27 July 2020

Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing recently spoke at a virtual dialogue with Public Service Commission (PSC) scholarship recipients.

There are 23 PSC scholarship recipients who are pursuing their studies this year.

Mr Chan said that those in the public service must continually challenge their own perspectives and learn to apply solutions to various problems in the Singapore context.

Diversity involves not just race, language, and religion, but also involves looking at different ways of approaching and solving problems, and these are important aspects to consider in the public service, he added.

Mr Chan, who is also Minister-in-charge of the Public Service, said that one important message for the scholarship recipients is that, while pursuing their studies overseas or locally, they should “consciously and continuously look out for new opportunities to enrich their perspectives”.

This is so that when circumstances change and new problems arise, they will have fresh ideas on how to apply solutions in the context of challenges Singaporeans face.

24 July 2020

From August next year, undergraduates entering Nanyang Technological University will have to take up a common core curriculum that will enable them to develop interdisciplinary knowledge and skills. The core curriculum courses will take up one-fifth of their academic workload.

Faculty from different disciplines will come together to design and teach the courses to offer a more in-depth and interdisciplinary exploration of knowledge.

For example, a course on sustainability may draw on faculty from disciplines as varied as climate science, environmental engineering, business, and environmental history.

The core curriculum will be adopted university-wide in August 2021. It will apply to all undergraduates except those taking up a medical degree, which has a different educational and professional framework.

The university has also set up the NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity , an interdisciplinary centre that seeks to make sense of how technological advances impact societies, cultures and human behaviour.

23 July 2020

Some Singapore students studying in the United States have had their study plans disrupted due to new visa policies.

For example, graduate student Katherine Sumantri was recently informed by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that students taking courses which were fully online would no longer qualify for visas.

By then, Ms Sumantri had already booked her flight from Singapore back to the United States to start the second and final year of her speech-language pathology course at Teachers College, Columbia University.

This policy change effectively ended her previous visa exemption and also upended her study plans.

There were 4,632 students from Singapore studying in the US last year, according to figures from the Institute of International Education.

Some Singaporean students have turned to online chat groups to keep themselves and each other up to date with the latest news, swap tips on how to navigate America’s byzantine immigration system and commiserate.

One student said she was rethinking admission to a local university, while another said she could not transfer her credits to the university she wanted.

17 July 2020

This year’s May International Baccalaureate (IB) exams were cancelled globally and final scores were based on students’ coursework, including projects, assignments and presentations.

But this did not stop Singaporean students from excelling in the May IB exams this year.

Two students here graduated from the May IB session, instead of the November sitting for most local students, because they were granted extensions due to their sports commitments.

These students are from the Singapore Sports School, which is currently one of 25 schools worldwide, as well as the only school in Singapore, to offer such an extended programme.

Ms Kimberly Quek, one of the two Singapore students, attained a score of 40 out of 45, while her schoolmate and rhythmic gymnast Lyn Yeo, achieved a near-perfect score of 44.

Ms Quek, who has a hearing loss from young, has represented Singapore in bowling at global competitions such as the 2017 Deaflympics, where she won a bronze medal. She also took part in the World Deaf Bowling Championships last year, where she was placed 12th and 9th for the singles and doubles events respectively.

Ms Yeo hopes to pursue a related course at the Singapore Institute of Technology. In February, she did a three-week stint shadowing a physiotherapist at the National Youth Sports Institute.

07 July 2020

University students in Singapore are scrambling for internships at a time when the hiring activity of businesses has slowed considerably.

Internship positions have dwindled drastically as mainline jobs are being cut and staff excised.

The Singapore Management University has infrastructure to assist students in this regard. The SMU Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship has a Global Innovation Immersion programme which aims to matches aspiring student-entrepreneurs with firms worldwide.

However, increased demand from local students to take on short-term projects and part-time jobs has affected overall internship opportunities.

Local universities are actively monitoring the internship and employment situation for its students and graduates.

Ms Joan Tay, director of the Centre for Future-ready Graduates at the National University of Singapore, said it anticipates that sectors like retail and hospitality, transport and aerospace, as well as SMEs to be most affected by the current downdraft.

Meanwhile, NUS has placed over 7,000 students on internships in its current academic year. NUS is also seeking remote internships with overseas partners, and several in countries such as Chile, China and Switzerland have started to offer such positions.