Q&A: What is wrong with degrees from private universities?

Hello again, let's continue on the theme of further education. My regular readers will know that I like to answer good questions but sometimes I also like to answer the very bad ones, like this one raised by my reader James who is quite proud of the fact that he has a degree from SIM. So, this is what James had to say on the issue, "You seem to think SIM's qualifications are worthless but many of them are issued by good universities like University of London, RMIT and University of Warwick. Are the degrees issued by these universities worthless? Why do you think SIM grads are stupid, useless and have no future? I'm really disappointed to read your comments on SIM graduates. I hope your views on them are not shared by other gatekeepers. I wanted to leave S'pore because I feel the people and employers here have elitist views. I hope the society in Canada and Britain is less elitist. Therefore I hope to find skilled work in Britain or Canada based on my Degree issued by a good UK university although I studied studied for it in SIM."

Are all degrees equal? No, clearly not.

Interestingly enough, a fellow blogger and friend of mine Jeraldine has recently blogged about the issue of those with degrees from private universities in Singapore and the disadvantages they may face. She has covered many of the pros and cons about doing a degree from a private university from Singapore (Kaplan Higher Education Institute; Management Development Institute of Singapore; Ngee Ann-Adelaide Education Centre; SIM-GE etc) so if I may refer you to her article please. I think Jeraldine writes very well and I do like her blog. Whilst I thought her article is well written, I do feel that she was trying very hard to be politically correct and not offend anyone - such is her writing style. On the other hand, I can be brutally blunt and I don't really care whom I offend in doing so - that is why I recommend that you do read her article as well as mine to get a balanced picture on the issue. I will be talking not just about SIM in this piece, but about degrees from private universities in general.

As the question suggests, yes I clearly don't think that degrees from private universities like SIM are not worth much at all. But allow me to deal with the specific issue about the qualifications being issued by good universities like UOL, RMIT and Warwick. Does that mean that a degree from SIM is the same as one from UOL, RMIT and Warwick? No it doesn't. Let's look at the facts: SIM-GE (Singapore Institute of Management - Global Education) offers programmes whereby the student can study at the SIM campus in Singapore whilst getting a degree issued by a British, American or Australian university. On their website, they invite you to "study at global universities right here in Singapore". It does represent a massive saving for Singaporean students who cannot afford to study in the UK, US or Australia as studying abroad for three years is very expensive indeed. But why is a degree obtained via the private university route so different then, if it is issued by the same university? Do they use the same syllabus, subject to the same standards?

What does your degree say about you?

I am going to compare two degrees. There is the SIM Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Economics, which is developed and awarded by University of London (UOL), and  the lead college, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Allow me to explain that UOL is a collegiate research university located in London, England, consisting of 18 constituent colleges, 10 research institutes and a number of central bodies. However, for the purpose of league tables, individual universities within the UOL network like UCL, LSE, Royal Holloway and King's appear as individual colleges and you do not see 'UOL' appear on these rankings. This is because UOL is simply an umbrella body whilst these individual universities operate very independently. May I also state for the record that UOL's universities are excellent and all appear very near the top of the league table - with UCL having the reputation of usually appearing 3rd on the UK's league tables (thus giving it the reputation of being the place where Oxford and Cambridge rejects end up). Still, anything in the top ten of the league tables in the UK is considered very good. In fact, the great Lee Kuan Yew studied at LSE back in the 1940s. Let's compare that SIM degree in economics directly to the equivalent offered by LSE: the BSc Economics programme at LSE. So, how are the two different?

The first problem that SIM graduates face is the low level of entry - I use the term GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) to describe the situation. That means you can't polish a turd: you get students of low intelligence and low calibre, subject to a 3-year academic programme and guess what? You can teach them anything you want - but you just can't increase their IQ at the end of the day. I'm not going to be politically correct or nice here: no university in the world can make a stupid person smart. It doesn't work like that. Heck, you can enroll a stupid person at Cambridge or Oxford and subject him to the best academic programme in the world, it still wouldn't change the fact that he is, well, for want of a better word, plain stupid. This is why the best universities in the world only accept the very best students because they are not going to bother with any less than the best - you need nothing less than straight As to even dream about applying to a university like Oxford or Cambridge. If you want to do medicine or law at NUS, you'll need to be amongst the best in your cohort. This then becomes a question of supply and demand: if there are only say 100 places in a popular course at a top university and there are over 10,000 applicants that year, the university is clearly going to pick the best 100 students for the course rather than randomly assign the places or operate a first come first serve basis.

