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| Glorious
past, bright future ahead |
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| Another notable
achievement by SP: Principal Lecturer
Loh Peng Chum invented the 19K
Purple Gold as well as the world’s
first titanium-gold. |
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"History attests
to how gung-ho Singapore Poly was about reinventing
itself over and over again…. Change
seems to be the only constant thing in Singapore
Poly,” said Parliamentary Secretary
for Education and Manpower, Mr Hawazi Daipi,
at a ceremony to mark 50 days to Singapore
Polytechnic’s (SP) golden jubilee.
Indeed, SP has come a long way from being
an institution for training technicians to
what it is today — a premier tertiary
institution with an alumni that comprises
leading architects, engineers, fund managers,
senior corporate executives, a university
president and even a Minister
of State (Ministry of National Development
and Ministry of Defence) —
Mr Cedric Foo.
That SP constantly breaks new ground is a
demonstration of its dauntless pioneering
spirit. Some of its recent “firsts”
include
the following:
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• |
SP was
the first educational institution to
develop a fever scanner in partnership
with a local firm. |
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• |
SP was
the first institution in Singapore to
gain international accreditation for
its ecommerce programmes by the Institute
of Certified E-Commerce Consultants. |
| • |
SP’s Singapore
Maritime Academy won the prestigious
Lloyd’s List Maritime Asia Award
for being the best seafarer training
institute in Asia Pacific in 2000 and
2002. |
Poised for the future, SP is forging a new
educational model to face tomorrow’s
challenges.
Explained Principal Low Wong Fook, “SP
is moving beyond its ‘hard’ engineering
image which has served Singapore well in the
last 50 years, to prepare its graduates for
the new ‘experience’ economy which
also emphasises ‘soft’ skills.
“Special emphasis is placed on educating
our students in design as we believe this
will give education at the Polytechnic an
added edge in the new economy. In the new
economy, people who can make use of technologies
to produce products and services that generate
great experiences for the users will be paid
a premium.”
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| At
the Asian Noodle Technology Development
Centre, students created noodles
with varied flavours such as spinach/paprika
and soya/pumpkin. |
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| - |
Towards this end, the Polytechnic has established
research, development and learning centres
to focus on products and services that appeal
to the five senses. Such centres include the
Food Flavours Lab, the Digital Media Studio
and the Cosmetics and Fragrance Centre.
SP also increasingly emphasises a broadbased,
multi-disciplinary approach to education.
For example, it introduced the General Elective
Modules or GEMs in July 2004 to complement
the core curriculum. Presently, students are
offered over 50 GEMS such as Chinese idioms,
Celestial Navigation, and Drama and Film Appreciation.
Two other compulsory modules — Innovation,
Design and Enterprise in Action, and Critical
Reasoning Skills — will also broaden
students’ knowledge.
There are also plans to restructure the curriculum
to make it more learning-centric and less-teaching
centric.
Ultimately, SP aims to develop students who
have a global mindset, and are creative, innovative,
enterprising and competent in areas beyond
their core discipline. It is prepared to take
drastic measures to ensure that it remains
relevant to the needs of the economy.
Said Mr Low, “You may have heard the
saying that ‘good is the enemy of great’.
We may have to tear down seemingly good models,
processes, structures and policies in order
to re-engineer them to be ‘great’.
We aspire to make SP the indisputable leader
in polytechnic education — in Singapore,
the region and beyond.” |
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| Next: Working,
studying in SP |
