University fully committed to high standards of education and research: NUS

We refer to the TODAY article entitled “Opaque policies, fixation with KPIs, rankings: Why arts and humanities academics quit NUS, NTU” published on Jan 6, 2019.

Despite clarification being sought from NUS, the article did not adequately represent NUS’ position on the matter, resulting in inaccuracies that can affect the reputation and standing of NUS.

The article conveyed the impression that NUS has relentlessly pursued global rankings at the expense of the quality of teaching and welfare of our academic staff, and is arbitrary and irrational in the way it carries out promotion and tenure, which has led to academics from a particular faculty resigning. These allegations are untrue, and were repeated on another Mediacorp platform.

Our system is not perfect — no system is. But our starting point is to have high expectations of our faculty, and we do our best to have an objective and robust promotion and tenure process. Tenure applications go through three separate committees, and are also internationally peer-reviewed. The criteria for promotion and tenure have remained consistent for many years.

The university is guided by our public mission, which we fulfil through teaching and research excellence. We believe that the synergy between teaching and research — and not the overemphasis of one over the other — benefits our students and faculty, and Singapore. Ranking is not a performance indicator for the university nor a driver of change at NUS.

Editor’s Note: TODAY acknowledges that the article entitled “Opaque policies, fixation with KPIs, rankings: Why arts and humanities academics quit NUS, NTU” published on Jan 6, 2019 did not adequately represent the views and position of NUS on the matters reported and included inaccuracies. The article reported that NUS and the provost did not respond to the criticisms of the provost by former employees. TODAY did not share these criticisms with NUS or the provost, nor seek their response on them. The article also said that there was no information on NUS’ promotion processes on its website. In fact, NUS had earlier informed TODAY that information on NUS’ policy on promotion and tenure is available to all staff in the Academic Staff Handbook, which is accessible on the university’s intranet. We are sorry for the errors.