Okay okay, I admit that I was a bit slow on my news, even later than CNA who broke the news 2 weeks late. And that I got some of the facts wrong initially. (He was a PSC Scholar bond breaker, not affliated to A*Star apparently). But this issue lasted more than 15 minutes on a over the meal discussion today and it got me really curious to find what really happened other than the few lines I read from the rss feed. The more I read about it, the more I got hook to the story. It's like the biggest scandal since the Clinton - Lewinsky thingy...

Chen Jiahao had quite a few things in common with me. He was a PSC teaching scholar, just like I was. (No, I'm not a bond breaker, PSC just transferred all local scholarships to the respective ministries in the middle of my studies). He got sick with the red tape and unhelpfulness of PSC in issues just like I did and we shared some of the same views regarding the research done in Singapore.

So who is this Chen Jiahao guy? He is a smart ass who did his degree in 2 years overseas, was accepted in MIT and applied to do his masters in another 2 years through PSC. But 3 weeks before his course, after all the preparation, PSC said no go and made him serve his NS. After the hell he went through, he decided to pay the damages and break his bond to pursue his PhD in US. Read More of it in New Paper's article, do read the comments posted by himself too.

In US, he started to be a critic on various issues, including A*Star policies. All the information is gone with the closure of his blog, but one of his write-up survived elsewhere. He wrote on the current state of Singapore Science and below is an extract:

" Columns The Singapore government has been lauding Singapore as a technologically advanced nation and a world-class leader in research and development, especially in recent years with the earmarking of billions of dollars of taxpayers' funding for encouraging scientific research, particularly in the life sciences. Yet a closer inspection at scientific statistics tells a different tale from the official party line."

... ...

"The conclusion is crystal-clear: we are very good at producing unstimulating scientific research. In other words, we are good at wasting trees. A conclusion that is bolstered by considering that in the years 1993 - 2003, Singapore was ranked 36th in prolificity (i.e. number of papers published in all disciplines) out of 145 countries, but only 92nd in terms of relative impact (citations per paper)."

... ...

" 1. That the top 20 countries are leaps and bounds ahead of Singapore, if for nothing else for the sheer availability of resources. So by definition it will be very difficult for Singapore to match up against these truly world-class countries.
2. We can write many papers, but obviously not many people care about them.
3. Singapore is not a major contributor to the physical sciences, even in per capita and per paper terms. Even in the life sciences, she is not doing well consistently across the board.
4. Comparisons with similarly-sized countries show that we are simply not holding the fort even in our own middleweight class.


If this is what a quick look at a few numbers can reveal, how many more ugly truths need to be dug up from more in-depth analyses before Singapore will heed this sobering wake-up call? "

Read More of it here

What had happened was that A*STAR demanded Chen Jiahao to take down statements he had made that defamed them. According to CNA. A*Star said the post-graduate student made serious accusations that hit at the core of the organisation’s integrity, such as bribery, misuse of money and misbehaviour. However, the article in CNA may have been changed and the bribery part has disappeared. Reference here.

TODAY Online featured an article on the AcidGate issue that A*Star was not satisfied with the simple apology. Apparently, A*Star Chairman, Philip Yeo, the same guy who labelled EDB bond breakers as Immoral, claimed that one of Chen's post contains defamatory remarks. But according to Chen's latest reply published in the local blogosphere, it seems that after receiving 11 threatening and insulting emails from Philips Yeo, Chen still do not know exactly which remarks were found to be offensive after asking for clarifications in writing 3 times.

If you made it this far, goes to show you are interested in this issue too. Here's Acidflask's reply to CNA's "far from neutral" report.


Tagged: Singapore