JV's super fantastic Oct 1st education article review!!!!!! (LONG!!)
by JV 16 Replies latest jw friends
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ICBehindtheCurtain
I was just commenting to my husband this morning about how glad I was that we didn't go Sunday and listen to that LOAD OF CRAP!
So I guess, that when all these JW kids, leave school and pioneer the WTS will hand out checks to make up for the money these kids won't be making? NOT!
Hey by the way, I really enjoyed that rant, that was GREAT! How true!
Lord, if you are up there please help the WTS implode, I can dream cant I?
IC
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DannyHaszard
WTS stagnates & stalls education in Singapore
Singapore learns hard lesson
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong - 1 hour ago
... (Currently, Jehovah Witness adherents are kept on a short leash in Singapore, because of their opposition to compulsory national service.). ...Singapore learns hard lessonBy Jaya Prakash
SINGAPORE - Authorities have learned a hard lesson after Britain's prestigious Warwick University snubbed the city-state with its decision not to accept an invitation to establish a campus.
The decision was a blow to Singapore's strategy to attract more foreign students and academics. It perhaps also is a temporary setback to efforts to transform the island into a knowledge-based economy.
State planners have dreamed since the early 1990s of Singapore as a knowledge-based state where everything from arts to culture and science and technology would flourish. The government plans to double the number of international students to 150,000 by 2015as part of a strategy to reduce its economic reliance on manufacturing.
Warwick and the Australian University of New South Wales were the only two foreign universities selected by Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB)to set up full-scale campuses, which would be able to grant undergraduate degrees.
Other foreign universities, mostly American, have satellite campuses offering specialized, usually vocational, programs, or maintain affiliations with universities in Singapore but do not award degrees locally. The University of New South Wales, which will be the first foreign university opening in Singapore, will welcome 500 students in 2007.
Meanwhile, many people are asking what went wrong with Warwick? That may be best answered by how Warwick's supreme governing body - the senate - expressed its displeasure through its 48 members. It would appear the snub was all about the school's lifestyle and reputation - in essence the "Warwick way of life".
The bottom line was that Warwick's senate was concerned about academic freedom, Reuters news agency reported. "In the absence of a positive commitment from the academic community, [the council] resolves not to proceed with the plan for a second comprehensive campus of the University of Warwick, in Singapore," the university said in a statement.
Thio Li-ann, a Singapore law professor who drew up an advisory report for Warwick University, warned the school that "the government will intervene if academic reports cast a negative light on their policies", Reuters reported. Singapore requires foreign educational institutions to abstain from interfering in its domestic affairs.
Thus, it clearly came down to a clash of values.
Where freedom flows
According to reports carried in Britain's Financial Times, the university had sought guarantees from Singapore on the protection of its students in such areas such as freedom of assembly, speech and media, as well as in religious practices. (Currently, Jehovah Witness adherents are kept on a short leash in Singapore, because of their opposition to compulsory national service.)
That a university known for its research prowess had to seek such a guarantee as a first step meant it had fears that needed placating. Warwick was evidently not willing to risk setting up a campus without getting guarantees on academic freedom.
As opposed to some other universities, Warwick's expertise and reputation lie mainly in its social science programs, where a great deal of analysis and probing is required for its academics to present their papers. Endangering or taking that avenue away - ie curtailing aspects of the research process so as to cause its academics to fall into disfavor with authorities - may have been what worked against Singapore's bid to attract the university.
Warwick also would have drawn lessons from the experiences and disillusionment of noted Singapore novelist and academic, Catherine Lim, whose 1994 essay "The Great Affective Divide" in the Straits Times newspaper invited sharp rebukes from the authorities. In the essay, she writes of "an emotional estrangement between the government and the people". It was only this year that she was able to get one of her essays published in the paper.
Yet another academic, Cherian George, was also similarly rebuked for remarks that did not endear him to the authorities. And a disparaging article for the International Herald Tribune on the containment of political opposition in Singapore also landed American academic, Christopher Lingle, in trouble with the authorities.
Meeting Singapore's standards would have meant enormous trade-offs for Warwick, which probably led the university's decision-makers to conclude it was not worth the exercise. Using that as a gauge, Warwick's fears may not seem unreasonable. That was further reinforced by the refusal of many academics in Singapore to comment on the Warwick situation.
Warwick, ranked eighth among British universities in The Times Good University Guide, has a reputation for diversity - its students come from all parts of the political spectrum.
For example, the university did not shy away from controversy when it recently invited author Salman Rushdie, whose book - The Satanic Verses - so inflamed Muslim sensibilities in 1989 that he lives to this day under a pall of death arising out of the issuance of a fatwa (Islamic edict).
Because such gung-ho activism cannot be duplicated in Singapore, it led one observer, Rejini Raman, to say that the country is not "ready" for Warwick.
It is curious, though, why Singapore's EDB - one of the bodies responsible for charting the nation's growth - put out feelers to Warwick, knowing the university's unique social features.
And it will be interesting to see what the EDB does with lessons it learned from the Warwick incident, so as not to derail its goal of transforming the country to a knowledge-based economy.