Is this fair? Who cares about 'fairness'. These universities don't give a shit about being fair - they have their reputations to protect. More to the point, universities have a duty to their students first and foremost to provide the best possible learning environment, for them to have the best possible experience. They are not there to somehow redress the issues of inequality in society by helping the underprivileged. You should turn to your government on that issue - rather than expect universities to address that issue. There is intensive competition between the universities at the very top of the league tables and one way to get ahead of the competition is to ensure that you admit only the very best students and reject those whom you deem not intelligent or capable enough. You need to realize that these universities are not charities but more like businesses - in fact, it takes a lot of money to run a big university and whilst students do pay fees to study there, many universities are also reliant on external funding.

Competition for such funding is extremely intense and let's look at this example: the headline for this article reads, "UK universities get £7.5m cyber security research funding" - that's rather misleading I'm afraid because the £7.5m (about S$15.4 million)  is in fact only given to two universities: Oxford and Royal Holloway (part of UOL). Needless to say, Oxford is at the top of the league table and Royal Holloway is very near the top. The universities at the wrong end of the league table would never dream about getting such lucrative funding deals because of the poor quality of their students, it would be like casting pearls at swines. The elite universities like Oxford at the top of the league table will always get the money because the government knows how brilliant the students are at Oxford, as Oxford only accepts the very best students. Is this elitist? Of course it is, welcome to the real world, time to smell the coffee and wake up.

Yup, it is all about the money.Money, money, money.

Now's let's look at the admission criteria for the SIM-GE course: this information can be found on SIM-GE's website (it is a long pdf document, you want page 33).

• satisfy course requirements in English (GCE ‘O’ level - C6 or better in English) and Mathematics (GCE ‘O’ level - grade C or C6 and above or its equivalent)
• two approved* GCE ‘A’/H2 level subjects and three approved* GCE ‘O’ level subjects, OR
• three approved* GCE ‘A’/H2 level subjects and one approved* GCE ‘O’ level subject, OR 
• three H2 passes provided that at least grades D, E, E are obtained, OR 
• two H2 and two H1 passes provided they are in non-overlapping subjects

Allow me to translate that to the lowest possible entry level: we're talking about a student who has the following grades qualifying for the course. Note that this is a 'worst possible combination that still grants you entry to SIM'.

'O' Level results

• English C6 
• Mathematics C6
• Subject 1 (eg. Georgraphy) C6
• Subject 2 (eg. Physics) C6
• Subject 3 (eg. Chinese) C6

Have you proven yourself worthy in the exams?

This gives you an L1R4 score of 5 x 6 = 30. It is an atrocious result by Singaporean standards. It is the kind of result that makes you say, "oh dear, did you fall sick during the exams or are you just plain stupid?"  If we were to assume that the student scored another C6 for another 'O' level subject, that would give you a L1R5 score of 6 x 6 = 36. Note that you would need an L1R5 score of less than 20 to be considered for a JC and most poly courses. These are students who have done so badly they are considered walking disasters not just by the elitist people, but by mainstream Singaporean society. Now I am not saying that all SIM-GE students have L1R4 scores of 30, I'm sure some of them score better than that but my point is that SIM-GE will gladly accept students who have performed extremely badly in their 'O' levels - whilst some might consider them as a kind university giving students a second chance when NUS or NTU would reject them, I'm a lot more cynical. This 'second chance' comes at a high price: SIM degrees are more expensive than NUS degrees for Singaporean citizens. A 3-year BSc programme at SIM-GE costs S$27,800, whilst at NUS, the equivalent is S$23,850. Is this a stupidity tax, that somehow, a degree for students with poorer grades is more expensive? Let's look at the entry requirements for the similar course (BSc Economics) at LSE: 

Usual standard offer: For students taking three A levels: grades A* A A with an A* in Mathematics. For students taking four or more A levels: grades A*A A plus a pass in a fourth A level, with an A* in Mathematics. Students taking Further Mathematics to AS level only will be required to achieve grade A

We're talking A-level students with straight As, nothing less than the very best. If you even get a B, you will be rejected. In fact, many Singaporean scholars go to LSE because it is such a prestigious university. This tells us something important about the supply (the number of places available for the course at LSE) and the demand for it (the number of applicants for the course). The course is clearly so popular with students with excellent results that LSE can afford to set the level of entry so high and admit only those with the very best results. Do I need to state the obvious? If you had excellent A level results, would you choose to study at LSE or would you go to SIM? It is obvious which you would choose: you would go to LSE to spend your next three years in the company of students who are brilliant rather than three years at SIM with students who have grades so bad they cannot get into a half-decent university. 

