Elderly and exploited

Low-wage workers often subjected to unreasonable rules

Letter from Arthur Lim

I READ with sympathy the letter from Ms Jessie Chong about her father’s experience upon landing a job as a cleaner (“Clean up treatment of cleaners”, Oct 19).

I am not surprised such treatment exists and could be commonplace, especially for senior citizens employed in the cleaning industry.

I have met some elderly cleaners, working for a pittance, who told me that they are expected to remain standing throughout their work hours, even if their assigned areas are spotlessly clean.

I once asked one such cleaner: “The toilet is so well maintained and there is nothing more to clean. Why don’t you just take a seat and rest for a while, and get up to clean the area when the need arises?”

His answer: “No, I can’t because if the supervisor sees me I’ll be fined $50.” When asked, he told me he was paid about $800 a month.

Imagine, if he sat down 16 times in the course of a month, he wouldn’t be paid a cent. What right does the cleaning company have to impose such a penalty?

Of course, everyone likes a clean toilet but expecting a cleaner to stand still like a robot is clearly thoughtless exploitation.

The authorities encourage the elderly to work into their golden years but more can be done to address such abuse.

There must be legislation in place to ensure employers do not have the right to arbitrarily impose financial penalties. If such penalties are imposed there should be a limit to the fine, based on the monthly salary.

Many employers get away with such rules because many of their workers do not know the legality of such practices, thereby opening the door to abuse.

The authorities should take the lead to ensure such abuse is not condoned and act on it rigorously when a complaint is made about a company.

Clean up treatment of cleaners

Letter from Jessie Chong

I AM writing about the treatment that my dad encountered and I hope companies out there can review and improve the working conditions for cleaners.

Are these the sort of working conditions cleaners should endure?

“What the hell are you doing here? We don’t want you sitting around chatting and drinking coffee. You should be at home, working.” know that when you’re working, you’re working.The Guardian

As Tuition Soars Globally, Schools Face a Need for Frugality

By CONRAD DE AENLLE

College tuition and other fees have risen for years in many countries, and the economic and financial crisis almost ensures that the trend will persist or worsen.

Students and their families will have to get used to bearing a greater share of the burden, the experts say.

But universities may be forced to operate more efficiently and frugally, they say, as those who pay the bills become smarter, more cost conscious shoppers.

Margaret Spellings, senior adviser at the Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, and secretary of education under President George W. Bush, blames government’s failure to demand more value for the money spent, and an elitism that she says is entrenched in academia.

“Affordability is an issue worldwide,” said Ms. Spellings, “People are up in arms. Tuition is going up, but an interest in reform is going up for the first time ever.”

Well before the crisis, the cost of a university education almost invariably advanced at a faster pace than the general level of inflation.

“There is no policy set up in any of our systems anywhere in the world to drive universities toward productivity and efficiency,” she said.

“We don’t collect any data. We don’t know what we’re getting for our money, and neither do students or taxpayers.”

Soaring demand for university places is also driving up costs, as is a desire by governments to accommodate the demand.

“Part of the problem in much of the world is exploding enrollments,” said D. Bruce Johnstone, emeritus professor of education at the State University of New York in Buffalo.

He said conditions were especially acute in developing nations.

And he cited a Western penchant for academic egalitarianism, in which higher university enrollments are sought as a matter of public policy.

“An expectation of an entitlement to participation in a research university is part of the problem,” Mr. Johnstone said. He noted that all secondary school graduates in France and Germany who pass a national examination are guaranteed university admission.

Tuition rose 106 percent between 1997 and 2007 at American public universities and 76 percent at private universities, to $7,171 and $30,260, respectively, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

It is lower everywhere else, although it can be quite high relative to incomes, especially in the developing world. The 23 million students attending Chinese universities pay about $3,000 a year, Mr. Johnstone said; the government has warned that fees will go up.

Tuition in India varies, he said, but it works out to about $600 a year for average universities and much more for the elite technology institutes.

Chinese and Indian schools have no shortage of applicants, but in Japan, enrollments are shrinking.

The government in the middle of the decade began cutting revenue to universities by a percentage point or two every year. In return it gave universities greater autonomy in setting faculty salaries and tuition rates. The average tuition there is about $4,500.

Tuitions are assessed at much lower rates in Continental Europe, Mr. Johnstone noted.

“European countries introduce tuition fees amid enormous political controversy,” he remarked. Eventually conditions deteriorate and the authorities are forced to increase fees, he said, “and then everyone really screams.”

Official Europe has begun to accept the idea of tuition, with an important caveat. Dennis Abbott, the European Commission spokesman on education, pointed to “a distinct trend to increased cost sharing” between students and state sources, although he stressed that fees “should be supported by grants and/or loans to ensure that financing does not represent an undue barrier to participation in higher education.”

Higher tuition is not the only suggestion for closing the funding gap.

A 2006 report by the Center for European Reform, a London-based, centrist research organization, encouraged European universities to become more competitive and more entrepreneurial and, although it did not say so explicitly, more American.

The authors also recommended paying faculty on the basis of merit; lobbying aggressively with state and private funding sources, like alumni; and wooing corporate benefactors.

