FAST-TRACK PROGRAMME AND A JOB TO BE OFFERED IN POLYTECHNICS
Starting next year, polytechnic students will be able to score a place in a local university and also be guaranteed of a job. Moreover, this route will enable them to graduate from the university up to a year earlier.
Education Minister Ong Ye Kung announced that Temasek Polytechnic has partnered with both Singapore University of Social Sciences and Singapore Institute of Technology to provide 40 students this new route in April 2020 for the building services and mechatronics fields.
In recent years, tertiary institutions have offered a myriad of work-study courses for diploma and degree programmes. This new pathway however is the first in Singapore to provide an assured degree route to full-time diploma students.
For instance, Temasek Polytechnic’s Mechatronics diploma students will be able to embark on SIT’s Bachelor of Engineering courses in mechanical design and manufacturing engineering.
In their diploma course, the students will be able to take on three or more university modules in their third year and intern with their sponsor companies before graduating. As they move on to university, the students can continue working for their company full-time, while studying. The whole programme, diploma and degree courses combines, will span around 5 years.
Mr Ong believes that through this new work-study integrated path, students will be secure a long term and effective workplace learning stint with the same employer. Over time, this programme will continue to expand as Nanyang Technological University gears up to offer six new work-study degrees in areas such as engineering, data science and business analytics, next month.
Meanwhile the polytechnics will be offering another 15 new Earn and Learn programmes (ELP) to its current list of 14. Institute of Technical Education is also adding more work-learn technical diploma programmes, which is similar to ELP.
Students for this new route will be chosen annually after being interviewed by universities and sponsoring employers. During the programme, they must uphold an academic grade point average.