from straitstimes.com:
Schools and businesses to work on exposing more students to industry needs
Mr Chan Chun Sing speaking with attendees at a Forward Singapore group discussion session, on Nov 19, 2022. ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
Ng Keng Gene
UPDATED
21 NOV 2022, 6:24 PM SGT
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SINGAPORE – To allow students to better track the skills and competencies needed to enter the workforce, business and employer federations are looking to partner schools to run programmes that will offer students and teachers a taste of the working world.
While such collaborations currently exist, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said on Saturday that it wants more students and teachers to benefit from initiatives such as entrepreneurship lessons and industry attachments.
MOE will work with the Singapore Business Federation, Singapore Human Resource Institute and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) to facilitate more tie-ups, said the ministry, as it drew to a close the first phase of engagements under the Forward Singapore exercise’s “equip” pillar, which focuses on education and lifelong learning.
Forward Singapore is an ongoing, year-long public engagement exercise that will lay out the roles and responsibilities of the Government and citizens in the coming years. Each of the six pillars that discussions are centred on is headed by a 4G minister.
On Saturday, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing, who heads the equip pillar, engaged with 200 young people, parents, educators, and industry and community representatives at the Employment and Employability Institute in Jurong East.
They discussed topics such as lifelong learning, diverse education pathways and special education needs. Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information, as well as National Development, Mr Tan Kiat How, and Minister of State for Education Gan Siow Huang were also at the event.
SNEF executive director Sim Gim Guan, who participated in the engagement, said current school-business collaborations are ad hoc and dependent on the network that each school has with businesses, and that institutionalising such arrangements will achieve better outcomes for schools and companies.
Singapore National Employment Federation executive director Sim Gim Guan said students can mentally prepare themselves for their future jobs through school-industry partnerships. ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
“The students of today will be the workforce of tomorrow. So it is clearly in the interest of industries to ensure that the students are aware of opportunities that are in our economy... and to mentally prepare them for the future of work,” he said.
For instance, under a partnership between Yuying Secondary School and food company Super Bean International, the students learnt about the process of creating and marketing a food product, as well as heard from company representatives about their entrepreneurship journey.
Mr Chan said it is challenging for schools to anticipate the skills that firms will require of their students when they join the workforce. One way to “shorten the cycle” is for schools and businesses to work much closer together “so that students know what is relevant to them in a timely manner as they prepare their choices for their future careers”.
MOE said the school-industry partnerships will include centralised talks and visits to companies, attachments for educators, corporate representation in school advisory committees, and opportunities for companies or associations to adopt a school for longer-term partnership.
Mr Sam Liew, managing partner of IT firm NCS’ government strategic business group, said school-industry collaborations could help firms, especially those facing a talent crunch, by allowing them to reach students directly with internship openings.
This could possibly create pathways for students to become full-time employees, said Mr Liew, co-chair of the TechSkills Accelerator for ITE and Polytechnics Alliance – a group of 13 companies that helps to upskill and employ students and graduates from polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education.
Meanwhile, another issue addressed on Saturday was support for students with special education needs and their parents, with calls for more opportunities for them to further their education before entering the workforce.
Mrs Tina Tan, who has three sons, including an 18-year-old with several special education needs, proposed that more groups could be set up for parents of children with special education needs to share experiences and support one another.
While there are avenues for parents to speak with their children’s schools and teachers, she noted, these could at times be unsettling because schools’ communication with parents is likely to be performance-based.
Mrs Tina Tan, vice-president of the Society for the Promotion of ADHD Research and Knowledge and a mother of three sons, speaking at a Forward Singapore discussion on Saturday. ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
“Sometimes the schools are not really in the position to reach in,” said the 47-year-old, who is the vice-president of the Society for the Promotion of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Research and Knowledge.
“The key is peer-to-peer support,” said Mrs Tan, adding that when parents engage and share with one another, there is a depth of familiarity and problems become more relatable, as they are able to identify with what each of them is going through.
“Peer connection and community are very powerful in helping parents come to terms with the diagnosis, and changing their mindset on what it takes to support a child with special needs.”