\nBy Neo Chai Chin, TODAY | Posted: 27 February 2008 1014 hrs<\/p>\n
In his six months in Singapore, Indian student Nalla Jeevan Reddy has lost 7kg from cutting down on food portions and skipping meals. He\u2019s not trying to lose weight \u2014 the 28-year-old hotel management student at a private school has been trying to keep his living expenses in check.<\/p>\n
As Singaporeans bemoan the rising cost of living, another segment of society has been hit hard \u2014 students from abroad, especially those at private schools who rent accommodation on the open market and take public transport to school.
\n![\"blog-part-time-working.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/blog-part-time-working.jpg\")
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The full article can be found here courtesy of Channelnewsasia<\/a>. How\u2019s this article of any interest to me? Well, I empathize with the difficulty foreign students have when they study in their host countries. I mean, it wasn\u2019t so long ago that I was also juggling working and my Ph.D in Perth. In my case, money was a big and persistent issue, which in no small part gave me incentive to finish my thesis without delay. I had to budget my daily expenditures carefully.<\/p>\n In fact, Ling\u2019s often exasperated at my penny-picking when it comes to household expenditure and my need to see expense and income figures balanced on our home financial spreadsheets. It all comes from those years of having to account for every dollar I was spending (the costs of the Ph.D nearly completely exhausted all my savings, and my parents had to help too), and keeping spending rules strictly. E.g. my per meal expense was properly fixed, and if I spent more on a certain meal on one day, the next day I\u2019d go lighter.<\/p>\n Of course, all that\u2019s behind me now; the both of us aren\u2019t well-off but we\u2019re about OK now that both of us are working, even if it feels more like we\u2019re working for DBS bank<\/a> to pay off our housing loan. This sort of financial accounting was initially all foreign to Ling, who – like at least one other friend in our bible study group who I\u2019m sure will be reading this entry some time haha – believes that as long as she has some savings after a month, all\u2019s well and good. I think my monthly reports on our financial spending unnerved her at the start, but these days she\u2019s gotten used to it.<\/p>\n But coming back to the issue of foreign students working in Singapore, I\u2019m also reminded of my experiences in private schools, who till today continue to draw in many international students. I remember the suspicions my colleagues and I had 10 years ago of a few select students who we were never really certain what they were really in Singapore for. To reveal more than that, well it gets really sensitive and dwells into this very murky area about the issue of student passes back then. What remains true is that some foreign students in private schools sometimes do have it very rough here, what with some of these schools closing down suddenly, or the most recent fiasco where a few teaching staff possess certifications from degree mills. I remember one Bulgarian student, Iordanka Apostolova, in the school I was teaching at 10 years ago who was found brutally murdered. I can\u2019t remember the full details, but if my memory hasn\u2019t failed me, I recall it was over money issues with the accused \/ guilty (the incident is mentioned briefly here<\/a> in court documents).<\/p>\n Either way, it\u2019ll be interesting to see what comes of this increasing awareness that the rising costs of living in Singapore doesn\u2019t only affect the locals, but also long-term visitors here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was another article in the local newspapers several days that caught my eye. Here\u2019s the capsule version: As foreign students face rising costs in Singapore, is part-time work an option? By Neo Chai Chin, TODAY | Posted: 27 February<\/p>\n