Universities in Singapore revising IT, digital modules to keep up with industry demands

SINGAPORE: Some Singapore universities are introducing more specialised courses in their information technology and digital curriculum to keep up with changing industry demands.

They hope that the move, which includes arming undergraduates with industry certifications to go beyond their general tech degrees, will help them be more employable.

Human resource experts told CNA that such specialisation will be crucial in enhancing one’s employability, given that challenges in the tech market are likely to persist.

To ease the problem, the company came up with its own ethical hacking boot camp to upskill and identify potential employees.

“We don’t just expect our fresh graduates or fresh hires to be able to have all of these skill sets, and I say this in the context of rapid technological changes,” said the firm’s vice president of human resources Serene Yeo.

“As technology evolves, we need our fresh grads and our new hires to evolve along with it, so skill sets can be learned (and) can be picked up.”

The skill sets that the firm hires for “are diverse and wide-ranging”, Ms Yeo said.

For instance, incident responders, who analyse how a breach occurs and suggest a fix so that it does not happen again, usually have a knack for discovering patterns.

“(For this role), from a skill set standpoint, I think what would be really desirable would be people who can automate workflows so that we can more quickly detect and discover where the issues are,” said Ms Yeo.

“So usually the skill sets that come along with that would be in AI, because this would then enable us to more quickly get to the heart of the matter for the client.”

The rate for IT and digital tech fresh graduates getting full-time permanent jobs has dropped by 5 percentage points since 2021.

Institutes of Higher Learning, such as the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), are trying to boost their students’ chances of getting a job.

Associate Professor Zhu Yongqing, head of the information and communication technology programme at SUSS, said it is incorporating industry certification courses into its existing ICT curriculum, among other efforts.

“We work together with the industry partners to offer certification courses in different ICT areas, which include cloud computing, system administration, (and) data communication,” she noted.

“So upon completion of these courses, if students can pass the certification exams, they will be awarded the highly-recognised industry certificates. This will help students to improve their employability.”

Read more : Channel News Asia