By Liew Hanqing

THERE are whispers among faculty members that Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has embarked on the road to Nobel.

The signs are telling - the university's provost, Bertil Andersson, a board member of the Nobel Foundation, is leading a relentless effort to recruit the best researchers in the world to make NTU their base.

This year, 10 promising young scientists will be made assistant professors at NTU. They will get up to $1 million each to further their research over three years and be paid up to $160,000 a year.

Out of 10 other foreign scientists selected under a similar scheme by the National Research Foundation, five of them made NTU their base.

The university's recent string of research coups heralds an exciting time in local higher education, and may be what is needed to propel NTU to global prominence in the research arena.

But critics of the plans say that there will opportunity costs in the endeavour.

Earlier this year, The New Paper reported that a recent review of the tenure system at NTU had upset several faculty members.

Some have been asked to leave when their contracts end soon, while others have not had their T55 contract (tenure to age 55) extended. Out of the 1,500 faculty members, 600 were submitted for review.

The university said only half of the 600 were awarded the new tenure to 65.

At the same time, an NTU spokesman said the university's intake of engineering students has been increasing.

In the short term at least, the loss of teaching faculty could put students at a significant disadvantage.

But the NTU spokesman said the tenure review would not adversely impact the university's faculty-student ratio, and that the university has recently recruited more faculty active in research and teaching.

'This standard (faculty-student ratio) will be upheld and improved upon - the university will never allow it to falter,' she said.

But there may be issues that numbers alone won't show.

No incentive to teach

A faculty member, who spoke to The New Paper on condition of anonymity, said an emerging problem was the much higher priority placed on research relative to teaching.

He said: 'When the performance indicators are based on the quality and quantity of research output, there's no incentive (for faculty) to focus on teaching.

'Attending career talks and work seminars are now considered by some as lowly, unsavoury tasks that they would rather not do.'

He added that this was particularly evident by the reluctance of several high-flying professors to supervise undergraduates' final-year projects (FYPs).

'Some (professors) make their criteria so difficult that the students would rather just find an 'easier' professor to supervise their projects,' he said.

This, he says, has resulted in some faculty members being saddled with more students' work than they can handle.

'I've almost become the Mother Teresa of FYPs,' he said.

Could a more permanent fix be to eventually reduce the intake of undergraduates, particularly at NTU's College of Engineering?

When The New Paper asked NTU whether the faculty tenure review could mean a possible reduction in the university's intake of engineering students, the university's spokesman did not answer the question.

She would only say that the intake size has not decreased over the years.

'We have seen an increase (in intake) as NTU offered more programmes that are demanded by the students and the engineering courses are no different,' she added.

It certainly would not come as a surprise, however, if NTU does eventually reduce its intake of engineering students in the future.

After all, there are plans in place for the National University of Singapore (NUS) to launch two engineering flagship programmes in 2011, allowing NTU to beef up its other programmes while scaling down its engineering school.

Fourth university

There are also plans for Singapore's fourth university to offer disciplines including engineering and applied sciences.

The New Paper understands that some of the changes in the pipeline at NTU include an extensive curriculum review.

Last year, NTU president Su Guaning announced the formation of a Blue Ribbon Commission tasked with conducting a bottom-up, no-holds-barred review of the university's undergraduate education philosophy.

NTU's spokesman said the Blue Ribbon Commission's report has been completed and will soon be presented to the appropriate approving authorities.

'An implementation committee will be set up to look into the implementation details,' the spokesman said.

The university expects the recommendations to be implemented over the next few years. These recommendations may lead to major changes at NTU - and, who knows, even that coveted Nobel prize.

But while these changes could be impactful and exciting, NTU should take care that its students aren't shortchanged along the way.

This article was first published in The New Paper on September 9, 2008.