Graduate Employment Survey on Local and Overseas Graduates

Mr Png Eng Huat asked the Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) whether the Ministry will consider conducting a comprehensive and robust Graduate Employment Survey (GES) that covers graduates from all six local Universities as well as overseas graduates and graduates from local trans-national University programmes, so as to provide a broader data source on graduate employment prospects to complement the GES exercises published by some individual universities.

MOE currently publishes comprehensive information on the employment outcomes of fresh graduates from the full-time degree programmes offered by the five local Autonomous Universities (AUs), that is, NTU, NUS, SMU, SIT and SUTD. Results for UniSIM will be available in 2018 when its first batch of full-time students graduates.

Instead of having one comprehensive survey for all AUs, each AU conducts its own survey, with MOE standardising the methodology. That way, students have access to more information on the full-time permanent employment rates and monthly salaries for graduates from each degree programme from each University and can make better-informed decisions when choosing their course of study.

The Council for Private Education (CPE) has commissioned a pilot graduate employment survey for graduates from Private Education Institutions (PEIs). The pilot survey polled graduates from nine of the largest PEIs, which covered the majority of private degree graduates in 2014. As mentioned in Parliament on 28 January 2016, CPE will make available information from this survey to help support individuals in their decision making.

MOE, however, does not track Singaporeans who go overseas to pursue their undergraduate studies.