I REFER to Thursday's Forum comments by Ms Alicia Phua ('Give all who qualify a place in a local varsity').

I fully agree that those whose A-level results meet the minimum university intake benchmark, should be given a chance to join an undergraduate course.

It will be relevant to draw on the Indian example here. In India, it was, and is, easier to get into university after A levels. Some people did not like this and pointed to it as a root cause of the high number of unemployed graduates in India. They also cited a lack of coordination between university and industry in skilled manpower requirements.

Globalisation changed the whole scenario. The political boundary took a back seat. The Internet and telecommunications opened up the global market for white-collar jobs, which can be serviced from any part of the world. Millions found employment in India in jobs overseas. India prospered because, intentionally or not, it had a big chunk of skilled graduates.

'Immediate jobs' and 'Singapore jobs' should not be the sole criterion to compute university intake. We should create skilled manpower for the global market and invest in it. It is an investment in manpower, just as Singapore has invested in infrastructure and attracted global players.

I also feel it is not fair that a foreign graduate gets a job in Singapore, while a local applicant cannot as he is not a university graduate. There is every chance the 'skilled' foreigner acquired his skills after he got easy entry into university. This is not a level playing field, is it?

Atanu Roy

This article was first published in The Straits Times on May 12 2008.