Germans and the Nordic folks are doing good works on integrating real world skill sets into their technical institutions, with the latter then producing graduates with the right skill sets needed back into the industry, not only in generic term but very specific. Bringing the practice of apprenticeship of yore into the post industrial revolution ?
Now the Israelis may be following suit ... [
Link]
" ... "We have 'pre-military' classes. The idea is to invest in tenth graders and get them ready for service with the Corps by the time they enlist. In three years, 250 recruits will be assigned to the C4I Corps each year, having attended our dedicated program. This program will involve regular classes at regular schools, but the students will be wearing military uniforms. The contents of the C4I Corps will be added to the normal curriculum of the education system. The objective is to have parts of this training program regarded as academic credits for a bachelor's degree. ..."
Maybe for a start, the SAF can lead in this integrative initiative, for example, the ITE (Institute of Technical Education) can house an RSN naval technical institute. The RSN trainers can train students in hands-on ship engines and even weapon systems maintenance and servicing while the ITE lecturers go through the academic syllabus imparting generic knowledge such as engineering mathematics, engineering physics, etc. to the students.
Somehow in Singapore context, it is easier to get the civil service institutions on board such programmes but the private sector may take a while owing to the realities that the later exist for business and as for investing in training, well, they expect the schools to produce instant workers and give them what they want upon graduating.
Maybe it is also time to re-look holistically at the current technical education landscape of ITEs and the Polytechnics. Is there a need to have a double layer structure of technical institutions? In the brave new world of the twenty-first century with the advent of information technology, information and learning is made avail to tertiary educated persons such that it has the effect of flattening the hierarchy of the archaic manufactured arrangements of the "division of labour" in the work force between the technicians and the technologist. Can we not have ITEs/Polytechnics combine?
Current structure:
1) Technical institute - ITEs producing technicians
2) Technical institute - Polytechnics producing technologist
3) The academia - Universities and post graduate institutions
Proposed strucutre:
1) Technical Institutions - ITEs and/or Polytechnics
2) The academia - Universities and post graduate institutions
A compromise can be made to preserve both the ITEs and the Polytechnics as vast investments have been poured into building up their infrastructures. Currently the ITEs only award technical certificates and the Polytechnics only award technical diplomas (one level higher than the certificates in the educational hierarchical order). Propose that hence forth, the ITEs will also conduct courses up to the diploma level and the Polytechnic can also conduct course leading to a certificate. This will put paid once and for all the stigma associated with the ITE graduates, elevating the prestige of technical education and skills training up on par with the polytechnics. ITE will remain its name sake, keeping the legacy and history of Singapore's technical education journey but having transformed into a full fledge technical institute on par with the polytechnics. - The ITE Polytechnic ! (The current Central, East and West ITE campus will award the same diploma with the Institution name - ITE Polytechnic. There is no need to specify which campus the graduating student have studied in)
It would make this work if more industry partners come on-board. For example, from the aviation industry, companies like Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Eurocopter, Bombardier, SIA, ST Aerospace, etc. can pull resources putting into an educational fund, offering apprenticeship earn-as-you-learn scheme and upon graduation, a job is offered to the graduand. Me think a bond is necessary apart from the financial outlay consideration. These are hot blooded youngsters, their mind is probably still "wondering" rather unsettled in what they want to do with their lives. So a bond of at least three years is to make them commit to the job, grit their teeth and go through with the initial steep adjustment of real world working life. Once they have acquire the skills and familiar with their work environment and colleagues at the work places, their confidence will be boosted and may be able to see clearer the steps they want to take with regards to their future careers.
To further make the technical certificates more attractive, they shall be renamed as Diplomas. And the current diplomas - Advance Diplomas. (The difference between the new diploma vis a vis the new advance diploma is analogous to that of a bachelors degree vis a vis a bachelors degree with honours).Good riddance to the NITEC/higher NITEC, lexicons that saps ones self esteem. Companies to offer attractive study awards and job offers to diploma holders instead of the advance diploma in the ratio 70/30. This will make it attractive for students to exit the education system at the appropriate level...
Scrap the N - levels !
An even more daring proposal is to revamp the secondary education structure - Scrap the "N" - levels and have the ITEs/Polytechnics conduct a hybrid GCE "O" - levels + relevant technical foundation modules ! The ITEs/Polytechnics will conduct at most five GCE "O" - level subjects, possible combination:
1) Core - GCE "O"-level English (1st Language)
2) Core - GCE "O"-level Second Language (can be studied outside of school if the latter have no provision for that particular language)
3) Core - GCE "O"-level Elementary Mathematics
4) Optional - GCE "O"-level relevant Science/Humanities/Arts subject (or a relevant technical foundation module)
5) Optional - GCE "O"-level relevant Science/Humanities/Arts subject (or a relevant technical foundation module)
+ other ITEs/Polytechnics subjects.
