26 July 2019
Singapore’s universities and polytechnics will increase efforts to train people in emerging skills such as machine learning and data analytics, in order to equip the workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0.
Speaking at the annual SkillsFuture Festival, Mr Chee Hong Tat, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Education, said that Industry 4.0 is not about replacing existing workers with machines or new workers, but the training of existing workers to use new technologies.
The National University of Singapore will play its role by starting a new Master of Science in Industry 4.0 next month to help workers keep pace with digital advances. The new programme will cover areas such as data analytics, digital infrastructure and transformation systems, and include an industrial attachment.
Singapore’s institutes of higher learning will continue to work with each other to develop “stackable” modular courses in Industry 4.0. An example of such a programme would be NUS’ Institute of Systems Science’s partnership with Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic to allow modules from the polytechnics’ post-diploma programmes to be counted towards a Master of Technology at NUS.