Issue:
The topic I propose to research on concerns the CCA points system for NUS students staying in hall.
Description of issue
From a newspaper article in Lianhe Wanbao where a foreign student voiced his complaints, I understand that you need over 80 CCA points to stay in NUS hall, which means you have to join about 4 CCAs to qualify.
This has resulted in NUS hall students, mainly foreign students, to join many clubs and societies in order to secure the necessary CCA points without having the interest and passion in them. With our heavy academic workload, it is humanly impossible for a person to cope with 3 CCAs or more. Hence it is not surprising when CCAs complain that their foreign members are slacking off duties and pushing their work to other CCA members.
CCAs are meant to cultivate leadership skills in students. However with the demanding CCA points system, we are only encouraging hall students to join many CCAs in name and be absent physically, causing many problems to the running of the CCAs. We are in fact cultivating the spirit of irresponsibility.
Why survey?
An attitudinal survey is needed to study this topic so that we can find out about the opinions of both foreign and Singaporean students involved in CCA towards the CCA points system to stay in hall.
Purpose of study
If a general agreement is found that the CCA points sytem is detrimental, it can be proposed to the NUS Administration that the CCA points system be scrapped and replaced with a qualitative grading of the CCA system. For example, a NUS hall student would only have to join 1 CCA and points would be awarded based on his quality contributions to that CCA.
If he has been contributing actively, I believe he qualifies for a place to stay in hall while if he has been a missing member, he would be penalised. This would solve the problem of CCAs having members that want CCA points but do not do any work. I believe that my research topic has practical applications.
5 comments:
Hi Yun Nian, I am just curious to know if the criteria of 80points is applicable to all students who wish to stay in hall, or only for the foreign students?
If the criteria of 80points applies to all students regardless local or foreign, perhaps there is no need to split the survey approach into two respective groups because both groups face similar pressure in clocking enough points to qualify for hall application. The only reason why this policy could have a heavier impact on the foreign students is probably because they do not have a residence in Singapore. As such, failing to qualify for a hostel in campus, they will have to look for an apartment outside school.
Also, I agree with you that the current point system is somehow flawed and it requires reviewing for improvement. The application for hostels should be based on merits and contributions a student offers, rather than the quantity of CCAs he joins. On another note, yes it is humanly impossible for a person to cope with 3 CCAs. However regarding the point of irresponsibility, I would say that it has to do with the student's attitude as well.
I assume your general research question should be along the line of "Is the current CCA points system for NUS students' hall application justified?". Correct me if I am wrong. =) If the general research question is indeed so, you can find out further why students' feel that way and their suggestions. Findings can then be presented in your report.
Looking into the feasibility of your study topic, it shouldn't be a problem as surveys can easily be carried out by visiting various halls to find out students' opinion on this issue. One thing to note is that besides getting views from students, we can extend the survey to residential assistants as well as Hall masters to have more balanced study.
Your choice of study should be of great use to the NUS students' Union as I believe they are the main channel for students to voice out their dismay.
Cheers,
Edwin
I agree that it is really absurd that students need over 80 points to stay in NUS hall and at the same time contribute effectively to all 4 CCAs. Therefore, it is more important to judge on quality rather than quantity of CCA participation. This report will be beneficial to the NUS administration to review on the CCA point system and the need for such high points to qualify for staying in hall.
It’s good that you chose to also include other people who have a CCA and are not staying in hall rather than to just take the opinions of those staying in hall. However, I feel that since a majority of the people in NUS do not stay in hall, and them being the main target audience of your survey, these people would not be interested in it as it does not affect them at all. Furthermore, this does not seem as a major problem in NUS as many students do not even have CCAs.
One suggestion would be to modify your research purpose to how does the CCA point system affect the involvement level (quantity and quality) of participants.
Cheers
Gary
Hi Yun Nian, firstly I would like to commend you for doing a good job in writing out this issue as it provides a fresh perspective for me since I do not live on campus though I got joined one CCA. After reading your blog post on this topic, I realized that in order for one to stay in a hostel/hall on campus, one really needs to earn a lot of CCA points as "living payment". What I knew was that it was not easy to stay in campus as the competition was very fierce and space was limited but I did not imagine that one really needs so many CCA points in order to fulfill the requirement.
You have illustrated out the problem well and we can see that the abuse of the CCA point system by selfish and irresponsible people has led to the various problems faced by many CCA groups. Thus in order to prevent any further trouble, I agree with you that the current CCA point system should be revamped to a qualitative one rather than quantitative. Having a qualitative point system is good in the sense that people who joined only one CCA can commit fully to serve and contribute to the entire club/society. Besides that, the "cost of living" on campus will be easier to earn as one only need to concentrate on a particular area in the CCA to get the points. Nevertheless, there will still be students who complain that they prefer to join more CCAs due to greater exposure to various stuffs even though the CCA points are awarded on a performance basis. I think these students should only do so if they can solemnly declare that they can commit 100% to all the different CCAs that they joined, otherwise just stick to one CCA. Perhaps the option of changing CCA every semester or academic year can compensate for the chance to find different exposures to different things if one feels like doing so.
I think that the survey for this topic will be quite feasible to carry out regardless of whether you want to target the general NUS student population or specifically on those who stay on campus because I feel that university students should not be apathetic to events occurring on their own campus. Thus this study may help to foster some sort of sense of belonging and identity in the students during their course of study in NUS. In this way, it is like killing two birds with one stone. Hence you can also target the reader audience to include the student population besides the NUS Administration as well.
One point to note is that I think you did not state your general research question explicitly even though the idea is there and I roughly understand the issue you are addressing after finishing reading your blog post. Maybe you can defined it clearly so that you may have a clearer sense of direction as to how you want to carry out your research project to suit the right purpose as there are many possible approaches like what Edwin and Gary have stated earlier. Nevertheless, a good and practical topic which can be considered as the voice of the student population living on campus.
Hi Yun Nian. The issue regarding CCA point system in NUS had been close to my heart as I had to join 5 CCAs last academic year in order to earn enough points to stay in King Edward VII (KE7).
Perhaps I can help to clarify and give a different perspective regarding this CCA point system which might help in your research.
The cut-off point to stay in KE7 last year is 53 points which is much higher the average points. Usually a person would need about 40 plus points to stay in Hall and lesser if they are staying in the residences, namely PGP, ridge view or Kwok Foundation. To give a better feel, participating in a sport for the year would earn you 6 points each. Being part of major committees would earn you 14 to 20 points.
Our understanding of CCAs also need to change. Back in secondary school and junior colleges, the commitments for individual CCAs are very high. Thus one might question if it is ever possible to be involved in numerous CCAs. However, the nature of CCAs in the Halls are are different. Their commitment varies depending on its nature. For example, a sport would only require their members to be training once a week. We must also take into account that students staying in Halls have a lot of time. The CCAs are usually at night which non-residences would usually spend watching TV or going out with friends.
Personally, I feel that it is not the issue about the points to stay. If the demand is high, then there will always be a need to have a system to select who can stay. So another way to solve the problem is to tackle the supply of hostel rooms in NUS especially in the light of the Government's policy to welcome more foreigners.
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