Singapore is facing a shortage of manpower in technology and that is the reason more foreigners are needed in this area (Trade pacts haven't jeopardised jobs for S'poreans: Heng, Aug 24).
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat's statement about the shortage does not surprise me as secondary school students in Singapore do not learn computer science as a compulsory subject. The Singapore education system is highly deterministic is computer science engineering. A number of Integrated Programme schools offer computer science as a compulsory subject from Secondary 1 onwards. But that is not the case for Express/Normal Academic/ Normal Technical stream students.
At my son's secondary school, the O-level course on computing is capped at 20 students, and it is only open - as far as I am aware - to Express stream students. Students must also first take and pass a computer aptitude test based - in part - on programming knowledge that was taught earlier this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment