Fewer A-level grads are looking abroad
Proportion wanting tostudy overseas droppedto 7% from 19% last year
Nazry Bahrawi
nazry@mediacorp.com.sg
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IT IS not always a case of the grass seeming greener on the other side: This year, more A-level graduates seem keen to pursue their higher education in Singapore.
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About 42 per cent of respondents in a survey of some 2,500 recent A-level graduates expressed this wish, compared to about 38 per cent last year. And the proportion wanting to study overseas dropped dramatically — to nearly 7 per cent from about 19 per cent last year.
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“Basically, the three local universities have managed to improve their total value proposition to these students,” said JobsFactory director Lim Dershing, citing factors such as their good global rankings, scholarship schemes, double-degree programmes and overseas study opportunities.
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And, while the political leadership here has worried over the best and brightest of the A-level cohort going overseas to study, the difference in desire between the top performers and the general cohort was not that much. Of those who attained three or more As, just 8.4 per cent wished to study abroad, compared to 6.7 per cent of the general A-level cohort.
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Said Mr Lim: “As top students, they have more options. They naturally start to consider top overseas universities such as Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford and Cambridge.”
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This is the second year that JobsFactory, a campus recruitment specialist, has conducted the survey.
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Among those awarded scholarships, there was a dip in the percentage intending to complete their bond — down from 92.3 per cent to about 90 per cent.
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But Mr Lim did not think Singapore is losing its top talents who are studying abroad, as the statistics are “overwhelmingly saying that they will come back”.
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The survey also found that the United Kingdom — with Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and Cambridge topping the list — remained the most popular choice for a foreign education, followed by the United States and Australia.