The quality of the cohort of students makes a vast difference in terms of how the teaching is conducted at the university: if the students are brilliant and understand complex concepts a lot more quickly, then the tutors can push their students even further and challenge them to do independent projects on topics of their interest. But if the students are stupid and struggle to understand even the most basic concepts, then the tutors are going to dumb down the syllabus and be a lot less ambitious. A teacher can only teach at a pace that is suitable to the students: if the students are slow, then the teaching has got to be slow and the result is that the students don't learn much. There's is no point in a teacher trying to bludgeon a bunch of slow students through the syllabus quickly when the students are too slow to catch up with the teacher. If your classmates are cleverer than you, you will be under a lot of pressure to catch up with them and work harder. But if your classmates are dumber than you, then you will be lured into a false sense of security as you feel smarter than them. This could explain why some SIM-GE students may feel that they are very capable compared to their classmates - but put them next to an LSE student and you will see the difference immediately. To put it bluntly, the fastest tortoise in a group of tortoise may feel like he is Usain Bolt when compared to the other tortoises, but put him next to a mixed group of other animals (horses, dogs, tigers, cats, cows, lions, goats, chickens, reindeer, monkeys, ducks, elephants, bears etc) then it will be apparent just how very slow the tortoise is. 

Will a tortoise ever be as fast as a horse?

This brings me to my next point: the bell curve distribution, this is how grades are assigned at university: it is not the actual score per se, but how well you do relative to the other students who took the same exam. The grades are not absolute, but relative! Even though UOL-LSE is issuing the degree, the actual grading of the degree is done according to the bell curve distribution set against the rest of the cohort of the SIM-GE students doing the same exam. Have a look at the bell curve to understand how it works. What this means is that if you want to get an A for an exam at SIM, all you have to do is to outperform your other classmates on the same course. Is the SIM student with straight-As a brilliant student, as capable as a student from a top university like Oxford, Cambridge or LSE then? No. I'm sorry, if the SIM student was really clever, then he wouldn't be in SIM in the first place. That's the harsh truth - he would have gone to a better university. The fact that he scored an A only means that he is smarter than his (also not very intelligent) classmates. To illustrate my point, let's deal with an unlikely situation where a little administrative mix up happens. 

Let's assume that all the SIM exam scripts are sent to LSE for marking and one of the SIM exam scripts gets mixed up with the rest of the exam scripts from the LSE students. It is marked and the student scored 51/100 - the LSE students scored between 56 and 93 for this exam, so as this was the worst score in that cohort, it was graded an F. The results are then sent to Singapore and the office manager notices that one of the results are missing. The office manager than calls up the people at LSE, inquiring about the missing result. The people at LSE locate the missing, misplaced exam script and sends it off to Singapore. The grade on the script is then changed from an F to an A+ when compared against the other SIM students who scored between 23 and 50 for the same exam. The student then gets a phone call with some good news, "hey we have found your missing exam script and you scored an A+ on that exam - well done! That is a great result!" But he is none the wiser about the F he was initially awarded, the people at SIM know about the F, but they chose not to tell the student. So you see, the grade (be it an A or an F) doesn't really tell you anything about the student's ability, until you consider the cohort of the other students he is compared to. 

