Nobel Prizes, Stable Matching, The Secondary One Posting Exercise, Truthfulness and Student Welfare

Posted on my other website: The implications of the theory behind the recent Nobel prize in economics on how we post students in the pose-PsLE Secondary One Posting Exercise.

Some Thoughts on Breadth in Education

I'd say that an education is a bundle of experiences (organically encountered or engineered) with an accompanying bundle of inferences. By "experience", I mean something sufficiently general to cover all of: contemplating social constructs, building a model aircraft, recreating the proof of a theorem and even doing unspeakable things to white mice.

What the university and school system offers in terms of the bundle of imparted data, models and frameworks seems to be, anecdotally speaking, failing to meet the needs of employers. The ones who become the best employees or have the confidence to strike out on their own turn out to be those who seek out the relevant experiences.

But students are overloaded (or so they claim). There is some need to identify what is truly "core" in each "discipline" and shave down curricula to that "core", freeing up capacity for both students and instructors for more extensive education. There will be those who insist that the elementary course on their pet sub-discipline is snugly in the core and everything within should be taught in full. There is merit in that assertion, but a little less given the growing mismatch between what the university offers and what the workplace desires. Toes will smart, but it is all for the best.

Conceptual Learning vs Skills

I am convinced of the need for comprehensive conceptual learning in schools as a pre-requisite for skill acquisition of good quality. Conceptual learning opens up the mind to possibilities and is more mentally intensive due to the need to tear-down and re-build internalized conceptions of how the world works or should work.

It is typically very difficult to successfully facilitate conceptual learning in a 5 day course unless it is particularly intensive or students are particularly open intellectually. Thus, in order for students to eventually develop updated skills, it appears that current and cutting edge thought should be imparted to them at schools. In that way, by the time cutting edge transits from "experimental prototype" to "advanced technology", students would have the proper intellectual structures to grasp the skills needed to use the said technology. Given today's rapid transition from research to industry, this is not entirely unreasonable as students will not be taught skills they cannot for the next 10 years.

There is a clear tension between the long term and the short term. Focusing on skills and neglecting newer paradigms leads to structural problems in the economy in the long term. Focusing on concepts and neglecting skills leads to workers that have a longer lead time to doing useful work.

Naturally, conceptual learning and skills are complements that reinforce each other. Concepts present an intellectual frame which helps in the understanding of skills. Skills can be inductively mined for concepts. However the relationship is not symmetric. The former is far easier and more comprehensive than the latter.

Thus, I believe that the balance should tilt towards the conceptual and the skills imparted should be those that best facilitate the learning of advanced concepts. A lead time reduction in one's early career of a few months is not sufficient to outweigh a decade or so of facility in picking up new skills.

Adverse Incentives in Universities and the Impact on our National Competency Build Up

Today, I was at lunch with an older gentleman. Older in the sense of, was-sent-off-to-NS-in-a-3-tonner and ate-food-cooked-by-fellow-NSFs. He mentioned that he took an AI course at NUS Computer Science and had an extremely negative experience where lecturers did not care about students and were unable to express ideas well. He contrasted this with the good treatment he received at NUS's Institute of Systems Science (a centre for professional learning) where the instructors "want you to succeed".

He surmised that the failings of the former were due to the overriding importance placed on publishing, and that teaching was seen as a chore to be quickly finished so one might get back to doing things that affect their KPIs.

Now, in the course of that interaction, he came across as a knowledgeable and experienced IT professional with a very balanced personality, so I am inclined towards the view that he arrived at his position on his AI lecturer(s) at NUS Computer Science in a fair and balanced manner.

It is thus disturbing that professionals seeking to extend their skill sets can come away with little or nothing after a few days away from work and having their employers pay a pretty penny (a neat double whammy). This is not to say that all university instructors for professional development courses are unable to help their students extend their knowledge and skills. The point is that we should be seeking guarantees for a minimum service level for professional development. Otherwise, any initiatives with the objective of "raising productivity" through professional education will inherit the lack of a "minimum service level".

