Mr Bill Chang, Chairman of the SIT Board of Trustees
Professor Chua Kee Chaing, President, SIT
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. This is a significant moment and I would like to affirm the efforts that led to the signing of the MOUs today. With ICT partners, we often talk about how technology is changing rapidly and transforming industry, and how we must continue to upskill our Singaporeans to remain relevant. This we already know. And we have converted. However, the question is: how can we get even better?
2. What we are doing today is a critical development to enable our people and industries to stay competitive and relevant.
3. For adult learners to reskill and upskill themselves – it takes effort. They have many competing priorities – family responsibilities, financial commitments, time constraints and other responsibilities in life. The question is not whether adult learners should upskill or reskill, but rather, how can they do it at a comfortable pace? And how can we enable them to do this at speed and at scale?
4. We need the industry, institutions, and individuals to come together and work on this. Only with this triple helix of industry, institutions and individuals will we have the best chance to do this effectively.
5. Today I would like to affirm the efforts of SIT for taking the lead in supporting lifelong learning through the Competency-based Stackable Micro-credentials (CSM) pathway.
6. This effort is significant as SIT has been pioneering a competency-based approach for working adults. How is this different from conventional upgrading pathways?
7. In the past, we tend to focus our attention on degrees and diplomas. These are certainly useful in signaling general abilities and capabilities. But increasingly, moving forward, we need to be able to help our workers signal specific skillsets to the market.
8. And today, our industries must be better able to articulate the specific skillsets that they require in order to aggregate the demand and activate the supply. This is why this initiative by SIT and the industries to focus on competency-based modules is so important.
9. Beyond the first diploma or degree, we should be pursuing many more stackable modules that are competency-based.
10. Another significant effort by SIT and the industries today is the way in which they confer the micro-credentials. It is not just about getting a general degree, but micro-credentials that are relevant and specific to the industry needs. In this partnership, SIT needs the inputs of our industries, especially the frontier industries. Our competitiveness is not defined by the size of our talent-based resources. Our ability to compete is dependent on our speed of evolution.
11. To evolve our ideas as well as products and services at speed, we need effective partnerships between the frontier industry and frontier academic research. Only then can we shorten knowledge transfer cycles, which is necessary for us to stay relevant and competitive. That is why the designing of micro-credentials by SIT together with the rest of the industries is so important, for us to stay ahead of the game for both individuals and the industry.
12. Today's launch is also significant as we want to see greater collaboration across all our institutes of higher learning (IHLs) – the universities, polytechnics and ITE. We need to compete as a Singapore system – 6 AUs, 5 polytechnics and 1 ITE. In time to come, this will enable our IHLs to focus on their distinctive features.
13. My dream is that one day, this model of lifelong learning with stackable modules will allow us to stack micro-credentials not just within the universities but across universities.
14. I am very happy to share that the Presidents and Provosts of our universities are meeting regularly to discuss how the universities can combine their strengths and leverage one another's expertise to offer a more comprehensive suite of upskilling and reskilling opportunities for our adult learners.
15. And if we can do this well, we will fundamentally change the way our universities, polytechnics and ITE compete as a system, with the rest of the world.
16. Congratulations to SIT for pioneering a competency-based model that is timely and specific to the needs of the adult learners and creating micro-modules so that our adult learners can learn any subject, anytime, anywhere. As most of us are connected to platforms such as the internet, there is no reason why anyone should be deprived of such opportunities to keep upgrading themselves every day.
17. Congratulations again to SIT and I would also like to commend all the partners who have joined SIT in this effort because without your partnership, SIT and MOE would not be able to do this alone. Thank you very much.