To stay with our animals analogy, let's imagine there is an Animal Olympics whereby all the animals compete against other animals of the same species in sporting events.  There is a race called the 10 km mountain trek which involves the animals trekking along a long mountain path, but as the path is narrow, the animals have to set off in small groups during the race (whilst being timed by competition officials) and the final results are sent to the animal bureau for sports where they would then compile the results and announce the winners. The tortoise isn't really trying to outrun the cheetahs, jaguars and horses - the tortoise only needs to run faster than all the other tortoises to win the gold medal. Now imagine if the tortoise called James recorded a time of 2 hours 20 minutes for this mountain trek - whilst it may be the fastest time amongst the tortoises, the race horses completed the mountain trek in between 10  and 13 minutes. Imagine if the clerk at the bureau for animal sports made an error and accidentally filed James the tortoise's results under the category for horses - at 2 hours 20 minutes, James finishes last in his race. But once the error was discovered, the clerk corrected his mistake and suddenly James goes from being last to being a gold medal winner. 

That's me at that 2012 London Olympics - for humans!

The fact that James the tortoise ran the same 10 km path in the mountains as the race horses doesn't mean that he ran it as fast as the race horses did - ultimately, even the slowest race horse who completed the course in just over 13 minutes is still a lot faster than James who took 2 hours 20 minutes. Likewise, even if an SIM student studies the same syllabus as an LSE student and takes the same exam as an LSE student doesn't mean that the SIM student is as capable as the LSE student. We go back to the tortoise vs race horse analogy - us gatekeepers are not dumb, you think we don't know the difference? Huh. We know that a degree issued by UOL-LSE via an external private university isn't the same quality as one from LSE because of the grading process. As gatekeepers do not have access to the original exam scripts, we have to simply interpret the results that we see before us: hence a first class degree from SIM is like a tortoise who won in 2 hours 20 minutes, whilst a third class degree from LSE is a slightly slower racehorse who took 13 minutes to complete the same trek. I would still gladly choose a slow racehorse over a fast tortoise. In short, it is my job as a gatekeeper to know the difference between a tortoise and a race horse. 

Now I know what you're going to say, why haven't I mentioned Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare? Well let's look at that then - in that story, the much faster hare is so confident of winning that he takes a nap midway through the rest, only to allow the tortoise to win. It still doesn't change the fact that both the hare and the tortoise took an awfully long time to complete the race - and as a gatekeeper, neither the hare nor the tortoise are any good to me. The hare may have made a terrible error of judgement, but that doesn't change the fact that the tortoise was still incredibly slow. Quite simply, two wrongs don't make a right! I would ideally like to hire a hare who will only take naps after the race is won, I don't want to hire a tortoise who is really slow. Besides, there were only two competitors in that race: in the real world, gatekeepers will receive so many applications for any one position they advertise for - thus they never really need to give any slow tortoises any chances when there are plenty of faster animals to choose from. Aesop may have been trying to make a point about humility and arrogance, but this fable will not help any SIM graduate in real life.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Now you may be thinking, how does SIM get away with this? Isn't this misleading? Is it at the very least, a serious case of grade inflation? Shouldn't their students be subjected to the same standards as the university issuing the degree - UOL-LSE? The answer is simple: if SIM subjected this students to LSE standards, then all their students will fail, not a single student will actually graduate as they will all get Fs in every single module, in every single exam. Nobody wants to go to a university where they have no hope of passing any exam and no hope of ever graduating if they fail every single test. It would be like expecting a tortoise to run a race with a group of race horses - the tortoise cannot realistically catch up with the race horses. That is why SIM students are only really competing against each other, rather than anyone from any other university. That's why SIM gladly passes at least most of their students and issues them with a degree - but don't worry, us gatekeepers are aware of how this system works and we are under no illusions about the ability of students from private universities like SIM.

Now why am I so mean - why am I so utterly evil, why am I comparing SIM graduates to slow tortoises who will never catch up with the faster animals? This is a direct response to my reader James who claimed in a comment on my blog that, "I got a degree in IT from UniSIM but I'm sure I can do as good a job as those from top Unis like Cambridge, Harvard or MIT." My response to that is, "well James, if you are as capable as those who went to Cambridge, Harvard or MIT - then why didn't you go to a more respectable university? Why couldn't you at least get into NUS? Why did you end up at SIM? How did you mess up your secondary education so badly - oh dear James, what happened? Like did you get dengue fever during the exams?" I'm sorry if it sounds incredibly demeaning to have to put it in those terms, but you've got to admit, it is a reasonable question with only one logical answer: James is not as clever as those who make it to Cambridge, Harvard or MIT. Heck, he is not even clever enough for NUS. That is why he is in SIM. Well, that's how I would see it anyway, as a gatekeeper. Most people are simply too polite to correct someone like James when he comes up with a statement like that, but I'm not that polite I suppose. Limpeh's blog is actually very un-PC.

