Debated in Parliament on 20 Feb 2017.
Mr Kwek Hian Chuan Henry asked the Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) (a) whether there are immediate plans for Government-sponsored universities to increase enrolment for graduate and post-graduate programmes so as to increase educational opportunities for acquiring deep skills; and (b) if so, which are the key graduate and postgraduate programmes that will see increased enrolments.
Madam, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has been steadily increasing the intake for full-time publicly-funded undergraduate degree programmes at our autonomous universities (AUs). By 2020, we expect 40% of each cohort will make it to AUs, compared to 34% now. This increase will come largely through places in the applied degree programmes at the Singapore Institute of Technology and the Singapore Institute of Management University.
It is important to note that this is a cohort participation rate which matches the demand of our diverse and sophisticated economic structure. If the cohort participation rate far exceeds what the economy needs, there can be widespread graduate unemployment, which many economies are experiencing.
Mr Henry Kwek also asked about graduate and post graduate programmes that will see increased enrolment. However, the nature of skills deepening is that it may not necessarily involve getting higher qualifications, from Bachelor to Masters to Doctors of Philosophy (PhDs). Often, it is about gaining more in-depth skills in a particular area, or learning an adjacent set of skills, through short modular courses.
That is why the AUs are expanding their offerings of shorter, industry-relevant skills-based modular courses that are accessible to working adults. Since 2015, the publicly-funded universities have launched more than 200 skills-based modular courses in diverse areas, such as advanced manufacturing, power and clean energy, and programming. MOE is working with all Institutes of Higher Learning to step up their efforts in this area.
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