JULY 12 — Few of us would scorn an opportunity to obtain, say, a master’s degree from universities such as Harvard or Yale.

Indeed, many of us — as products of a Singaporean education system that, consciously or subconsciously, ascribes American Ivy League universities as the telos towards which to strive — would perceive obtaining higher educational qualifications from these most “prestigious” of Ivy Leagues to be the apex of a student’s academic journey.

Our educational institutions are central to the production of such a mentality. For example, a 2004 article in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) dubbed Raffles Junior College the “Gateway to the Ivy League”, a mantle that the institution has since adopted. When reporting the 2010 A-Level results on its website, Raffles Institution (as it is now called) wrote that “RI continues to be the gateway to Oxbridge and the Ivy Leagues”, and revealed the number of its students who have been accepted by such universities.

Yet, the narrowness of what constitutes “academic success” and the fetishising of this circumscribed conception have yielded unexpected problems for some sections in the Civil Service.

“We have too many MAs from Harvard and Yale, especially in East Asian Studies,” a Public Service Commission (PSC) scholar confided in me.

“Every young scholar wants to go to a prestigious Ivy League — but, from the point of view of the service, it is important that our scholars go to a diverse range of institutions in a variety of countries, in order to establish global networks and deepen our understanding of cultures and countries outside of the United States.”

WHY NOT BRAZIL OR GHANA?

Scholars aside, Singaporean students, in general, prefer to go to Europe and the US, whether for exchange, full-time studies or internships.

Recognising the need for change, the Emerging Markets Division (EMD) at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) has been actively encouraging Singaporean students to take an interest in and consider non-traditional study destinations, such as Russia, India, Brazil or Turkey, which are emerging markets and are important for Singapore’s continued growth.

An EMD officer said: “A prolonged immersion in such countries and cultures will allow our people to master the native language and to really get under the skin of the natives, which will facilitate our understanding and dealings with them.”

Changing the mindsets of society and of the younger generation is an important step to plugging this talent gap. GoBeyond.SG is one of the MTI-EMD’s experiments to promote travel, study and work in unconventional destinations, featuring Singaporeans who have taken the less-trodden path.

Take, for example, Nanyang Technological University accountancy student Mohamed Syahid Mohamed, who headed to Ghana for a 10-week internship on a Kuok Khoon Hong Opportunity Scholarship. Neither he nor his friends and family knew anything about Ghana prior to his departure. “I wanted to challenge myself,” he explained in an interview with GoBeyond.SG, saying he learnt a lot about working culture in Ghana — things he could not have learned from business school.

DISPELLING BIASES

At the same time, institutional personnel will have to change their mindsets and not discriminate against students who earned their educational qualifications from less conventionally “prestigious” institutions.

When my National University of Singapore professor learned that I was going to a Lebanese university to pursue a master’s degree in (Middle Eastern) history, he looked puzzled and asked: “Why don’t you go somewhere which would actually help you get a job?”

My professor, whose field of specialty is English literature and not related to the Middle East, was genuinely concerned about my future employability, and I deeply appreciated his sentiments.

Yet, as he holds a leadership position in the university, his instinctive response also reflected, perhaps, the biases of the industry.

Thankfully, though, as our local universities expand their networks and knowledge of emerging regions, such attitudes are changing.

Indeed, while US and United Kingdom universities remain world leaders in terms of research and teaching, they cannot replace first-hand experience in the region of one’s academic interest.

My time in Beirut, for example, has sensitised me to a whole range of political views and nuances at the grassroots level, most of which are left out and distorted by global corporate media serving political agendas. I doubt I would have been able to acquire this sensibility without being on the ground.

THE CREAM AND THE CROP

Back in 2004, local satirist mr brown noted ironically that his favourite part of the “Gateway to the Ivy League” WSJ article was the quote at the end by a young, Singaporean President’s Scholar at Yale. This scholar reportedly said: “You’re used to being the cream of the crop in Singapore … and it’s just the same thing at the Ivies.”

Perhaps, with the diversification of higher education destinations, as well as the diversification of notions of academic legitimacy, we may also observe a little more diversity — in terms of attitude, mentality and philosophy — among those who make up the “elite” in the Civil Service, making them more resilient and willing to take on hardship.

Several civil servants shared with me an incident of a PSC scholar who was being groomed for a posting in New Delhi, but ultimately wanted to be posted to the US instead. “We had expended much network capital in grooming the scholar for the post, only to have it all wasted ultimately,” said one civil servant.

One cannot say for sure what the scholar’s reasons were. But it may be reasonable to hope that, instead of being ensconced in the developed world comforts of Oxbridge or the American East Coast, a few years in Delhi or Sao Paolo may sensitise young elites to a different reality, a different perspective, a different way of understanding the world. — Today

* Koh Choon Hwee is pursuing graduate studies in Beirut, Lebanon. She graduated from the National University of Singapore in May 2012.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.