I refer to the article ' NUS flats left vacant for 3 years' (ST, July 14).

It is disheartening to know 303 units of university residential housing were left unutilized from 1996-1999.

Student leaders from the NUS Halls of Residences like myself from those days will recall those years to be tumultuous times.

In 1997 and 1998, owing to promotional publicity in overseas pre-university institutions, it became evident that there would be very substantial increases in the international students intake. NUS had also promised these students accommodation here.

The Office of Student Affairs (OSA) directed that all incoming international students be housed on campus in the six halls of residences - because the culture prevalent in these halls could help foreign freshmen acclimatize to the local environment and culture.

But the sheer number of international students entering NUS at that time caused places meant for hall seniors to be given to these international students.

The number of seniors present to create an environment conducive to these incoming foreign students dropped significantly.

To take but one example: the "mentorship" system practiced in most halls - and in very few faculties - where senior residents mentor new residents of the same faculty was rendered less effective. Fewer seniors were available to the first year residents who, sadly enough, needed it even more crucially if they were foreigners.

Another development in lieu of the large number of incoming international students was the hasty construction of new residential blocks in the second half of 1999.

Back then, NUS undergrads staying in three halls complained of noise from campus construction work disrupting their exam preparation. The OSA had explained that it was impossible to postpone the construction "because as many as 600 more places were needed for international students by the next year."

This was reported by the Straits Times in 'Construction din annoys hostelites' (ST, Nov 13, 1998).

It is therefore puzzling why the OSA did not volunteer Gilman Heights as a avenue for alleviating the housing shortage during that period, but implemented policies that served only to inconvenient students and harm the long term image of the NUS.

If Gilman Heights was unsuitable because it was not on-campus housing, then transportation bussing the students to-and-fro campus, and meal arrangements instituted at Gilman Heights, would have been proper solutions.

In any case, this reason would be strange given the well established off-campus housing of College Green and the then Eusoff College.

If Gilman Heights was unsuitable because it did not have the communal living environment distinctive in the six on-campus halls of residences, then this too, would be strange.

Because starting this June, many first year international students will be housed in the recently completed Prince George's Park Complex - where such a communal environment is absent.

Equally devoid of such communal living are the extension blocks completed in November 1999.

More regrettable, however, is that hindsight tells us a proper mentorship guidance programme could have been implemented in Gilman Heights. Seniors students and new undergraduates alike could have been housed there.

As I further recall, a formal proposal was submitted by the Hall leaders to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor in January 1999.

It dealt with the campus housing shortage - more precisely the excess number of incoming international students the halls of residences felt unable to cope with.

The report concluded that while the six halls could absorb some of these numbers, accommodation alternative to the six on-campus halls of residences should be found.

It was never found.

The foreign intake in June 1999 - which exceeded expectations - was almost wholly absorbed by the six halls.

Further exacerbating the lack of guidance and mentorship in the halls, the foreigners who were direct seniors to these first year foreign students were asked to move to the extension blocks once they were ready at the end of 1999 - in their places would be more new international students, and government scholars.

It therefore defies logic and reason that the 303 units of Gilman Heights stood disused when they could have furthered the interests of these students.