In the secondary schools, there will be no more secondary 4 as we currently understand because secondary schools will not have the GCE "O" - levels any more! In its place, the secondary school will split into a junior high and a senior high structure. So post primary education, a student advance to the secondary school. He/she will study a common curricular of Languages, Mathematics, Social studies, Sciences, Humanities, Arts, Sports and Information Technology. At the junior high levels. All subjects are compulsory.
Junior High:
Junior 1
Junior 2
Junior 3
Senior High:
Senior 4
Senior 5
Senior 6
Current secondary schools and the junior colleges will be revamped to bring them in line on the 3+3 system. The students will take the GCE "A" - level examinations or the International Baccalaureate at the end of Senior 6. The point of exit for students entering the ITEs/Polytechnics will be at the end of Junior 3. These arrangement afford the junior high teachers to develop their students holistically, to be more balance and the students not be distracted from obsessive preparation for the GCE "O" - level examinations. Develop a trend that the bulk of the junior cohort exit at the end of J3 for the diplomas and the advance diplomas. The ITEs/Polytechnics are more than willing to take the bulk of the student cohort, this is aligned with the economic planning objective of the present government...dunno to be glad or sad.
The ITEs/Polytechnics will offer a 3/4 year diploma/advance diploma programme respectively. The students exiting at the end of year 3 will go into the work force and the remaining students who wish to obtain an advance diploma and who meet the cut off grade advance to year 4.
All ITEs/Polytechnics students will take the GCE "O" - levels / relevant technical foundation modules combination at year 1, before specialization (they are still too young to decide what they want to do, this one year at the ITEs/Polytechnics allow them to further their studies in generic subjects and maybe only a couple of trade subjects) as they complete their year 1 at the institutes they have the option to stay on or switch discipline within the school as their year 1 subjects are design to be generic.
Teach less learn skills
For year 2 and year 3 modules, is it necessary to require the students to solve second order partial differential equations or perform Laplace/Wavelet Transforms? Will they ever see these "problems" again in their lives?
For students identified with higher abilities and who express an interest to take their studies to the advance diploma level, they can be loaded a couple more modules in the year 3 in preparation for the year 4 curriculum.
Mother tongue, Many tongues !
The MOE bilingual policy has facilitated the learning of "mother-tongue" in every Singaporean school-going student from primary one up to junior college level, a full 12 years of native language learning! Currently for those who qualify for the ITEs and the polytechnics they do not have to "study" the mother-tongue any more when they enter these institutions. In the proposed ITEs/Polytechnics hybrid GCE "O" - levels + relevant technical foundation modules for year one, there is a core subject of second language. This allow students to continue studying their mother tongue up to the GCE "O" - level. In addition, students can now choose NOT to continue to study the mother tongue but rather, must then choose to study another foreign language that is offered by the institution! For example, some students may hope to apply for scholarships to study in a German university post diploma, or for some may like to pick up another foreign language, say, modern Hebrew, out of interest (this is just an exaggerated example). For the former he/she may choose to read the German language to acquire a foundation. Of course without any prior knowledge of the German language, they will not be taking the "O" level exams but rather, continue taking the language as a credit module up to the end of year 3. And for the latter example of the student taking the modern Hebrew study even though the institute may not offer this subject, the student can source for an accredited Hebrew language centre locally or even study with a bona fide internet learning resource subject to a case-by-case approval from the institutions, this exercise should not be beyond the capability of a tertiary institution of Singapore.
Nine years of progressive study of their mother tongues have hopefully equipped the student an inkling of their respective native world view through the study of their mother tongue's literature, if not at the least equipped the student a more than basic proficiency in their native language. Thus one can view the bilingual policy has succeeded on a pragmatic level for the bulk of the student body whom are not entering the academic route. The emphasis of studying a second language other than ones mother tongue open doors to students the option in furthering their education in a non English speaking country, and in time to come as more and more of these students passes through the ITEs/Polytechnics route, the country may gain a pool of Singaporeans that are conversant in languages other than English and the "mother tongues". The objective is to aim for a pragmatic outcome of rudimentary conversational, reading and writing comprehension of the foreign language, in no way am i advocating that they must be so proficient in the foreign language that they can write the Shakespeare equivalent in the native language... but one may never know, they might surprise you one day :-)
The second language requirement, though seem like a distraction in a technical institute, but it is not and one should not be coloured by ones experience with the current learning requirement of the mother tongue policy in the MOE schools
. The learning pedagogy adopted for this programme should be anchored on fun in the young adult learners' assignments, oral and comprehension test, etc. and aim for a pragmatic outcome
my reservation is that this should not be high jack by native language teachers who go on to champion their bastion of chauvinistic superiority of their language and culture, turning the worthwhile pursuit of learning a native language and load it with political innuendo, just saying This one module should not detract one from the bigger objective of training technically skilled individual, which is the over ridding purpose of the ITEs/Polytechnics.
