Singapore Maths Tuition - University and JC

04 June 2019

Mr Jason Chua was a student in the Normal (Technical) stream. He used to think that no matter how hard he pushed himself, he would inevitably end up at the Institute of Technical Education together with most of his peers.

However, Mr Chua defied everyone’s expectations, and today, he not only has a university degree, but also works as a prosecutor at a government agency.

Mr Chua used to work part-time at a fast-food outlet while in Secondary School. He told himself that he had to excel in his studies, and with hard work, he eventually decided to take the O-level examinations as a private student at City College. To his pleasant surprise, he scored a respectable 16 points for his best five subjects.

Following the O levels, Mr Chua attended the three-year A-level programme at Millennia Institute and took a diploma in psychology from a private school at the same time. He scored 3 As in the A-level exams — a feat once mentioned by then Education Minister Heng Swee Keat in Parliament in 2012 to highlight students that exemplified resilience.

When Mr Chua was accepted into SMU Law School, he initially felt a bit inferior as the students were all from top schools. But he told himself not to give up, continuing to give tuition three times a week to put himself through university. He graduated last year with his law degree.

29 May 2019

Singapore Management University is reviewing the grades for a particular course taken by over 160 business students after it was discovered that the module lecturer, Professor Stefano Harney, had given all the students an A grade with the same numerical score.

SMU, which had described the grades as “bogus”, said that this was the first time this has happened. However, Prof Harney defended his action, saying that he wanted to spare students the pressure to achieve high grades and did not want to artificially restrict the number of As through a bell curve.

Prof Harney graduated from Harvard University and has a doctorate from Cambridge University. He has been at SMU since 2012 and is the professor of strategic management at its Lee Kong Chian School of Business.

Prof Harney taught and graded a module called The Capstone: Studying Business Through the Classics.

SMU associate dean in charge of undergraduate programmes Michelle Lee explained in an e-mail to students: “There is no variation to the scores he (Harney) assigned, even though the variation in quality of work submitted is plain to see.”

27 May 2019

In 2012, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that 40 per cent of each cohort of students would find university places by 2020.

Though some raised concerns over a surplus of university graduates in the future, a 40 per cent university participation rate is comparable with many developed countries.

The thirst for university degrees among young people today is based largely on practical considerations. Most students believe it would help them better compete in the job market and gain access to the careers they want.

Indeed, there is merit in further expanding the number of places for applied skills-based degree courses that are in demand, and in disciplines relevant to Singapore’s future needs.

At the same time, the Government is also pushing for Singaporeans to keep learning continuously so that they can reach their fullest potential. Seen through that lens, the expansion of university places should be viewed as a chance for young Singaporeans to deepen their learning and skills to be able to seize new opportunities.

25 May 2019

On learning that a farm in Vietnam was producing excess milk, a group of students from Singapore Polytechnic has come up with a way to stop it going to waste.

Students from SP’s chemical and life sciences school developed a recipe to convert cows’ milk into soap during a two-week trip to Cu Chi village near Ho Chi Minh City in 2017.

Every soap bar is handmade in a home studio in Vietnam using natural ingredients, like bamboo charcoal, rose clay powder and pure essential oils. Villagers earn extra income by selling about 15 litres of milk a week.

The Singapore team members focus on sales and marketing, while their Vietnamese counterparts handle the procurement of raw materials and production.

The trip was part of SP’s learning express programme. More than 5,000 students have gone on these trips since the programme started in 2013. More than 15 projects over the years have been implemented in local communities.

23 May 2019

Mr Nicholas Chan, 23, is the first Institute of Technical Education graduate to be accepted into the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

But his road to NUS was far from smooth. He had previously quit secondary school, trained as a nursing student in the Institute of Technical Education, and then at Nanyang Polytechnic.

In his youth, he had always entertained thoughts of being a nurse or a doctor so he could help people, partly because of his grandmother who had taken care of him when.

He did well in ITE with a grade point average of 3.65, qualifying for NYP’s nursing course. He graduated from NYP last year in May with a near-perfect GPA of 3.91 out of 4.

He was admitted to NUS through its Exceptional Individual Scheme. The scheme lets the university use its discretion and look beyond just academic results in admitting a small number of students.