Singapore’s publicly funded National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have rapidly ascended the world university rankings. According to international journals, the two now rank among the best in Asia, and are in the top 20 to 50 in the world.
This has been achieved in part by the aggressive hiring of international faculty members with the desired publication credentials, part of an increasingly intense global arms race for scarce research talent.
But critics argue that the opportunity costs of this approach include the marginalisation of teaching in favour of research, and of local faculty and local scholarship, in a way that adds little benefit to Singaporean students, the national economy or society, and is unlikely to be sustainable.
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