Singapore Maths Tuition - University and JC

17 December 2018

Ms Sabrina Tan first joined St John Ambulance Brigade as a co-curricular activity in Secondary School, where she was exposed to nursing skills like first aid and home nursing.

Subsequently, she took up a nursing diploma at Nanyang Polytechnic, and furthered her studies at the Singapore Institute of Technology. She graduated as one of SIT’s top students, with a bachelor of science with honours in nursing.

Ms Tan is also the recipient of the Ngee Ann Kongsi Gold Medal, which is awarded to the most outstanding graduating student in the cohort.

Ms Tan is now a staff nurse at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.

Another SIT graduate, Ms Jennifer Wee, is making her mark in a different field. The 26-year-old graduated top of her batch of 67 students from SIT’s Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (Land) degree programme.

She currently works as an engineer at the Land Transport Authority, where she oversees passenger safety and train reliability.

16 December 2018

An entrepreneurship competition, the River Hongbao Hackathon, will be held on Feb 3-10 next year.

Youths aged 18 to 26 in tertiary institutions can form teams of two to five people and submit their ideas online.

Shortlisted teams will make their presentations during the hackathon from Jan 3 to 4 next year. They will receive mentoring by a retail expert from Mapletree Investments, a real estate development company.

Youths who emerge tops will get to run their own stalls at next year’s River Hongbao event.

The top three teams will also each receive a cash prize of $2,000 and seed money of $4,800 to implement their ideas.

15 December 2018

Academics at the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University have said that there is an “escalating arms race”, with the two universities pursuing research talents who will help them reach greater heights in university league tables.

Rankings like those by Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds are heavily based on the number of research publications in highly ranked academic journals.

Singapore academics lament that this pursuit of rankings has led to the marginalisation of teaching in favour of research.

NTU’s assistant professor in the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme Woo Jun Jie, said “both NUS and NTU’s schemes signal a strong focus on research and, by implication, rankings”.

Additionally, foreign academics are perceived to be more valuable for universities’ research and rankings.

Two young professors, one from NUS and the other from NTU, who are scouting for positions outside of Singapore, said this has affected morale and camaraderie among the faculty.

14 December 2018

The Singapore campus of James Cook University (JCU) has a Career Services team that provides a dedicated career development programme.

The aim of the programme is to guide undergraduate students in identifying a suitable career to match their strengths and skill sets.

The career development programme includes workshops that cover job search strategies, and interview skills. The team also conducts regular conversations with students to discover their areas of interest, and helps them hone in on the subjects that they are able to excel in.

Career fairs, talks and tours are organised at least four to six times per year. These events give undergraduates and alumni opportunities to interact and engage with industry experts.

JCU also regularly meets up with employers to explore internship opportunities, and job-match students to organisations based on their interests and skills.

12 December 2018

The Ministry of Education has announced that the results of this year’s Singapore-Cambridge N-Level examinations will be released next Monday (Dec 17).

Students can collect their results from their schools from 2pm. Private candidates will be notified of their results by post.

Students applying for Institute of Technical Education (ITE) courses can submit their applications online via the ITE portal after collecting their results. Application forms will also be available at the customer service centres at each of the three ITE colleges.

Students eligible for the Direct-Entry-Scheme to Polytechnic Programme (DPP) will receive a copy of Form N from their secondary schools.

11 December 2018

The National University of Singapore has launched a new scheme to attract research talents from all over the world.

Called the Presidential Young Professorship (PYP) scheme, offerings include “internationally competitive” salaries and million-dollar research grants for young academic stars.

NUS is expected to have to fork out as much as US$200,000 (S$273,000) a year in some fields.

The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has a similar scheme called Nanyang Assistant Professorship (NAP) scheme, where those selected stand to receive start-up research grants of up to $1 million.

NTU’s assistant professor in the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme Woo Jun Jie said “both NUS and NTU’s schemes signal a strong focus on research and, by implication, rankings”.

He said the schemes do introduce a certain level of inequality among university faculty members, “with the creation of an elite class of academics who are paid more, teach less and are, therefore, able to attain tenure at a quicker rate”.

10 December 2018

A group 34 engineering students from Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) got together to create a fully functional aircraft that can fly up to 710km.

The plane was built from scratch by the students over a period of four years, flies on a four-cylinder engine, has a glass cockpit with two seats, and comes with luggage space.

NYP said the plane will be used to train subsequent batches of engineering students.

“The project, which took off in 2014, enables students to learn about the various responsibilities of aerospace personnel from hands-on engineering to maintenance,” the school said in its statement.