The incentives in universities that place little value on teaching are well known. Unfortunately, they are tremendously damaging. The question that tax payers should be asking themselves is what exactly they are funding. If the role of Singapore's universities is to break new ground in the physical sciences, medicine, technology and social sciences, can we say we are succeeding? If the role of Singapore's universities is to impart knowledge and skills to students prior to their entry to the workforce, are we succeeding? On both counts, we are not very successful.

One of the most cynical views I have come across is that a small number of exceptional individuals around the world appear to be justifying the contemplative life for many others. There is some truth to it. Some people do love to learn, but are not as keen on the grind of breaking new ground. These people tend to love to teach, but there is no suitable incentive scheme that enables them to build a rewarding career (those few new "teaching schemes" considered).

The trouble with adjusting the incentive framework for university faculty is that it will put us out of joint with international practice, possibly making Singapore an unattractive place to be a faculty member unless one does not want to ever work at a university outside of Singapore.

However, without effective incentives, we have to rely on the "milk of human goodness: to generate good professional development results, and history has shown us that said milk is not exactly reliable.

It is necessary to take a "calibrated" approach to incentives in university faculty. Ground breaking research is great to have, but unless we are in a technological arms race, it has the lowest priority among the three major roles of university faculty which are, highest priority first, (i) imparting knowledge and skills effectively, (ii) inspiring students, and (iii) doing high quality research.

Creating a Support Structure for the Poor

I just read The Malay Underclass, an essay by some final year students from NTU about the socio-economic challenges facing lower income Malays.

(Actually, I realize I forgot to post this from some time ago.)

I believe that we can provide an additional support structure for low-income families. Let me describe what I have in mind. It all begins with the schools. I propose that primary and secondary schools provide additional tuition to kids from low-income families for most days of the school week (all for primary school kids). Meals should be provided (lunch and dinner). This allows the parents to work to support their families while their kids are under supervision. For the older kids (sec 1 and above), they should not be going through "tuition" every day, but rather, helping out at the sessions for the younger children.

Thus, kids from low-income families will be learning under some supervision and learning responsibility. The younger ones will have role models to look up to. Given this, it is far more likely that these children will be able to achieve better educational outcomes and learn some life skills that will stand them in good stead when it comes to tertiary education and the working world. In addition, those who are going through tertiary education should volunteer a few days a month to help out as well. I think of this as a socially meaningful form of "national service", but one where Kids first receive "full time" care and then come back as "reservists" to pay it forward. Furthermore, each kid gets a concrete sense that he/she is doing good for someone else. (To reinforce this, the parents of kids under full time care should be asked to attend a biannual ceremony to thank the teachers and students who have given up time and energy to help out in the program.)

Perhaps with programs like that in place, we can provide better and more effective support for low income families. In time, hopefully the program will no longer be necessary. Eventually only being preserved in the fond memories of graduates of the program who remember how their seniors paid it forward.

On Effective Incentives at Universities

University faculty members have different profiles. Simplistically, there are (i) those focused on research and/or industrial collaboration, (ii) those who emphasize teaching, and (iii) some who blend the two in a relatively balanced ratio. Both the functions of (i) and (ii) are important, but the former is seen as the more glamorous among faculty members and university promotion boards and search committees. Coming from the perspective of the university as a tool to support a nation's sustained competitive advantage, teaching edges out research and industrial collaboration in importance.

To develop effective incentives, we have to be a little hard nosed and be willing to bruise a few egos. We must face the fact that the "university system" has used the inventions and discoveries of a few talented individuals to justify the "contemplative life" for manifold numbers of others. The proliferation of uninteresting journal articles and conference papers is but a symptom of this.

"Research" takes pole position in universities as search and promotion preferences make clear. Those with personal leanings towards teaching advanced subjects effectively are edged out of the faculty or are forced to do "research" that turns out to be uninteresting (and they probably never get tenure anyway).

