wonder why...

went online, surfed around, and now i kinda know why Singapore is excluded from the list of English speaking countries..



according to the Immigration department of Australia, anyone who wants to study in Australia and is applying for a student visa: (as of Feb 2006)

may provide evidence that you have studied in the English language medium for at least 5 years in any one or more of the following countries:

Australia
New Zealand
the United Kingdom
Canada
the United States of America
South Africa
the Republic of Ireland.

and.. for permernant residency, : Evidence of English language ability.

Under policy, from 1 November 2005, all applicants for a GSM visa who are not native born English speakers will need to submit results from an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test undertaken within 12 months of lodging their GSM application to evidence their English language ability.

A native born English language speaker is a person whose first spoken language is English and who is the holder of a passport of the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, New Zealand, United States of America (USA) or the Republic of Ireland. Notwithstanding these policy exemptions, under legislation it is still open to a case officer assessing an application to request an applicant to undertake an IELTS test if they have doubts about an applicant's English language ability or the test results provided.

To ensure that your application is complete when you apply, and facilitate faster processing of your application, you are advised to include sufficient evidence of your English language ability with your application. When forwarding results from your International English Language Testing System test, a certified copy of your results is acceptable.


with the way english is spoken in the podcasts of Mr Brown, i kinda deduced that maybe it's in the interest of Aussies that a holder of SINGAPORE passport is not a native-born english language speaker... after all, i still "cannot" understand some of the so-called english he is speaking...

doesn't this contradict what we have been learning for the past 10yrs in our education system? to speak english?? to have classes conducted in english (save for mother tongue)...