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Enhanced career guidance in the works for students

SINGAPORE — At polytechnics and Institutes of Technical Education (ITE), work has already started to help students make more informed choices about their educational and career paths.

Polytechnic students at Singapore Polytechnic. Photo: Robin Choo

Polytechnic students at Singapore Polytechnic. Photo: Robin Choo

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SINGAPORE — At polytechnics and Institutes of Technical Education (ITE), work has already started to help students make more informed choices about their educational and career paths.

As announced by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam during his Budget speech on Feb 23, a professional core of counsellors will be established to help students make these choices. This is part of the national SkillsFuture blueprint.

Students will soon get education and career guidance both in and out of the classroom. To ensure quality and consistency in such guidance, a common set of outcomes and learning objectives will be developed by the Education Ministry and the post-secondary education institutions. This translates to a minimum of between 40 and 60 hours dedicated to helping students develop skills to make career choices and transit from schools to the workplace.

The guidance starts this year for first-year polytechnic and ITE students. In the classroom, this will be incorporated into existing modules and dedicated lessons on career-related topics. Outside the classroom, it will be done through talks, workshops, and group career guidance sessions.

First-year student at ITE College Central Ambuj Pandey said: “I would love to learn how to socialise in the workplace, learn extra knowledge that will help me if I get into different situations, and maybe broaden my knowledge.”

Some polytechnics have already started work on this initiative. At the Republic Polytechnic, the director for SkillsFuture Office, Albert Toh, said the polytechnic would set up a career centre to make its physical presence felt. “This speaks about the commitment of management,” he said.

“Management is now saying this is a very important component. So you look at these things, and when the students come in, the guidance that we give really is all about exciting them about the industry. You need to excite the kids early,” he added.

The Education Ministry will also deploy counsellors to schools, polytechnics and ITE colleges from July to give more personalised help to students when it comes to their education and career decisions.

Each polytechnic and ITE college will get six such counsellors. For every five secondary schools, junior colleges and centralised institute, there will be one assigned counsellor.

Industry players said current school career counsellors may not be well-placed to advise students as many are educators whose knowledge of industry trends and outlook may be outdated.

They added that trained counsellors are especially important when it comes to students who are unhappy with their courses.

Republic Polytechnic’s senior lecturer (Specialist Diploma in Career Counselling) Dr Ricky Tang said: “Our role is to actually sit down with the students, explore and expand their options. For career counsellors, there’s one thing we should never, never do - when a student presents a problem, we have to refrain from telling the student an answer or giving them advice - so they can get the problem fixed quickly.”

Mr Lim Weijie, a second-year student studying Business Services in ITE College Central, said: “Counsellors in ITE will help students better understand the skills they need to enter the industry. So, when they come back from an industry attachment, they can easily get hold of these counsellors to get advice.”

It is hoped that there will be a pool of some 100 trained counsellors from 2017. CHANNEL NEWSASIA

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