Tag: teaching

Learning in your own Language and Higher Education in Singapore: Degrees in Mandarin and Social Mobility

Language Barriers in Global Education

A significant barrier to Higher Education for international students from areas of high poverty is that most of these courses are taught in English and have requirements such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or IELTS (the International English Language Testing System) English proficiency exams [1]. International students are required to produce an acceptable level of English at the application stage before consideration for courses. 

In the UK, the Home Office has waived the IELTS test for citizens of 18 countries where English is seen as an official language. However, the IELTS is still widely taught in Commonwealth countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, India, and Malaysia [2]. In these countries, cost would be a barrier to social mobility for many since just taking the exam for IELTS costs around two hundred pounds [3]. This is a sum which can be a challenge for students from developing countries.

Students therefore have to spend more money on acquiring English as a language with formal qualifications when it is already difficult for them to raise the funds for a degree abroad in the first place. In addition, gaining the level of English proficiency required to pass them requires a considerable financial and time investment. Therefore, in contrast to English native speakers, the international student community has to invest much more resources in gaining an internationally recognised degree. They have a considerable disadvantage which is heightened by the fact that many come from countries where students may not have many financial resources due to high levels of unemployment and poverty.

Singapore’s Mandarin Programs

The People’s Republic of China and India remain the biggest sources of internationally mobile students, together accounting for around 30% of numbers between 2018 and 2022 [4]. This year, four universities in Singapore, namely NTU, SMU, SUTD and SUSS, have launched new postgraduate programmes in Mandarin which would appeal to Chinese international students [1]. For such students, this therefore eliminates the need for acquiring formal English qualifications at a cost. Furthermore, compared to the US and the UK, university fees in Singapore are relatively lower and therefore more affordable [1]. According to one student on the course, an MBA degree in the US would cost about 1 million yuan (US$140,000), whereas a one-year course in Singapore costs roughly half that amount [5]. The offer appears to cut cost for higher education courses for those that can speak Chinese.

Expanding Access to International Study

Singapore’s policy may offer widened access to higher education for the less privileged. As Jason Tan, associate professor at NTU’s National Institute of Education, Policy, Curriculum and Leadership suggested to Singapore’s CNA938 radio show: “the choice of studying overseas is no longer a privilege only for richer people. We’re getting a much broader spectrum now of families in China who are thinking of a postgraduate overseas degree for their children.” [6]

The social experiment may enable wider access to higher education in Singapore and bring in a greater diversity of students around the world who are not limited by cost considerations to study abroad. Higher education is one of the most certain routes for achieving social mobility and therefore for reducing poverty around the world [7]. A recent study has also shown that foreign-educated graduates can reduce extreme poverty in low and middle-income countries [8]. As Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education at Oxford University, Maia Chankseliani has stated: ‘Returnees use the skills and knowledge they gain abroad to drive local innovations and contribute to societal changes, which can lead to systemic poverty reduction over time’.

[1] https://seafocusnews.com/2025/07/29/1410/

[2] https://studyinternational.com/news/cost-of-english-proficiency-tests/#:~:text=English%20proficiency%20tests:%20Fair%20for,to%20international%20students’%20financial%20burden.

[4] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2025/03/what-are-the-key-trends-in-international-student-mobility_495dcfac/2a423a76-en.pdf

[5] https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2025/07/30/singapore-universities-mandarin-taught-postgrad-courses-raise-concerns-over-integration-and-language-policy/

[6] https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250903120713648

[7] https://www.suttontrust.com/our-priorities/higher-education/

[8] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-10-07-study-shows-how-international-student-mobility-can-reduce-poverty-low-and-middle

Agnes Grey by Anne Brönte (1847).

Agnes Grey is about the trials and tribulations of a governess in the Victorian period. Agnes sets out to become a governess and despite setbacks, finally becomes valuable to a family and her charges. Eventually, she opens up her own school with her mother. The novel deals with such things as insubordinate children, the grievances of trying to teach incapable and ignorant students, rank materialism in society, issues of animal cruelty and animal welfare, etc. Other big themes include religion, love and marriage, constant preoccupations of the Victorian novel.

What struck me most about this novel is that Anne was regarded as the shyest and most timid of the sisters and that Agnes seemed to have a similar character. It is therefore interesting to see how such a character who is at the whim and mercy of those that dominate tries to stamp her own authority on the world. Can such wallflowers really make it in the wider world and make any difference to the dominant and their way of life, their education? The novel is ambiguous in its message about this. Some of Agnes’s rich and powerful young charges clearly repudiate her authority and her lessons. However, even when her charges fly in the face of her teaching, some of them still think enough of her to invite her into their homes and judge of their lives. The work is based on autobiography so one wonders if it is not wishful thinking on Anne’s part that she has her authority acknowledged by others and is valued.

Because the theme is about the establishment of authority it naturally involves questions of power in Victorian society. Agnes constantly comes up against the structures of power which she longs to be a small part of but is turned away. She is frequently humiliated and made to feel her own insignificance as a person. The novel is therefore quite interesting as a meditation on what power feels like to an outsider to the system of privilege and status, the centre of authority.

The most striking face of power and its corruption was when a beauty in the novel used her personal appearance to flirt with men and then turn them down when their intentions became serious. There is some meditation on beauty in the novel but it is indicative that power of any sort is seen to destroy and injure others – is this the basis of power as it operates? Does it always need a victim?

One disappointment of the novel – again a symptom of wishful thinking – was the happy ending of the novel. The heroine endures misery throughout but finally gets her reward. The problem with this was that it was completely unrealistic and went against the main message of the novel which is that the governess in Victorian society had to suffer unnecessarily, that occupations for women were degrading and insufficient. The ending just panders to the public which always wants a happy ending.