SIT Welcomes Students for AY2012/13

26 August 2012

The Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) formally welcomed its incoming AY2012/13 students at the Welcome Ceremony 2012 held at The Republic Cultural Centre, Republic Polytechnic. SIT increased its intake of students to 1,300 this academic year, from 1,000 students in the previous year. Of the 24 degree programmes offered by SIT, seven new degree programmes will see their first intake of SIT students this August.

Professor Tan Chin Tiong, President, SIT announced that apart from the degree scroll and transcript that students are expected to graduate with, graduating students would also receive an SIT Graduation Certificate and an accompanying Record of Achievement. 

Due to SIT’s campus-blind policy, the degree scrolls issued by SIT’s overseas university partners will not bear any Singapore mark or SIT logo as the scrolls are identical to the degree scrolls issued at the home campus of each overseas university. The SIT Graduation Certificate, bearing SIT’s logo, would thus be issued in addition to the degree scrolls.

In tandem with Professor Tan’s announcement to issue an SIT Record of Achievement to graduating students next year, SIT launched the Value-Added Programme (VAP) for its students. The VAP aims to groom SIT students as talented individuals with a balance of industry-specific skills and high level management skills. The VAP modules, which students can sign up for during the course of their studies in SIT, will focus on the skills required by fresh graduates to execute complex technical projects and aim to build students’ leadership abilities in a demanding work environment. Through consultation with industry partners, the VAP was designed by SIT staff and faculty to be a core component of every SIT student’s undergraduate portfolio. Hence, the VAP will comprise career and personal development modules, technical skill modules, as well as high level leadership modules.

Professor Tan Chin Tiong, President, SIT said, "At SIT, we make sure that our students graduate well-prepared for the work force and are industry-ready. There is no other institution in Singapore which offers some of the best industry-relevant degree programmes from around the world to our local polytechnic graduates. This year, we launched the Value-Added Programme as a targeted way to build up students’ soft skills and management skills. We studied the selection criteria of leading local and international companies in their search for top talent and designed the VAP to impart some of this knowledge to our students. Our top priority is to ensure that our students graduate in high demand and are ready to take on the challenges of their choice careers."

SIT also announced a new Postgraduate Research Scholarship Scheme in collaboration with its partner Newcastle University (NU) and the five local polytechnics. SIT will co-sponsor a total of 15 scholarships to this PhD programme which aims to build the academic and research capacity in Singapore in a variety of research fields. Preference of applications would be given to the existing fields of study in the current SIT-NU undergraduate partnership.

Students enrolled for AY2012/13 will begin their programme this September at the respective SIT facilities within each polytechnic as well as at the respective OU campuses.

About Singapore Institute of Technology

Established in 2009, SIT is an initiative of the Ministry of Education offering undergraduate degree programmes primarily for polytechnic graduates. In partnership with various reputable overseas universities, SIT has brought to Singapore some of the world’s top industry-focused degree programmes targeted at growth sectors of the economy.

Through a unique tripartite collaboration with its overseas university partners and the five local polytechnics, SIT represents a new model that is set to become a key pillar of university education. SIT adopts a distributed campus model to allow greater synergy and efficiency. Through this model, SIT’s degree programmes will be housed within an SIT building in each of the polytechnics to cater to an annual intake of about 2000 full-time students by 2015.