In Singapore, government ownership of universities allows changes to be made to align incentives in universities with national economic objectives. One way is to allow all faculty members to do what they do best. There are two related ways of measuring performance: absolute and relative (rank order). Additionally, there are different metrics by which performance can be measured. For instance, (i) the research productivity-industrial grants ruler, (ii) the teaching evaluation-student performance (in later courses) ruler, and hybrid metrics. Faculty members should be evaluated on all measures in absolute terms, and also have his/her rank on each measure computed. Remuneration and promotion should be based on all those measures.

To give a sense of what I am alluding to, consider the following. In principle we want to reward the top ranked performers, but at the highest levels of academic research performance, rank means little, so all top tier researcher (by absolute performance) should be rewarded highly regardless of rank; rank should only come in at the "lower" tiers. This conduces to the creation of a group with many top tier researchers and encourages faculty to move into the top rung. On teaching, similar incentives should be in place. Appropriate performance measurement logic should be there to "determine" the "role" each faculty member has crafted for himself/herself and use only the appropriate performance metrics.

The illustration in the above paragraph may seem a bit sketchy, but should give a flavor of what I am thinking. Incentives should be there to encourage faculty members to perform at the highest levels of performance of research and/or teaching. Staff who are mediocre at both over a sustained period should be let go. The university system should not be a place where only the forms of research are aped and knowledge is purported to be transferred. It should be a place where research is done and knowledge is transferred effectively.

---

Postscript: I'm writing this while "stuck in Rome". My passport was stolen from my left pant pocket on a crowded train 4h before my flight. The embassy was closed, and the police report was not accepted as a valid document for traveling out of Europe. When I got in touch with MFA, and through them the local Singapore consulate, it turned out the Italian Honorary Consul General had died and consular authority was transferred to Geneva. I was stunned to hear that. It all made things more surreal. Even stranger was when, today, I got an SMS from DBS Cards telling me that "I" had charged $15xx.xx for a United Airlines flight from the Las Vegas, Nevada branch. Woo.

Measuring the Efficacy of Education: A Possible Methodology

Given the mission of education to enable upward mobility, an obvious methodology for measuring the efficacy of education suggests itself: measure the decrease in the level of correlation of student performance on family background from primary 6 to secondary 4/5.

It goes without saying that student performance at Primary 6 is strongly related on family background. Given that secondary school is a substantial part of the Singapore education experience, where academic preferences are formed, the Secondary 4/5 level is a good time to make the comparison. In fact, a first reading may be obtained at the end of Primary 1/2, which will be very strongly related to family background.

Any competent econometrician would be ale to do the analysis given the data. We should be measuring this and using it as a KPI.

Comments on the Education and it's Goals

What are the immediate aims of education? Do we seek, through education, to (i) create good workers, (ii) equip the young to become good citizens, or (iii) place them on the path to a flourishing life? Presently, to pick any one of these options would require a polemic to follow. I'd like to avoid that. Also, rather than delve deeply into operational methodology in a field which I'm no expert in, I'd like to engage in more high level commentary.

Education has multiple objectives, the service of which can have differing impacts on the interests of various parties in that society. They maybe described in terms of preparation for participation in different classes of activities. Analogous to the list above, they are (i) preparation for participation in the productive economy, (ii) preparation for participation in politics, and (iii) preparation for immersion in the world of experience. Allow me to introduce them in reverse order.

Preparation for immersion in the world of experience is, by no means, the actual immersion in that world of experience. There is no polity with the resources to run an effective educational program seeking to do that (ostensibly). Rather, this is about broadening horizons so the young can, later, pursue experiences which will enrich their lives and inform their major decisions. This requires that the classroom be connected with the world at large. There is a lot more to say about this, but I'd like to go on to the other two.

Preparation for participation in politics means equipping the young with the basic skills necessary to discern the merits of competing policies. That is to say, it is about basic logical and statistical reasoning, as well as bringing critical thinking to any proposal. It also entails teaching the young that they often should assess the veracity of evidence and the credibility of sources, that is to say, to have sufficient awareness not to be played for a fool. In a sense, this would be incomplete without some immersion in the wider world, which would give a perspective on different socio-economic environments and the outcomes arising from the policy decisions that have been made in each locale.