One way to improve affordability and productivity, Mr. Abbott said, is to make sure first that students at universities want and need to be there.

“Too many young people are embarking upon university careers but dropping out before completing their courses,” he said.

“This represents a missed opportunity, both in terms of the human potential of the individual student and in terms of the best value for money. Better advice and guidance, combined with improved support, including financial support, should be made available.”

For those who do attend college, there should be more flexibility, Ms. Spellings said. She said she expected an increase in “a la carte, hybrid, technology-based education,” in which students take courses in person, online and at times of their own choosing. “Consumers are demanding it,” she said.

“Things are starting to change, as prices have gotten so ridiculous,” Ms. Spellings continued. “People are starting to ask the right questions that would have been heretical five years ago. Universities have enjoyed their ivory tower status of being above it all, but they’re beginning to change and it’s happening worldwide.”

The more they are together, the happier seniors will be

SINGAPORE

A study of some 4,400 members of the PA’s Wellness Programme found that their participation rate increased from 11 to 56 per cent a year after they joined the programme.

This is in contrast to a study conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), which found that only 5.5 per cent of seniors participated in clubs or group activities.

The PA said seniors socialise more because of its programme. While most did not have friends among their neighbours, more than six in 10 have made new friends. 33 per cent now know more than 10 neighbours.

Madam Kok Poh Yoke, 64, who was undergoing chemotherapy, had slipped into depression and was suicidal, is a happier woman after joining Kreta Ayer’s Wellness Programme.

“My outlook in life became better and I became happier,” she said. Now, Mdm Kok helps out at elderly care centres and ropes in her neighbours to participate in her line dance group.

While the PA aims to reach out to half of all Singaporeans older than 50 to participate in the Wellness Programme by 2015, the Minister in charge of ageing issues, Mr Lim Boon Heng, stressed: “This is not a numbers game. PA cannot achieve it through a top-down, uniform cookie cutter approach. We must take into account the diversity among seniors and seniors-to-be.”

In the future, seniors will have to organise themselves into various interest groups, volunteer their time and get things done for one another as they age within the community.

Such “naturally occurring retirement communities” — evident in the United States — are being studied by policy planners here, Mr Lim said.

“Such seniors feel empowered and are in charge of their lives. The question is how such communities can blossom here and revitalise the gotong-royong kampong spirit in the heartlands,” he added.

While some constituencies here have had some success, Mr Lim noted the community has not had people who took the lead themselves.

“That’s why we need Government or quasi-government organisations to facilitate.

We intend to do some facilitation and get some people to do things for themselves,” he added.

One such organisation, the Council for Third Age (C3A), will manage a new $20 million Go! Fund, which will seed innovative programmes, activities and groups for active ageing.— Latest figures rolled out by the People’s Association (PA) have dispelled a recent report that seniors here fall short on community participation.

Leong Wee Keat

Government aims to facilitate the growth of retirement communities

Singapore receives G20 invitation

SINGAPORE

In a statement, the Ministry of Finance said the summit — the fifth meeting of the G20 heads of state and government — will discuss the challenges facing the global economy and measures to promote strong, sustainable and balanced global growth.

It added that Singapore, as a major financial centre, has a particular interest in contributing to discussions by the group on global financial reforms, efforts to keep markets open and resist protectionism.

Singapore, as a member of the informal Global Governance Group (3G), has also been supportive of the efforts of the G20 to develop a consultative, inclusive and transparent framework to strengthen international economic cooperation.

The 3G, which comprises 27 United Nations member states was created more than a year ago to encourage the strengthening of a framework of engagement between G20 and non-G20 countries.— Singapore has been invited to participate in the G20 Summit in Seoul on Nov 11 and 12.

Forget What You Know About Study Habits

Cramming the brain like a suitcase does nothing for learning.

By BENEDICT CAREY

Psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is wrong.

Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals.

Set boundaries. Do not bribe — the findings directly contradict much of this common wisdom.

In fact, a few simple techniques can reliably improve how much a student learns from studying.

For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” they concluded.

Many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to work.

The research finds just the opposite.

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard.

“What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” said Dr. Bjork.

Likewise, varying the type of material studied in a single sitting seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time.

Research also undermines the intensive immersion approach.

Hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase: it holds its new load for a while, then everything falls out.

When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far, far longer. An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall.

No one knows why.

It may be that the brain, when it revisits material at a later time, has to relearn some of what it has absorbed before adding new stuff — and that that process is itself self-reinforcing.

“The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,” said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College in Massachusetts and an author of a study on learning.

“When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”

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#  CORRUPTION  RISK

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#  CARE LESS  RISK

#  DON'T  DEVELOP  INTERNAL  TALENT

#  DON'T  DEVELOP  INTERNAL  COMPETENCY

#  DON'T  DEVELOP  INTERNAL  EDGE

#  OUTSOURCER  IS  LIKE  A  "MIDDLE-MAN  OVERHEAD" WHICH  WILL BE ELIMINATED  SOONER  OR  LATER

#  WHY  SHOULD  CUSTOMERS  GIVE  ORDERS  TO  AN  OUTSOURCER  ?  IF  THEY CAN GO DIRECT ? 

You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes or their health insurance, but who are outraged — outraged — at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.