Aligning Schedules at Institutes of Higher Learning with Pre-employment Programmes and School Holidays

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, the academic calendars of the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) are planned to support students' learning experiences. This includes ensuring sufficient time for both curriculum coverage and student life during term time. The Polytechnic calendar also takes into consideration when students enroll into their courses. There are currently no plans to align the Polytechnic academic calendars with Primary and Secondary schools. There are, however, overlaps between the term breaks of our schools and Polytechnics.

The academic schedules in IHLs for Continuing Education and Training (CET) programmes leading to full qualifications, such as part-time diploma and degree programmes, are broadly aligned with Pre-Employment Training (PET) programmes. Short modular courses and Workforce Skills Qualifications, however, are designed with a more flexible programme schedule and do not necessarily align with the academic calendars for the longer programmes. This better meets the needs of adult learners, who have to juggle both work and learning.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would like the Minister for the reply. Foremost, I would like to declare that I am an academic staff at Republic Polytechnic.

Sir, my concern is really for the academic staff, as well as the students from both PET and CET programmes. In December, for example, PET students undergo an exam period, that is, in December, they have the first two weeks of exams, followed by two weeks of supposed break. However, they are given graded assignments also, which means that throughout December, they are supposed to finish an assignment before they come back in January. Which means, probably, that they will not spend their December holidays. This means that they will spend less time with their family and catch-up with the younger siblings, if they have these.

For CET students, the December period, especially for the part-time diplomas, that actually transcends throughout. For example, in December, their lessons are throughout December. And this means that, for us to encourage them to do a part-time diploma and have a work-life balance, this means sacrificing their December holidays, and in the spirit of celebrating families, I think that this is something that we are missing.

The staff, they have to do the markings in December, which means they are usually affected. Or if they are teaching CET students like I do, we do not get the December holidays as a whole. So, will the Ministry consider removal of mid semestral assessments, both in terms of exams as well as these graded assignments within the December period?

Second, would the Ministry consider blocking off the December holidays completely to allow staff and students to recuperate and consolidate at the very least and, of course, spend time with their families?

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think we share the Member's concern for family time. But I should perhaps lay down the following considerations on how we determine when we should go for breaks for different parts of our society.

I think different parts of our society will have different needs, be it Primary schools, Preschools, Secondary schools, post-Secondary schools, Universities and adult learners. It may also not necessarily be the best idea for all of us to say that all of them should take their breaks together and align it as such. Because I do believe that different parts of our society do have different requirements and it is quite difficult for us to, therefore, have one model that fits everything. I am quite sure that even if we do align it, there will be other challenges as well.

Second, I think we have to consider the different learning needs of different segments of our population. For example, when we should have the term breaks for our IHLs is not just about what they learn in school. One of the very critical parts of the learning environment for our IHLs has to do with their internship opportunities. And in fact, in more recent times, I have also urged our IHLs to move away from what we rigidly think of as term time and break time, because that may not be necessarily the best way for us to fit the internship opportunities into the working environment that is required by the participating companies.

Companies would like to have interns according to their business needs, rather than just the academic calendars. So, we need to take in to account all these differing needs.

All the more so for adult learners in the continuing education and training programmes, that they would have different needs, different courses would have different internship opportunities and we have to take all this into account.

So, it would not be very possible nor very wise for us to work on the premise of one single consideration and, therefore, try to align all our school calendars from preschool, all the way to IHLs, according to only one consideration.