infinITE Issue 116 - Institute of Technical Education

6
BUZZ
Engineered for Success
Bright future for Engineering students
by Karen Sum
Simulation Exercise: When getting the actual equipment is an issue,
real-life simulators are adopted. This includes the racing simulator which
allows students to experience the thrills of being an F1 driver in a safe
environment; and is a fun way for students to learn Engineering topics.
The trend is apparent. Since 2006, none of the 28 recipients
of the President’s Scholarship have opted to study
Engineering at university. In 2012, Senior Parliamentary
Secretary of the Ministry of Communications and Information
& Ministry of Education, Ms Sim Ann, recounted a case where
a local businessman lamented that he could easily find people
to be Project Managers, but few wanted to take up the
technical job positions.
Engineering, it seems, has fallen out of favour with the students
of today. Senior Director/School of Engineering at ITE College
East, Mr Lim Teck Lee acknowledges the challenges he faces in
attracting students to take up Engineering courses. “Students
with good academic grades shun Engineering because it is a
tough trade to pick up. It requires logical thinking and a good
foundation in Maths and Physics. Students are required to
dirty their hands and they need to have some persistency in
order to be grounded in their trade skills,” he shared.
For students entering an uncertain job market, this should
be good news to them. With increasingly fewer “doers” and
more “managers”, engineers, especially local ones, are in
short supply, and ITE Engineering students can help fill this
gap. Mr Lim agreed, “Engineering is even more important
now as equipment and systems are getting more complex and
compact. It is the backbone of every economy and we need
engineers and technicians to build and manage infrastructure,
to support high-end manufacturing, to engineer processes
and systems to enhance productivity to make equipment work
more efficiently and more easily.”
work and career progression. Academic staff have also taken to
showing students how Engineering can be fun and relevant by
using gadgets and real-life examples of Engineering marvels to
help them relate to the topics they are studying.
An emphasis on authentic learning also means that much
investment goes into building labs and acquiring the latest
technology and equipment for our students to practise and
learn. The goal – to ensure our graduates are armed with
relevant skills that they can readily put to use when they
enter the workforce. This “plug-and-play” concept makes our
graduates more attractive to employers, who do not need to
spend time familiarising our students with work processes.
ITE Engineering graduate, Vickneshwaran Elangovan, agreed, “At
ITE, I picked up skills that are relevant to the industry, and this
made it easier for me to learn and catch up with my colleagues
when I started work.” Vickneshwaran holds a Higher Nitec in
Mechanical Engineering and Technical Engineer Diploma (TED)
in Machine Technology. He immediately started work as an
Engineer Assistant at II-VI Singapore Pte Ltd upon completion of
his TED in March 2010.
Forging key partnerships with industry players has also helped
keep our inventory of equipment and skills knowledge up to
date. Many of our labs and Engineering centres are named to
reflect these partnership, such as the ITE-Sembcorp Marine
Engineering & Quality Centre, the ITE-ABB Automation
Technology Solutions Centre, and ITE-Omron Sensor & PLC
Application Centre.
Learning Facilities
To make it more attractive, ITE has been highlighting how
Engineering can open up many windows of opportunities for