But i think realistically, most students would opt to continue to do their GCE "O" - level second language at year one and be done with it!
Life Long Learning ...
Currently polytechnics conduct part-time advance diploma courses. A student need to attend night classes after work for three times a week, continuously for a minimum duration of two years. In recent times, the advance diplomas have lost its "lustre" as compared to say, fifteen, twenty years ago! Those days there was a dearth of continuous education opportunities offered to polytechnic graduates unlike present where many private local and overseas institutions/universities offer a plethora of bachelors and even post graduate programmes, vying for aspiring working adults. (the only exception being the nursing profession whereby an advance nursing diploma grant exemptions towards a nursing bachelors degree from collaborating universities, these are usually overseas institutions, thus the nursing advance dip is still popular).
Coming from an Asian culture that almost worship academic achievement as a kind of social status symbol. This confusionistic bend partly drives the Asian tigers to economic success, but ironically this also has an opposite effect of society dumping down the professions associated with "blue collar" technical/trade craftsman-professionals. (exception being Japan, but is Japan confusionist?) No wonder it seems so much difficult to implement the Nordic "experience" that we have been in the know for a long while, and yet, half heartedly, going nowhere, only the oft slogan. To be fair this may have something to do with the decline of the manufacturing industry in Singapore for the last decade. But even during the hey days of plentiful factory jobs brought about by the MNCs, there was never really a deep respect for the technically inclined and his trade, only a modicum of acknowledgement that this job can earn you good wage. It takes time and a mind set change, nothing short of mobilizing the whole village. That i suspect this exercise need involves a genuine
democratisation of the populace gearing us towards a real respect for the
individual with a polity giving its all. Politics-democracy-individual, these words, over here, its like a bad dream where you keep moving forward no matter how hard you try, you just can't get out from the spot.
Coming back to earth, nowadays polytechnics come up with ingenious idea of tailoring post diploma part-time courses of shorter duration, usually a year, positioning themselves in this competitive education market, they also have to fulfil a KPI of attracting working adults to take their part-time courses. These courses are target at very specific prospective working adults in their respective industries. Upon completing such a course, the graduand is awarded a
Specialist Diploma. This is good. This is a creative idea. May be on to something to realise the objective of life long learning. Though realistically it may not totally gear people away from obsessing over university degrees but nevertheless it opens an avenue for organisations (especially GLCs, where the big boys with hierarchy can offer something) to take the lead.
To promote the idea of a craftsman obtaining more than one such specialist diploma in his/her career life time. Which is more doable given its short duration, with support from the institutions, the employer, the government and most importantly, the constituent of this society, us. (and this takes us back to demoractization and respect for the individual)
Call it -
Specialist Advance Diploma. Name change is a small matter. Nurturing a society that has genuine respect for manual/technical jobs with an attractive living wage to boot, something got to give. But it is worth.
You can't want one thing without having first to change the other.
Add on 29 March 2014
Providing manpower needs to the Home Team
Diploma/Advance Diploma in Law Enforcement. In addition to recruiting graduands from the ITE/Polytechnics into the police force, why not train police force recruits right from the time they enter tertiary technical institutions?! The three/four years of full time academic study plus practical training allow the police academy to expand the training curriculum and equipped the future law enforcer to be more steady as their training stint extend from six months to three/four years! Earn-as-you-learn scheme with a three/four year bond upon graduation (Two years of full-time NS is counted with the bond period, should the candidate break bond, he will still be liable to serve the two years of NS and the bond breaker may be deployed out of the home team dependant on national manpower needs).
Physical fitness occupy an important portion of the curricular, contributing to as much as forty percent of the course credit modules. Bringing physical education on par with the traditional academic subjects is long overdue, a neglected vital part of human development. Yes, even the IPPT (Individual Physical Proficiency Test) is a credit module! Unarmed Combat module. Weapons module. First Aid/CPR certification modules, etc. on top of the other academic and law enforcement studies.
Work attachments deployment of student cadets mostly into neighbourhood police centres. The practicum attachment with the police force will only start in their third year when they are older and have received long enough periods of physical training.
With a three/four years of full time training calendar, the police cadet can be exposed to the basics of almost the full spectrum of the police branches. Policing with the neighbourhood centres exposed the trainees to general police procedures. The ITE/polytechnics health sciences department can conduct rudimentary credit modules to acquaint them with anatomic/physiologic terms when assisting the coroner in their evidence gathering protocol involving unnatural death cases. Attachment credit module with the special operations command in riot squad basic form up and tactics. CCTV operations and technology modules conducted by the engineering/media departments. Basics of building fire alarm systems and elevator operations, acquaint with building blue-print layout and familiar with the building management system in the facilities control room modules conducted by lecturers from the civil/building departments. etc ...
Practical skills set.
work in progress ...
02 March 2014