We now come to the element of education which most think about when sending a child to school: preparation for participation in the productive economy. This entails instruction in the foundational building blocks of technical and business knowledge. It should be noted, however, that without a dash or critical thinking and exposure to the wider world, such education would not be able to effectively prepare individuals to be innovators or good leaders. Depending on where a society is on the ladder of development, the capacity to think critically (and hence, innovate or lead well) may vary in importance from vital to good-to-have, and even to better-not-to-have.

At this point I would like to close. It is not my place to recommend some detailed allocation of effort between these three goals of education. However, it is important to have clarity on the societal goals that underlie the need for education. With that, a program can be crafted that takes precise aim at those goals, and, with sufficient resources fueling it, will achieve the goals set for it.

----

Afternote: If a knowledge-based economy is sought, then effort has to be dedicated to all three aspects, the second and third especially. While achieving the third goal might be said to be simple, achieving the second is very difficult, requiring deliberate effort from both educators and their charges. Singapore is taking steps to improve on its historically horrid record on the second goal, so it would be interesting to see the state of things in a decade.

Best Teacher I Ever Had (Reader's Digest, 1991)

Best Teacher I Ever Had
by David Owen
Extracted from Reader's Digest (Asian Edition), April 1991, pp. 47-48.

Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.

When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?

Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been any such animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?

Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?

We should have figured it out, Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the every moment he was passing around the cattywampus skull (in truth, a cat's), hadn't he been telling us that no trace of the animal remained? He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn't have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, and we still hadn't been suspicious. The zeroes on our papers would be recorded in his grade book, he said. And they were.

Mr. Whitson said he hoped we would learn something from this experience. Teachers and textbooks are not infallable. In fact, no one is. He told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we ever thought he or the textbook was wrong.

Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. On day he told us that his Volkswagon was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn't let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.

We carried our brand-new skepticism into all our classes. This caused problems for the other teachers, who weren't used to being challenged. Our history teacher would be lecturing about something, and then there would be clearings of the throat and someone would say 'cattywampus.'

If I'm ever asked to propose a solution to the problems in our schools, it will be Mr. Whitson. I haven't made any great scientific discoveries, but Mr. Whitson's class gave me and my classmates something just as important: the courage to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong. He also showed us that you can fun doing it.

Not everyone sees the value in this. I once told an elementary school teacher about Mr. Whitson. The teacher was appalled. "He shouldn't have tricked you like that," he said. I looked that teacher right in the eye and told him that he was wrong.

On Singapore's Long Term Economic Viability: Tertiary Education in Science and Engineering

(This rant was published in edited form at New Asia Republic on 4th Nov 2011.)

The key to the long term economic viability of Singapore is not government prescience in selection of the next big thing. Rather, the "key driver" will be the quality of education our young receive. A series of knowledgeable and well-educated cohorts will be able to identify opportunities and innovate to grasp those opportunities. I would like to focus on science and engineering graduates as these are the necessary "skilled inputs" required for a healthy high-value-added economy.

It is disappointing that the quality of output from our universities is not exactly up to scratch. Most are not capable of independent application of what they have learnt or should have learnt in school. Few are willing to learn new/subsidiary skills and even fewer have the breadth and depth of knowledge to make their learning process efficient.

Many will disagree with me. Most will be part of the group I am referring to. Sadly, many employers will probably agree with me. In addition, I believe that a number of local university professors will agree with me. I did my undergraduate studies at NUS and one of my professors told me, some time ago, that "the quality of Singapore engineering has fallen." (He presently holds a high appointment in the school, and naming him may do him a big disservice.) From my previous interactions with university professors and people who assess potential hires for technical ability, most do not expect much from fresh graduates and seem pleasantly surprised when a one exhibits knowledge and demonstrates capability.

