Singapore teams impress at international science competitions

Lin Zhaowei

The Straits Times20 July 2011

SINGAPORE has scored its best-ever showing at two major science competitions for pre-university students, coming in joint-first in the International Physics Olympiad and third in the International Biology Olympiad.

In the nine-day physics competition that ended on Monday, the five-man Singapore team shared top spot with traditional powerhouses China and Taiwan as well as relative newcomer South Korea.

All four countries came away with five gold medals each.

Last year, the Singapore team came in seventh.

Almost 400 pre-university students from 84 countries took part in this year's event held in Bangkok. Winners had to score in both written and practical tests.

The Singapore team comprised Raffles Institution (RI) students Kang Zi Yang, Li Kewei, Lin Jiahuang and Lin Sen, and NUS High School of Mathematics and Science's Tan Zong Xuan. They are all in their final year of study.

It was led by Associate Professor Rajdeep Singh Rawat from the Natural Sciences and Science Education department of the National Institute of Education at Nanyang Technological University, and Associate Professor Chung Keng Yeow from National University of Singapore's physics department.

Mr Li, 19, said the victory showed that the team's hard work over the past seven months had paid off.

'We were very happy because we knew this had never been done before (by a Singapore team),' he said.

'Although the team spent the entire June holidays preparing for the competition and ended up lagging behind in our school work, it was worth it,' added the physics whiz who hopes to enrol in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for undergraduate studies.

Prof Rajdeep, involved in training the Singapore delegations for the past eight years, said this year's team was 'fantastic' because the members were very motivated.

In the International Biology Olympiad, held in Taipei from July 10 to 17, Singapore improved from its ninth placing last year.

Hwa Chong Institution's Javan Lee Tze Han, NUS High's Hong Xinyuan and RI's Jin Chentian came away with gold medals while Michael Sia Zhen Wei of Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) bagged a silver. They are all final year students at their schools.

Financial Times ranks 2 Singapore MBA programmes among top 35

The National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School's MBA programme achieved 23rd position in the latest ranking of the top 100 full-time global MBA programmes by the London-based business newspaper, Financial Times (FT).

This is the programme's highest-ever rating by a major agency and the highest FT ranking ever achieved by any Singapore MBA programme. The NUS MBA was ranked 35th in 2009 but was left out last year due to a technicality.

The MBA programme of the Nanyang Business School (NBS) - part of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) - also made the honour roll but fell six spots from last year's 27th place to the 33rd.

Its MBA alumni, however, had the highest average salaries among those who attended programmes here.

Measured three years after graduation, the NBS alumni have an average salary of US$104,952 (S$134,000), trumping by a slim margin the NUS Business School's US$100,456.

It was also ranked 69th in The Economist's Top 100 MBA ranking last year, making it the highest-ranked here.

NUS' post-MBA salary increase of its graduates stood at 140 per cent, compared with the 125 per cent for the 22 higher-ranked schools.

This means that a student's pre-MBA salary of, for example, $45,000 would have jumped 140 per cent to $108,000 three years after graduation.

Singapore students bag top literature awards

Meridian Junior College student Nicole Kang, 19, was pipped to the 2009 Angus Ross Prize by Hwa Chong Institution's Lin Ruizi, but beat thousands of students worldwide to clinch the runner-up award.

The Angus Ross Prize is given out every year to the best-performing non-British candidate in the GCE A-Level English Literature examination.

Since Cambridge began awarding the prize in 1987, Singaporeans have clinched it almost every year, with students from Raffles Junior College dominating the winners in the last decade.

Singaporean is top debater in global contest

24-year-old Singaporean Li Shengwu graduated five months ago as the top economics student at Oxford University. He was crowned Best Speaker at the just-concluded World Universities Debating Championships in Turkey.

Mr Li, a master's student in economics at Oxford, took the top individual honour at the event - known colloquially as the "Worlds" and regarded as the most prestigious debating tournament in the world.

He is the third Singaporean to receive the award, cementing Singapore's status as a debate powerhouse. Since 1981, when the competition began, all Asian winners have been Singaporean.

Country-wise, Singapore is ranked fourth in terms of Best Speaker winners, behind Australia, Canada and England.

That is very good for a country of five million, the competition's unofficial historian, Mr Colm Flynn, noted.

The first Singaporean Best Speaker winner was Ms Chitra Jenardhanan in 1995. Representing Nanyang Technological University, she was also the first woman and the first Asian to take the trophy.

In 2003, Dr Tan Wu Meng, representing Cambridge University, won it.

Singapore is IB's new HQ for Asia-Pacific

Four years after the first local school started offering the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma programme, the organisation behind it has made Singapore its Asia-Pacific headquarters.

As one of three global centres - the other two being The Hague in Holland and Maryland in United States - Singapore will provide training and support to 11,000 teachers in the region.

IB director-general Jeffrey Beard said Singapore's strategic location, good infrastructure, status as an education hub, and the fast growing demand for IB programmes in the region were compelling reasons for making it the Asia-Pacific HQ.

Singapore schools lead the way in tech use

Singapore schools, lauded the world over for their maths and science curriculums, are now also serving as role models in the use of technology for teaching.

A group of education experts from software giant Microsoft told The Straits Times at a conference in Brazil last week that many countries have their eye on Singapore schools because they have managed to integrate the use of technology into lessons effectively - something which schools elsewhere do only superficially.

Microsoft vice-president for worldwide education programmes Anthony Salcito said one example of Singapore's success in integrating technology within the curriculum is BackPack.NET, a S$20 million project by the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Microsoft Singapore. It was started in 2003 with the aim of transforming teaching through technology and allowing mobile learning.

Ms Jenny Lewis, an adviser to Microsoft's US$500 million (S$700 million) education initiative Partners in Learning, said Singapore schools are gaining attention for the way they use technology to teach "21st century skills" such as collaboration critical and creative thinking.

The Straits Times (14 Nov 2009)

Ngee Ann Secondary School honoured for use of technology

Microsoft has listed Ngee Ann Secondary School as a "Pathfinder School" - one of 30 schools worldwide so honoured this year. Ngee Ann is the first school in Singapore to bag the title since Microsoft introduced it in 2007.

The Pathfinder status is the second highest level of recognition given by Microsoft to schools.

The highest level of recognition is the "Mentor School" status, which first went to Singapore's Crescent Girls' School in 2007. SCGS still maintains that status and is now joined by another 11 schools worldwide.

St Andrew Junior College's principal Lee Bee Yann is now an adviser to Microsoft's US$500 million education initiative, Partners In Learning. She is the only school principal and Singaporean in the 14-member International Advisory Council, which is mostly made up of university professors and government officials.

Source: The Straits Times (6 Nov 2009)

Global Indian International School wins international excellence award

Homegrown Global Indian International School achieves a first for Singapore with the Asia Pacific Quality Award.