Singapore Maths Tuition - University and JC

01 December 2017

The most recent round of the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development included an assessment on collaborative problem-solving skills. The test of collaborative skills is part of a move in recent years by the OECD to broaden the Pisa test to measure social and emotional skills.

Singapore students came out tops in this category.

The next round of tests – Pisa 2018 – will include a test on global competence which would look at how well students can navigate an increasingly diverse world.

In the first part, students will read about a case study, and respond to questions that evaluate their capacity to understand the complexity of the case, the multiple perspectives of the diverse actors involved, and suggest solutions. This will be followed by a questionnaire to gauge their openness towards people from other cultures, respect for cultural otherness, global-mindedness and responsibility.

In 2021, Pisa is looking to assess creative thinking.

30 November 2017

Undergraduates representing Nanyang Technological University won the top prize in the student cluster competition at the Supercomputing Conference held recently in the United States.

NTU beat 15 other teams from around the world, including students from the Georgia Institute of Technology, or Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University.

The team from NTU’s School of Computer Science and Engineering had to configure a high performance computing (HPC) system that can process scientific applications that were issued to them three months ago.

All teams were also given a mystery application at the start of the conference that their system had to process. The NTU team had to configure a software to simulate the Earth’s atmosphere.

NTU students consulted experts to better understand the science behind the applications, including the Earth Observatory of Singapore, which made it easier for them to optimise the applications for the HPC system they built.

29 November 2017

Singapore students have shown that they can excel in the ability to solve problems in teams. In the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) test conducted in 2015, Singapore topped a global test of collaborative problem-solving skills with the highest mean score of 561 points.

Some 125,000 students across 52 economies around the world took part in the Pisa Collaborative Problem Solving test, which measures students’ ability to solve problems collaboratively, negotiate, and come to agreement.

Singapore had the highest proportion of top performers in collaborative problem-solving. They are able to carry out tasks needing high levels of collaboration, maintain an awareness of group dynamics, as well as overcome obstacles and resolve disagreements.

Mr Sng Chern Wei, the Ministry of Education’s deputy director-general of education (curriculum), said the results reaffirm schools’ efforts to create group learning experiences through initiatives like project work.

28 November 2017

An overemphasis on academic credentials could affect how well a country fares, said Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat recently at a dialogue session at the Moulmein-Cairnhill ward in Tanjong Pagar GRC.

Mr Heng said there was a range of qualities, including values and skills, that determine who is the best fit for a job.

Such qualities are revealed over time and are not necessarily captured in paper qualifications.

Countries that take a narrow definition of success end up less successful “as a country”, said Mr Heng, because they get “fixated on (one) holy criteria for success”.

Mr Heng, who was responding to a presentation made by a group of Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) students who highlighted the need for holistic education to develop all-rounded leaders, identified two groups of people who will be key in changing the definition of success: Parents and employers.

After the dialogue, Mr Heng also spoke on the progress on economic restructuring in Singapore. He noted that more than one-third of the Industry Transformation Maps in the pipeline have been launched.

27 November 2017

According to education portal schoolbag.sg, students should start thinking about their education and career options as early as lower secondary level.

This is to ensure that they will have sufficient time to understand their own aspirations and areas of interest, and be ready to reach a decision on their future education and career directions by the time they leave secondary school.

Through interactions with mentors and participation in co-curricular activities, students can discover their learning styles, strengths and areas of interest.

Students can also participate in internship programmes when they enter institutions of higher learning such as the polytechnics and the universities and gain valuable work experience and better understand in which direction or areas their career aspirations lie.

Feedback from parents, teachers, peers, and even education and career guidance counsellors can help students understand their strengths and discover their passions. From there, students will be in a better position to choose the most suitable pathway for themselves.

26 November 2017

There have been many attempts by parents to game the Direct School Admissions system, which allows students to enter the school of their choice via criteria not limited to just academic performance alone.

Parents are increasingly signing their children up for various forms of non-academic coaching in the hopes of enhancing their childrens’ chances of entering specialised independent schools. Parents also often disclose confidential information about the interview process.

Singapore’s independent schools say they have processes in place to detect a student’s genuine aptitude. For example, at the National University of Singapore High School of Mathematics and Science, students who pass initial selection tests are invited for a selection camp, where they are put through exercises that can shed light on their problem-solving abilities and creativity.

The School of Science and Technology, Singapore, holds a selection camp on top of a written test and portfolio submission.

25 November 2017

According to local scientists and researchers, Singapore is at far greater risk of academic fraud now, given the increasingly competitive academic environment here.

In academia, the pressure to “publish or perish” has steadily been increasing in recent years due to the proliferation of higher degrees awarded by universities and the increasing number of people entering academia.

Still, it must be noted that the number of papers that have been retracted due to academic malpractice in Singapore remains at a modest level when compared internationally.

There have been only about 60 retractions involving misconduct or duplicated findings here out of 14,000 international cases in the database of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks such cases, since 2007.

One of the largest cases of scientific fraud in Singapore came to light recently when former Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) scientist Sabeera Bonala admitted to falsifying data in her doctoral thesis.

24 November 2017

There are a growing number of university graduates taking on part-time, freelance and contract work, especially those from private schools.

The Singapore Institute of Management recently reported that while around 83 per cent of its graduates last year found jobs within six months of completing their degree studies, around 19 per cent were freelancing or had taken on jobs on a part-time or contract basis.

The median gross monthly salary for SIM graduates remained the same as in the previous year, at $2,700.

NUS, NTU and SMU, which released their graduate employment survey in February, reported that 80 per cent of their graduates landed full-time jobs within six months of graduation, but the number of part-timers was close to 10 per cent.