Does it matter which university you went to?

So why do universities like RMIT, Warwick and UOL-LSE participate in such programmes then? Are they not worried that such graduates from SIM will simply tarnish the good reputations of their universities? Well, I have a simple answer for you: money. Yup, it is all about money - it costs a lot of money to run a big university and in the age of austerity, governments are slashing budgets for education. All universities are always looking for new and innovative ways to make more money. There are often legal caps on just how much fees the universities can charge the students - so they have got to look for other ways to make money. Issuing degrees through external programmes is a really easy way to make money: the university simply shares their syllabus for their students with the external organization and marks the exam scripts. They may allow external students to spend a term or two on their campus at a price (hey, nothing is for free) and for the privilege of claiming, "my degree is issued by this prestigious university", the university gets to charge each external student quite a hefty fee, often without the external even ever setting foot on the campus. It is a great way to make money - they are cashing in on their good reputations. Note that the top universities like Oxford, Cambridge and other Ivy League universities would never take part in something like that - they have enough money and to engage in external programmes like that is probably too demeaning for them.

Now as a gatekeeper, how would I deal with this situation? I would look at the details of the applicant's education and see what university s/he attended. If there's any kind of ambiguity whether the student actually attended the university or procured the degree via an external programme (such as through SIM-GE), then I would verify that with the applicant and if necessary, ask to see the degree itself. If I am still in doubt, I would always check with the university itself to see if the student did attend the university s/he claimed s/he did. You can't lie about things like that on your CV, you would be caught out by gatekeepers. Even if you did manage to somehow fool a gatekeeper, you would certainly be caught out during the job interview itself. You can't hope for charity or sympathy during a job interview, get real.

Will your degree help you find a good job?

So as to the blunt question: Why do you think SIM grads are stupid, useless and have no future? Well, I'm not making any personal attacks here: I am merely interpreting the data. If a student does so badly in his studies that he cannot qualify for a decent university and turns to SIM as a last resort, than what does that tell you about the student? The words "stupid" and "useless" might be used by some to describe the student in question, but most people would be kinder and avoid using such harsh words. Do they have no future? What I would say is that their degrees are hardly going to help them find a job in this competitive environment given how gatekeepers treat people from private universities like SIM. You may as well have not even bothered with a degree in that case - but loads of people do enter the workforce without a degree and still manage to build a very successful career for themselves. My opinion is that you're better off without a lousy degree than to spend all that time, money and effort getting a lousy one from SIM - you would have at least saved a lot of money (S$27,800 is a lot of money for a degree that is not going to help you) and three years of your life, with which, you could have perhaps gained some valuable work experience.

Finally, are Western societies less elitist than Singapore? Would we hire a graduate from SIM whose degree is issued by a (supposedly) good British university? Oh James, you are so going to be disappointed. At the end of the day, whether you are in Bedok or Boston, Bishan or Birmingham, one very basic principle still applies: gatekeepers take their jobs very seriously and we do not want to make any mistakes. Trust me, I've been a gatekeeper and if I made a mistake, my neck would be on the line and my boss would not be kind to me. What kind of mistakes are we talking about? It is quite possible to hire the wrong person for the job: the new guy struggles to pick up the skills, does not respond well to the training and keeps messing up. The boss gets angry and the inevitable happens: either the new guy jumps before he is pushed by quitting (you'll be amazed how many people do that) or the boss fires the new guy. The boss then turns to the gatekeeper in rage and screams, "what the hell were you thinking, he was so useless!"

Gatekeepers do not want to be held responsible for a mistake!

Look at this situation from the point of view of the company. The company spent time, money and resources training up the new guy - the new guy would have been paid for the time he worked for the company (which in this case, let's just say it is several weeks' salary) - regardless of the circumstances, the company still needs to pay him for the time he worked there. Various members of staff would have spent him training this new guy and after the new guy is gone, they have to start all over again and spend more time, money and resources recruiting a new person to fill that position. This kind of mistake is very costly for the company - we're talking about thousands of dollars down the drain because they hired the wrong person! Work is not done, time is wasted and they still need to start all over again and hire someone else - it is nothing short of a disaster. The boss would blame the gatekeeper when such a mistake happens and it is the ultimate nightmare for every gatekeeper (even though most gatekeepers would make sure the boss agrees to any hiring decision). Now that's a pretty horrible position that no gatekeeper wants to be in.

