SINGAPORE - Students take three to four years to graduate from polytechnic or university and the Ministry of Education (MOE) has to look beyond short-term cyclical trends in the labour market, said Education Minister Chan Chun Sing.
“When we design courses, we must have a long-term perspective of what are the skill sets that are required by the market, not in the next one to two years, but in the next five to ten years,” he said.
“More importantly, what are the adjacent skill sets that will allow our people to pivot to new jobs that may be created and may not even be in existence today?”
Mr Chan was responding to supplementary questions in Parliament on March 7 about the recent university graduate employment survey which was released on Feb 24, which had showed that fewer fresh graduates found full-time work in 2024.
MPs like Ms Jessica Tan (East Coast GRC) and Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied GRC) had sought clarifications about whether there is a potential skills gap, and if the drop in employment rates reflects a long-term trend of graduates’ job prospects.
Mr Singh had also asked whether the MOE plans to review the course curriculum for polytechnics and universities to develop adjacent skills that can be applied in multiple jobs.
Referencing questions asked about university admissions on March 6 during the debate on MOE’s budget, Mr Chan said: “It is not about how many graduates we produce a year that matters most.”
What is most important is whether graduates have the required skills to get good jobs - not just at the beginning with good starting pay - and a good trajectory, he said.
Associate Professor Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) had said on March 6 that Singapore has a “skilled worker gap” and proposed a more flexible admissions system, allowing students who meet minimum criteria to enrol in universities like Singapore University of Social Sciences and Singapore Institute of Technology, rather than compete for limited spots.
Citing examples from France and Germany, where entry into public universities is generally open to those who pass national exams, Prof Lim said that concerns over dropouts and funding could be addressed by maintaining entry standards and stricter graduation requirements.
“The crux of the matter is, what are the skill sets that we are equipping them with?”, Mr Chan said. “That is most important, and it’s not just about letting having everybody go to university, because we all want to go after the paper chase.”
Therecent university graduate employment survey showed that 79.5 per cent of graduates secured full-time positions in 2024, down from 84.1 per cent in 2023. But their median gross salaries increased to $4,500 in 2024, from $4,317 in 2023.
Graduates were surveyed on Nov 1, 2024, six months after they completed their final examinations.
Minister of State for Education Gan Siow Huang said that MOE looks beyond those six months when monitoring employment trends and seeing whether intervention is needed.
These figures provide a “snapshot” of graduate employment outcomes, said Ms Gan, adding that employment rates for university graduates aged 25 to 29 have remained “broadly stable” over the last ten years, along with low long-term unemployment rates.
In 2024, 95 per cent of this age group were in full-time employment, she said.
“There are fluctuations in sectoral employment rates and these are to be expected given the cyclical nature of the economy and the labour market,” she said.
The higher median salaries of graduates reflect both market trends and how graduates are drawn to “growth sectors”, said Ms Gan, adding that the absolute numbers of fresh graduates from the autonomous universities have grown in the last five years.
Gabrielle Chan is a journalist at The Straits Times, and covers everything related to education in Singapore.
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