my dad picked up a single-storey semi-detached house in the early 1970s for $70,000. The current value is estimated to be $1.6 million. I do not own any property.
Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?
My iRex Digital Reader 1000S which allows me to download electronic books for easy storage and reading. It cost $1,400. I save 60 per cent to 70 per cent compared to buying the actual books.
Q: What's your retirement plan?
None, if I can help it. Work is a function of ability, and not one's state of financial independence. My personal expectation is to increase my investment income by about $6,000 a year for each year of gainful employment. The rest largely depends on whether I can continue to remain employed and whether my health will allow it.
Q: Home is now...
The semi-detached house in Woodlands.
Q: I drive...
Sometimes I drive my wife's recently purchased weekend car, a white Hyundai Avante.
Book spurred interest in money management
'In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment knowledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.'
MR NG WAI CHUNG
WORST AND BEST BETS
Q: What has been your worst investment to date?
I had a very painful experience investing in McArthurcook Properties Securities Fund. I accumulated about 108,000 shares through 2007 and last year, and its yield was initially about 30 per cent. The price plummeted to 16 cents, from $1, when the recession hit. And last year, it stopped declaring dividends altogether. I exited in October last year at a loss of about $40,000.
Greed and my obsession for yields created an aversion to letting go of this. I learnt that I should not let my stubbornness get the better of me.
Q: And your best investment?
At the bottom of the market some time last year, I invested about $5,000 in Capital Retail China Trust at 60 cents per share. It had a dividend yield approaching 15 per cent. I have since doubled my money as the price is now $1.18. Most of my high-yielding counters have been doing well since December last year. My entire portfolio has almost doubled in size since early this year.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)