I wouldn't blame the faculty. The incentives present in society rewards middlemen who have constructed a system where they oversea financial flows and take a fraction of the financial flux as a cut. As such, many who choose to read science and engineering look to a career in financial intermediation, "connecting financial supply to demand". Intermediaries are useful to have -- money itself, which makes transactions convenient, is an intermediary. However, with the arguably incorrect reward system, the rush into finance is impoverishing the world due to the fall in creation of real economic value. Furthermore, textbook supply and demand does not work due to monopoly effects: there is basically one financial system (... and this should change so the free market can kick in). With that background, many science and engineering students primarily seek only to obtain a paper qualification that indicates some quantitative training and at the same time gives them license to apply for a technology job. What this causes is a lack of interest in coursework and eventual lack of knowledge retained after graduation.

Many engineering graduates lack the confidence or ability to do engineering. Most of those who do take up engineering jobs take on sales roles or roles that previously would have been done by non-graduate technicians. The booming of the financial services industry has been a boon to many who take on sales jobs and work on basic quantitative analysis. Most do not even know how to properly price a financial derivative and end up selling products that they themselves do not understand. (Insurance policies are in essence financial derivatives too.)

(In fact, I have even met "scholars", including those who studied overseas, who cannot describe even in a cursory manner what they did in their final year projects not 5 years ago. Can one reasonably forget work that one recently spent a year or half a year on? This hints at a larger problem in new and upcoming members of the workforce.)

This is a sorry state of affairs and does not bode well for long term economic viability. Without going into what I see as consequences of this, I would like to propose a measure to ameliorate this. I believe that local universities should raise the bar substantially and only allow students who have demonstrated a good level of proficiency to pass courses (and hence, graduate). Universities should not be afraid of failing students who are not yet competent in their coursework.

Why do this? I believe that in science and engineering, most of the value is created by those who have at least some threshold level of knowledge and capability. I do not refer to "the talented tenth" or any notion that hints at a top X%, what I mean is that some approximate level of knowledge and capability that generates network effects of knowledge, making the individuals within which such a dynamic exists proficient value generators. Now, rising waters lifts all boats, but does not leave all intact. Competency levels will be raised, but some will not be able to graduate. That is fine, in my opinion, those people would not have made good scientists or engineers anyway and would definitely have trouble on their own in the job market.

What may not be easy to predict is whether even more would like to pursue quantitative finance (as opposed to sales roles) as a career given the raised capability levels. I do not think I can address this issue here.

In the short term, the value of a science/engineering degree will be raised, and new graduates will be able to find good jobs more easily with employers having greater confidence in the technical competency of job applicants. Graduates will also have been equipped with a good level of knowledge and facility with that knowledge to confidently do their work effectively and pursue new knowledge when the need arises.

On the flip side, this will cause a dip in the number of science and engineering graduates with those who are unwilling or unable to handle the rigour. However, I would argue that the number of engineering graduates should be raised not by lowering standards, but rather through the force of personal aspiration on the part of students. We should not play with our nation's long term economic viability to raise a KPI in the short term.

Operationally, this will demand a greater focus on teaching in universities, meaning more staff will be needed and changes in remuneration policy will be required rigorously assessed projects are not practical from the standpoint of manpower, a shift to high stakes examinations will take place. While the benefits of high stakes examinations is debatable at the primary and secondary levels are debatable, sound reasons exist for institutionalizing them at the tertiary level. To argue by example, building a bridge is a high stakes project, and the skills that go towards building that bridge should be rigorously ensured. If these skills are not demonstrated through (rigorously assessed) project work, challenging examinations will have to serve as a proxy.

Notably, with high stakes examinations, professors will be hit more often with the "annoyance" of students griping about grades. I would argue that greater transparency in marking would be a solution. By allowing students access to their marked papers and the marking guide, fewer frivolous requests for review will take place. (Papers could be scanned and the images made available to students.) Furthermore, releasing marked transcripts and revealing marking guides might turn out to be a useful post examination review with high pedagogical value.

I believe that raising standards at local universities will be necessary for long term economic viability. This will involve potentially expensive operational changes, but the net effects will be well worth our while. What I am certain about is, we cannot continue this way or future Singapore will be largely populated by port workers servicing ships making brief refuelling stopovers.