I have a few Muslim friends and it was after they shared their opinion with me that I realized that there are too few stalls around NUS canteens that serve Halal food. Taking the Science canteen for example, there are effectively two stalls that do serve Halal food and they are namely the Malay and Indian food stall. I am Catholic so there is no restriction to my choice of food and I already feel bored of the various stalls there are at Science. Therefore, I would patronize the canteens of the different faculties on different days of the week. I cannot imagine how restricted the Muslim students in school must feel. Fortunately, Megabites has been added which provides some variety to the Science canteen, but Science is considered lucky as other faculties have just one or two Halal food stalls.
One might argue that there are not that many Muslim students anyway so we do not need that many Halal stalls, but I beg to differ and I feel that even though they may be a minority group, they deserve to have a wider variety of food than what is currently available. Besides, many types of food that the Chinese eat can be made Halal as long as it does not contain pork and if a little effort is put into purchasing Halal meat. On the other extreme, I am not proposing that every stall in NUS canteens be made Halal as that is not feasible because many Chinese and Japanese dishes contain pork.
Therefore, my research question would be “Are there enough Halal food stalls in NUS canteens?”
An attitudinal survey is necessary to assess if the general consensus amongst the students (both Muslims and non-Muslims) is that there should be more Halal food stalls in the canteen of the respective faculty that they frequent the most. Both Muslims and non-Muslims have to be included in the survey to get a fair representation of how our student population feels as the two groups may have contrasting opinions about the issue. Once the consensus of the majority opinion is compiled from the attitudinal surveys, our findings can then be shown to the Office of Estate and Development in NUS to propose for the introduction of more Halal food stalls.
6 comments:
Hey Matthew! Yes, I do agree that there is a significantly lower number of Muslim food stalls or stalls that sell Halal food as compared to other non-Muslim stalls in NUS. NUS has a multiracial and multicultural environment and it is therefore vital for the varsity to take care of the needs of students from every race, culture and religion. These studies are therefore crucial to inform the varsity of the various problems that students face (even if they are a minority group).
However, with regards to the research question you suggested (ie. Are there enough Halal food stalls in NUS canteens?), it may be difficult to determine what "enough" is since everyone will have a different view of what is enough for them. I feel that maybe you can consider rephrasing your research question to "Should there be more Halal food stalls in NUS canteens?".
On the receptivity of NUS students on such a survey, I find that it will be difficult to get a balanced opinion on this issue since Muslim students will undoubtedly feel more strongly about the lack of Muslim food stalls than students of other religions. Therefore, the main factor that may determine the result of this study could be the number of Muslim students that responded to our survey since other students may be indifferent or even unreceptive of the idea. Generally, I feel that what non-Muslim students look for in the canteens are the variety and quality of food sold there. Therefore, increasing the number of Muslim food stall would mean that some of the non-Muslim food stalls will be removed or that some dishes containing pork will be removed from the menu. Thus, some people might not agree with that unless it means building more or larger canteens.
Overall, I feel that this study is feasible as long as a good sample of NUS students is selected to to respond to the survey (eg. conducting 2 separate surveys for Muslim and non-Muslim students to gauge the general consensus within this 2 groups before coming to a general conclusion). Cheers!
Hi Matthew. I also have a few Muslim friends who also voiced out regarding this issue. By not recognising this problem earlier, I feel that NUS is not sensitive as it should be being a multiracial and multicultural institute.
I propose that perhaps the study should be based only on Muslims as that is our primary concern. Finding out how the non-Muslim feels might be irrelevant as this doesn't affect them. Even if the non-Muslim are against having more halal stall, it should not change the fact that we still need to be sensitive to our Muslim friends.
And I don't think we should be concerned about which canteen they frequent the most as the students' racial composition changes with each academic year. Each faculty canteen should strive towards being Muslim friendly. It is also undesirable that we end up having a 'Muslim corner' as it is natural for Muslims to frequent there and keep to their community if that's where most the Muslim stalls are.
Hey Shaun, I see your point. Yes, that is the reason why I have to include both Muslim and non-Muslim students in the survey, but instead of splitting the two groups into separate survey groups, it would be more accurate if the proportion Muslims in the survey was around the proportion of Muslims in school. Either that or we can just choose a few locations around school to conduct our survey and stop a fixed amount of students without discrimination of religion and there should represent a fair proportion of Muslims if our sample size is large enough.
Hey Matthew! I so agree with you on the choice and variety food in NUS. Likewise, I could just imagine how our Muslims friends might feel with so little choices available.
I would definitely think this research topic is feasible, even more so when generally most of us can relate to it. I too agree with Shaun on re-phrasing the research question slightly. Maybe to make it even clearer and more define, your research question could probably be phrased like, "Should NUS canteens comprise of at least 30% serving Halal food?". Something like those along those lines. As to Shaun's proposed research question, one could answer "yes, there should be more." But what exactly is more? 1 or 2 more stalls? or 3?
To reinforce what peng siang mentioned, we shouldnt be too concerned with which canteen they frequent. We probably should stick to a particular muslim stall to other food stalls ratio and apply it throughout the various canteens. (:
Hello there. To be frank, I've never really realised that there's a lack of muslim food stalls in NUS. I suppose that's the insensitivity of being the majority sometimes. And now that you mentioned, I do agree that the number of malay food stalls in NUS is rather small. Thus, being a multicultural institute(yes, i think it has been mentioned quite a few times), we should really look into the matter to find out if the number of malay food stalls is insufficient to cater to the needs of our Malay friends. (or even for those who simply love Malay food)
I believe your research question is simply a summation/general idea of what you wish to find out. I would agree with Shaun to probably consider using one which is less subjective. You think so? Nevertheless, I think that carrying out the survey is surely feasible and appropriate since it targets at us and such an issue concerns NUS students.
Well, for one thing i'm sure of is that the malay stall in science canteen needs serious makeover. I'm sure you agree with me. haha.
Hey Peng Siang, I think you misunderstand the reason I chose to limit the area of focus for each person being surveyed to just the canteen they frequent the most. It is solely for tabulation purposes as it narrows the scope so that we do not have very general answers to our survey questions. I feel this is necessary because students may not be familiar with how many Halal food stalls there are in another canteen so we ask them about the one they are most familiar with. After that, we can entend that result to the whole of NUS as our sample of students should be well spread out between all the faculty students, so we should have an even distribution of each canteen. It is not to propose to OED to set up a 'Muslim corner' as we are still concerned about all the canteens as a whole.
Post a Comment