I refer to the letter Let's have Asian-class universities first by Casey El.

The index of the world's top 500 universities which he provides is compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) 'Institute of Higher Education'.

An essential condition for any university to be included, according to the SJTU website, is that the institute has Nobel prizewinners (who were affiliated to the university at the time of receiving the Nobel prize) and has highly-cited researchers or papers published in Nature or Science .

SJTU itself admits that: 'Any ranking is controversial and no ranking is absolutely objective. People should be cautious about any ranking including our academic ranking of world universities."

I hope people will challenge Casey El's implied assertion. The SJTU ranking is meaningless in itself.

One wishes that our universities will ask instead:

What is the aim of education?

What is excellence in education?

Where can we excel, by driving research efforts in science, in fields that are appropriate to our resources as a small nation?

Will it benefit us, as a whole, to retain the perceived mono-ethnic bias (perceptions count, whether accurate or not) of our universities' academic organisation or has that reliance on ethnic bias given us a spurious social stability spinning us downwards to scholastic somnolence?

Is including ethnic bias as a large ingredient in many, if not most decisions, ultimately compatible with excellence in research and education?

Lets not fritter away the benevolent, peaceful and friendly relations between the races that can often be observed. Whoever we are, lets resolve to act to begin to transform our country into a superior place.

I apologise if I have given offence to some sensitive souls.