Singapore Maths Tuition - University and JC

19 February 2018

Innova junior college and Yishun junior college ran joint orientation programmes this year. These two junior colleges are merging due to a decreasing number of students getting enrolled. The merged junior college, called Yishun Innova JC, will be at Yishun junior college’s current location.

As explained by the Ministry of Education, this declining enrolment is a result of Singapore’s declining birth rate.

The other junior pairs that will be merged are Anderson JC and Serangoon JC, Pioneer JC and Jurong JC, and Meridian JC and Tampines JC.

Year 2 students from both Innova and Yishun junior college came together this year to organise a combined orientation programme for YJC’s Year 1 students, to give the Year 2 IJC students a chance to plan and facilitate activities for a junior batch.

A total of 180 Year 2 students from IJC and YJC were involved in this year’s joint orientation programme.

17 February 2018

This year, the National University of Singapore has been ranked the top university in Asia by the London-based Times Higher Education magazine.

Compared to last year NUS, registered score improvement in many areas such as teaching, research, citation impact and knowledge transfer.

Nanyang Technological University also improved in most areas, but dropped one place to be ranked joint fifth with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Both NUS and NTU achieved high scores especially on citation impact and international outlook.

The Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings uses 13 performance indicators, such as research performance, teaching environment and research citations.

14 February 2018

Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Education, and Communications and Information, has said that the Education Ministry is encouraging new models of teaching and learning in order to enable students to cope with the vast level of technological disruption and societal changes taking place in the world today.

Dr Janil Puthucheary was speaking at the Disruptions in Education (DisruptED) forum co-organised by The Straits Times and the Singapore Institute of Management.

He said, “There’s not going to be a guarantee that every experiment, every disruptive innovation that we try in the education service may work perfectly the first time. (But) we need to prepare our students for a different kind of world.”

Mr Ben Nelson, chief executive officer of the Minerva Project which offers a four-year tertiary education in which lessons are delivered via online seminars, agreed. He said that the traditional university model should be shaken up because it does not effectively train students to apply their knowledge and skills across contexts. Instead, the model should be replaced by one that truly develops critical and creative thinking.

Mr Oswald Yeo, co-founder of career development portal Glints, contributed his thoughts too, saying that Singapore schools can play a bigger role in supporting young people who have aspirations that veer off the beaten track. Mr Yeo had previously left University of California, Berkeley, in 2016, to run his start-up company with two partners.

The firm, which has 300,000 young people in its database, helps users identify skill sets needed for their ideal jobs, and find the relevant avenues such as courses and internships to hone and develop those necessary skill sets.

11 February 2018

The Ministry of Education will be conducting a study on the factors contributing to polytechnic and Institute of Technical Education (ITE) graduates’ decisions to undertake employment or further study.

Minister of State for Education Janil Puthucheary recently told Parliament that there has been a drop in the percentage of polytechnic and ITE graduates who reported they were in full-time permanent employment, based on survey data of the graduates six months after they complete their final examinations. More graduates are opting for freelance, part-time or temporary work.

According to the survey, more students are choosing to do part-time work while they prepare for further studies.

Dr Puthucheary also highlighted that over the last 10 years, the percentage of polytechnic and ITE graduates who chose to go into further studies, instead of working, has gone up by over 10 percentage points. This strong desire to further their studies, he said, is the result of various government efforts to expand education pathways for students.

09 February 2018

The National University of Singapore has launched a new course called Career Catalyst, and it is offered to undergraduates in their second or third year.

The 12-week long module aims to teach undergraduates how to map out their career and get the skills to land a job. It builds on a 12-week foundational programme, Roots and Wings, that was introduced in 2016 to teach first-year students life skills, such as self-awareness and communication.

Thus far, around 600 NUS students have enrolled in the new course.

NUS also recently held a career fair which features more than 260 employers from 21 industries such as financial services, engineering, retail and hospitality. This year’s career fair focussed on self-development and career exploration for students.