Allow me to share something I have experienced years ago - there were two such cases in a company I used to work for. One was a posh guy who had a degree from Oxford in history - he is clearly an intelligent guy but simply couldn't adapt to a business environment (which let's face it, was a world away from writing history essays and analyzing historical events). When he was sacked, the bosses merely shrugged their shoulders and said, "what a shame, an Oxford graduate, so intelligent! He was such a nice guy, we gave him so many chances yet he just couldn't make it, oh well. I hope he manages to get a good job elsewhere." But when the same thing happened to a graduate from a university somewhat lower down the league tables, the bosses gave the gatekeeper hell for having given that guy a chance. Double standards? You bet. They were far more forgiving towards the guy from Oxford and far less patient towards to the other guy. So is this fair? Probably not, but what has fairness got to do with it? Please read the memo:

Did you get the memo? Here it is James.

At the end of the day, you may call this elitism, but for profit-making companies, it is not just about trying to maximize profits by hiring the best talents - it is also about minimizing loss by avoiding bad mistakes (like the one made by hiring the history graduate from Oxford). I would like to finish by sharing a story about a very kind PE teacher from my primary school, let's call him Mr Kind. There was a really fat kid in my class, let's call him Ah Pui (Hokkien for 'fatty'). Ah Pui hated sports because he got exhausted quickly and often got teased by the other kids for being fat and clumsy. Mr Kind wanted Ah Pui to have a positive experience in sports, so he started making us play games like basketball and football and he made sure one team was a lot stronger than the other team (and almost guaranteed victory) - but Ah Pui would always be in the stronger team. That meant that Ah Pui could at least have a taste of victory in sport as his team would always win, then Mr Kind would praise him for how well he played. Mr Kind hopes that the positive experience of winning would make Ah Pui enjoy sports more and do more exercise.

The other kids knew what Mr Kind was up to and so one day, when Mr Kind praised Ah Pui, they pointed out, "but Mr Kind, Ah Pui didn't even score any of the goals, he just stood around and did very little, I don't even think he even touched the basketball during the entire game - so what are you praising him for Mr Kind?" You know what kids are like! Mr Kind would then made up some story about team work and how everyone in the basketball team has a role to play, that victory depended on the whole team working together and so everyone deserved to feel praised, not just the boys who scored the goals. Of course, Mr Kind didn't fool me (nor most of the other kids), but I didn't feel the need to say anything because I sensed that Ah Pui realized exactly what Mr Kind was doing. So yes, there are nice people in life like Mr Kind who do go out of the way to level the playing field in life for people like Ah Pui - but he was able to only do it within the limited context of a primary school PE lesson and there was a limit to how much Mr Kind could do.

Ah Pui won many basketball games - but was he any good at it?

Those who are arguing against elitism are hoping for people to be nice, to do what Mr Kind did and to level the playing field for them - why should the children of the elite get access to better opportunities in life just because their parents have bought them that privilege? I can see where that sentiment is coming from: it can be extremely frustrating to see the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor, when social mobility is just an idea that politicians wax lyrical about. But at the end of the day, Mr Kind had really nothing to lose in his little social experience to fix the games to make sure that Ah Pui won every time. If you were to ask gatekeepers like me to level the playing field, I'm just going to turn around and say no - sorry but I have way too much to lose: if I select the wrong candidate by leveling the playing field, the company could lose thousands of dollars and I could get blamed, even sacked for that mistake. I have everything to lose and nothing to gain by leveling the playing field - so even if I don't support the idea of elitism in principle, I really have no motivation to do anything to challenge the status quo. Surely the onus to solve inequality in society should be placed on governments, rather than individual companies or individuals. I'm afraid the business world is very different from the primary school environment and if you really miss the innocence of that environment, I can only suggest that you go become a primary school teacher so you can indeed play the role of Mr Kind with nothing lose.

So that's it from me on this topic. I hope I've done it justice. It's a huge issue with so many questions, I've said plenty and now I invite you to leave a comment below and please let me know what you think. Many thanks for reading.