"NTU to 'open door wider' for PMETs to upgrade skills - CNA 02 May 2016
SINGAPORE: Admissions into Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) new College of Professional and Continuing Education (PaCE) will take into account a person's working experience, apart from relevant academic background.
And while courses can be delivered online, the university says it is also looking at facilities near the city, for face-to-face classroom time, to better cater to working adults.
"What we are doing here is that, we are trying to open more opportunities for people to upgrade, so we will not be using the regular admission criteria," said Prof Kam Chan Hin, NTU Senior Associate Provost, Undergraduate Education.
"And on that basis, we open the door wider," he added. "We hope to try to make it more accessible by holding some classes not at NTU's campus itself, but also in our campus in One-north for example and later on in our Novena campus."
NTU is partnering the labour movement to support workers, especially the Professional, Managers, Executives and Technicians, or PMETs to upgrade their skills.
Under the partnership, PaCE College will offer 28 undergraduate-level courses for part-time study starting from August this year.
NTU said the courses will span 13 weeks each, and will be for growth sectors such as Data Analytics and Digital Electronics.
In his May Day Rally speech on Sunday (May 1), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the labour movement is injecting US$200 million into the NTUC-Education and Training Fund to support the initiative."
If I am an educational services provider, I would be salivating at this US$ (not S$?) 200m NTUC-Education and Training Fund!
Alas, while I am in performance consulting, I am NOT in the education business. At least not in this 'academic studies' sphere!
This initiative is more direct. Get the out-of-job PMETs back to work will be handled very differently if the reasons are having outdated knowledge and skills or their existing employers simply cannot make ends meet!
If it is the latter, no amount of retraining will help the retrenched PMETs back to their original employers while the former can still see the retrenched PMETs acquiring new and relevant knowledge and skills, if they are willing and able to learn quickly and well, employed!
So, can these lack of specific new and relevant knowledge and skills be available by academic institutions like NTU or SMU or NUS or others? What about the oft quoted 'German's apprentice model' some senior people were talking about a while back? Won't it be a more 'targeted approach' of finding out-of-job PMETs to match their expertise and talent to the market demand?
Besides these future-job-related knowledge and skills, the most important capability the older and out-of-job PMETs must muster and master are: a flexible mind-set, a creative problems solving skill set, and a collaborative team orientation too! Of course, language skills matching the market's demands is a plus!
I hope this RUSH by these 'established' educational institutes is NOT just about recruiting paying customers and meet the profitability KPI of these educational institutes!
SINGAPORE: Admissions into Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) new College of Professional and Continuing Education (PaCE) will take into account a person's working experience, apart from relevant academic background.
And while courses can be delivered online, the university says it is also looking at facilities near the city, for face-to-face classroom time, to better cater to working adults.
"What we are doing here is that, we are trying to open more opportunities for people to upgrade, so we will not be using the regular admission criteria," said Prof Kam Chan Hin, NTU Senior Associate Provost, Undergraduate Education.
"And on that basis, we open the door wider," he added. "We hope to try to make it more accessible by holding some classes not at NTU's campus itself, but also in our campus in One-north for example and later on in our Novena campus."
NTU is partnering the labour movement to support workers, especially the Professional, Managers, Executives and Technicians, or PMETs to upgrade their skills.
Under the partnership, PaCE College will offer 28 undergraduate-level courses for part-time study starting from August this year.
NTU said the courses will span 13 weeks each, and will be for growth sectors such as Data Analytics and Digital Electronics.
In his May Day Rally speech on Sunday (May 1), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the labour movement is injecting US$200 million into the NTUC-Education and Training Fund to support the initiative."
If I am an educational services provider, I would be salivating at this US$ (not S$?) 200m NTUC-Education and Training Fund!
Alas, while I am in performance consulting, I am NOT in the education business. At least not in this 'academic studies' sphere!
This initiative is more direct. Get the out-of-job PMETs back to work will be handled very differently if the reasons are having outdated knowledge and skills or their existing employers simply cannot make ends meet!
If it is the latter, no amount of retraining will help the retrenched PMETs back to their original employers while the former can still see the retrenched PMETs acquiring new and relevant knowledge and skills, if they are willing and able to learn quickly and well, employed!
So, can these lack of specific new and relevant knowledge and skills be available by academic institutions like NTU or SMU or NUS or others? What about the oft quoted 'German's apprentice model' some senior people were talking about a while back? Won't it be a more 'targeted approach' of finding out-of-job PMETs to match their expertise and talent to the market demand?
Besides these future-job-related knowledge and skills, the most important capability the older and out-of-job PMETs must muster and master are: a flexible mind-set, a creative problems solving skill set, and a collaborative team orientation too! Of course, language skills matching the market's demands is a plus!
I hope this RUSH by these 'established' educational institutes is NOT just about recruiting paying customers and meet the profitability KPI of these educational institutes!
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