Singapore Maths Tuition - University and JC

29 January 2018

Edusave Award winners from the Institute of Technical Education and local polytechnics will receive their award money via PayNow, a service that lets people transfer money to each other instantly using their identification or mobile numbers.

The Edusave Awards were started in 1993 with the aim of maximising opportunities for Singaporean students in MOE-funded schools.

The Ministry of Education said that this measure is being introduced for greater convenience and efficiency, in line with Singapore’s efforts to become a Smart Nation.

The ministry added that it will send award recipients instructions on how to sign up for the service using their NRIC numbers.

MOE will also review the process after this year, to see if the use of PayNow can be extended to all other students too.

26 January 2018

Yale-NUS College and Duke-NUS Medical School have jointly launched a new pathway for liberal arts students from Yale-NUS to pursue a career in medicine. The pathway will start in August 2018 and prospective students can apply for the pathway via the Yale-NUS undergraduate application system.

Students will graduate with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) or Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from Yale-NUS, and a Doctor of Medicine degree from Duke-NUS.

Yale-NUS also has partnerships with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies to offer concurrent degree programmes.

It also offers a double degree programme in law, in partnership with the NUS Faculty of Law.

25 January 2018

An offshoot of the Khan Academy is the Khan Lab School, founded by Salman Khan, who is also the founder of the Khan Academy.

According to Salman Khan, the Khan Lab School is “an open source approach to educational innovation” where students are not grouped by age but by level of independence, based on skills like time management and self-regulation.

The school is testing ground for new approaches to learning. For example, the school focusses on competency-based or mastery-based approach to learning, where the focus is on conceptual understanding and mastery of content before students move on to the next level.

Every week, students at the school identify their unique needs and set goals that determine the school work they undertake. They learn skills in a variety of ways, from meeting a teacher for a “pop-up class” to going into blended learning platforms like Khan Academy, which allow them to move at their own pace. Each student’s progress is charted by teachers, half of whom act like tutors, helping students with academic work, while the rest, called advisers, help learners to know themselves and understand their own learning.

The Khan Academy itself provides online videos, supplemented with exercises. It is most well-known for mathematics but it is also rapidly expanding into world history, grammar, economics and art history. There is also the possibility of the Khan Academy introducing certification and accreditation for its courses in the future.

24 January 2018

Due to the recent round of merger of junior colleges, existing JCs may expand their intake of ‘O’ level students for next year. For example, Anderson junior college may take in 800 to 850 students, instead of the current 750 or so.

Popular junior colleges offering the Integrated Programme may be asked to take in more students too.

The Ministry of Education has given the assurance that every student who qualifies for entry into junior college will have a place. There may be an increase in the cut-off points for some of the junior colleges.

To enter a junior college, a student’s L1R5 score – based on O-level results for English and five relevant subjects – must not exceed 20 points. To enter a polytechnic, a student needs a total score – based on the O-level results for English, two relevant and two best subjects – which does not exceed 26 points.

Some polytechnics also look for an applicant’s involvement in co-curricular activities, such as the drama club or debating club, when he applies for a course in hotel and tourism management or events planning.

23 January 2018

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said that providing early and targeted support has made a difference to students, particularly those from lower-income families.

A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has found that around half of Singapore’s students in the bottom socio-economic quarter find themselves in the top quarter of performance internationally, after accounting for background.

Such students are considered by Singapore to be resilient, as they have shown they can outperform what their backgrounds would predict.

In Singapore, bursaries for those who need financial assistance, as well as Edusave scholarships, go a long way in assisting students financially.

“These bursaries give the families and the students peace of mind while the students can concentrate, focus, study, and complete their schooling,” PM Lee said during a recent bursary award ceremony.

22 January 2018

The Straits Times and the Singapore Institute of Management will be co-organizing a forum, Disruptions in Education (DisruptED), which aims to explore questions like the kind to skills in demand as the world gets increasingly interconnected and technological, and how our educational system can adapt.

To be held on the 3rd of February at the SIM Global Education campus in Clementi Road, the forum will feature distinguished panelists such as Ms Kristina Kaihari, counsellor of education at the Finnish National Agency for Education, and Mr Ben Nelson, the founder of the educational company Minerva.

The forum will be moderated by The Straits Times’ head of training and development, Ms Lydia Lim.

Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Education, and Communications and Information, will be the forum’s guest of honour.

21 January 2018

The Ministry of Education has announced that the four merged junior colleges will take on both the colleges’ original names, where for each pair, the name of the older JC will come first.

Anderson JC and Serangoon JC will be known as Anderson Serangoon JC, and Innova JC and Yishun JC will become Yishun Innova JC. Meridian JC and Tampines JC will be Tampines Meridian JC and Jurong JC and Pioneer JC will be called Jurong Pioneer JC.

Four of the current junior college principals will continue as principal-designates of the merged JCs.

This is the first time junior colleges have to be merged. The MOE had said it was due to Singapore’s declining birth rate.

Ms Liew Wei Li, MOE’s deputy director-general of education (schools), said that in arriving at the final decision regarding the names, the ministry considered factors such as the schools’ history and heritage. She did not elaborate on the substantial time it took to decide to simply pair those names up.

19 January 2018

The Ministry of Education will provide the Singapore University of Technology and Design with a boost in funding of up to $75 million in order to bolster university’s growth plans in education and research.

SUTD will use the funds to develop deeper expertise in several of Singapore’s key growth sectors such as healthcare, cities, artificial intelligence and data science, and aviation.

SUTD has also launched an adult learning initiative, SUTD Academy. The academy, started in support of the SkillsFuture Series launched in October last year, will offer 20 new courses in cyber security, data analytics, engineering, urban solutions and tech-enabled services such as software design.

The academy plans to have 60 courses within five years. The courses will be taught by SUTD faculty and adjunct fellows, and will partner industry players to develop customised programmes.