The incident has the potential of hurting the republic's chances of becoming an educational hub, as other universities no doubt have been watching events unfold. Warwick would have been welcomed with open arms had it tried to establish a campus where students would not have had their freedoms curbed.
But Singapore is not Britain or the United States. Regardless of what is published in the academic media, it becomes politically charged when it appears in Singapore's mainstream media, said Benjamin Detenbeas, an American who teaches media psychology at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
That, in a nutshell, summarizes the tenuous link between where academic freedom flows and feeds in Singapore. But as with all other freedoms that are dependent on one another, some links just have to be expediently severed in Singapore.
For its part, Warwick would have been better off had it understood better how to deal with others holding drastically different views. After all, freedom can be interpreted differently depending where you are in the world.
Jaya Prakash lectures in journalism at Beacon School of Technology in Singapore. He can be reached at [email protected] -
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HiddenQuestioner
This posting was placed earlier in the wrong forum. This is the correct forum. So, sorry if I appear to be repeating myself. Anyway, here I go again......
First, let me announce that this is my first posting to this site. I finally got the courage to comment. I have been watching this site for a while now and this subject is the one that will “bring me out of the closet.” – for I am compelled to comment. Second, though I know many JWs would disagree with me, I do not consider myself apostate nor do I consider looking at and even commenting on this site makes you an apostate. I consider myself a “loyal” JW with a free mind. Throughout my 30+ years as a JW I have managed to lead a balance life. However, I must admit, at times it has been a challenge. (For instance, I attribute my divorce to an ex-JW, that I loved very much, and its resulting years of bitterness, to the conflicts that existed over our religion.) That stated, I must also admit that I do not share the views of many of those disillusioned individuals who use this site to rant, BUT you are entitled to rant.
Rant I must though on the Oct 1 “education” article. My wish in making this posting is that SOMEONE in Brooklyn is watching this discussion on education and will realize the uproar that was destined to happen by publishing such enslaving concepts. I was at the meeting last Sunday and my comments are as follows:
1. Throughout our Sunday discussion, the conductor and commenters continually referred to seniors in high school and collage age young adults as children. How delusional can you get? Putting school age adults in the context of children, not only demeaned these adults, but also allowed older individuals (particularly parents) to think that they are entitled to have some form of authority over the actions and decisions of these young adults. These people are NOT CHIDREN and have to be respected as such. Thank you my parents for allowing me to be a young adult when I was a young adult!
2. No where in our discussion was there any recognition given to what the young adult might want to do with his/her life. It seemed it was all about what the parents, congregation and, in particular, what the Organization wants the person to do with their lives. This form of enslavement does not and NEVER will work. The attributes, desires and interests of the expanding mind of the young adult must not only be acknowledge it must be appreciated and the youth’s healthy BENIFICIAL desires must be encouraged. The said, the option of full time service or other theocratic endeavors can and should be one of the many options. But, if ones heart is not in it that same person should not be treated as less of a person for choosing a way of life that includes BOTH worship of his/her god AND a rewarding productive life working in a satisfying career that enriches the life of all those that come in contact with that happy person.
There, my rant is over and I feel better now.
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Finally-Free
Welcome HiddenQuestioner!
I enjoyed your post. The position of the society on education has always concerned me. I never went to university, but was employed as a machinist and window cleaner while I was a JW. Eventually, under doctors orders, I had to return to school when I was in my mid thirties to retrain because of knee and back injuries. Some elders criticized me for going back to school, but a few encouraged it. I now work as a network administrator, which requires me to occasionally update my skills in order to remain employable. When I moved to a new congregation the elders there were very opposed to my taking courses, and they eventually removed my "priviledges" as account servant and "sound man" because I was taking a course on Saturday afternoons. Obviously, this part time course did not interfere with meetings or field service. But an "example" had to be made of me...
I have to laugh at any reference to "higher" education. In today's world a college education is practically a necessity if a person doesn't want to live in poverty. Nearly everyone I work with has a degree, and no one's getting rich. I used to work in factories as a machinist, but many manufacturing jobs have now moved to other countries. If a person wants to provide a decent standard of living for his family he needs an education.
The WTS had long encouraged people to get into the trades, but this is inconsistent with their nagging people to get into "full time service" right out of high school. Many trades, such as automotive repair, plumbing, electrician, etc. require apprenticeships before being licensed. We're talking about full time work and school for about 5 years. A person can get a degree in less time.
What the society fears most is that their members might be taught to think, to reason.
W
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hamsterbait
Read the study on Education from the 90s where the WTS seemed to do a 180 degree turn.
They said that those who left school to pioneer without adequate education, had been presumptuous, because they thught jehovah would provide for them. But then - surprise! - he didn't and they had to leave pioneering to support themselves.
The reason I defied policy and went to university was that I saw ex pioneers washing floors for low wages while trying to pay to put food in the mouths of the children they kept having because sex was the only thing they had. (and they were too ill educated to comprehend how pills or condoms work)
HB
