WRONG PAGINATION IN ORIGINAL DOCUMENT National Archives Library 25 MAR 1992 Release No.: 09/MAR. 06-2/92/03/11 92-SS-1

SPEECH BY MR SIDEK BIN SANIFF, MINISTER OF STATE (EDUCATION), AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE "CAREER '92 : TOWARDSGLOBAL SERVICES" EXHIBITION HELD AT THE WORLDTRADE CENTRE ON WEDNESDAY,11 MARCH 1992 AT 11.00 AM

I am very pleased to be present to open this year's Career '92 fair. This is the fourth year of the career fair organised by the Professional Centre and ITP Services (Pte) Ltd. The fair has grown and developed in these four years. When it was first held in 1989, it attracted 130,000 visitors. Last year the number of visitors increased to approximately 155,000. The number of countries involved has also increased from six to eleven. Though students form the majority of visitors, there is an increasing number of young working adults visiting the fair for the latest information on careers.

Given the wide and varied range of occupations available today, career guidance has become a very important component of education. This is particularly so with the emphasis now to match abilities and personalities with occupations to ensure a more productive and creative workforce. As a result, the role of teachers has expanded. Since teachers are in the best position to help young people in their career choices, they now perform the role of career guidance counsellors as well. Gone are the days when teachers only concentrate on teaching traditional school subjects. Besides many other duties, teachers now need to gather information on further education courses and careers to be well-equipped to counsel their students.

On the other hand, employers too play an important role in providing teachers with the information needed to match abilities and personalities with occupations. In view of this, the Ministry of Education has been working very closely with teachers, principals and outside organisations to ensure that young people will select occupations that best suit their personalities, interests and aptitude. 4 For a start, all secondary schools, junior colleges and centralised institutes are encouraged to set up career guidance units. In this way, career counselling will be easily available to students.

To assist teachers, in-service training will be given greater emphasis by the Ministry of Education. Training modules for schools' careers teachers are being developed to better equip career guidance counsellors for their role. In this respect the National Institute of Education offers career guidance programmes in their training courses.

The Ministry is developing a "Careers Education" resource l pack for secondary schools. Included in this package is a jobs directory providing information on industries, the nature of various jobs, their prospects, opportunities and even the current market trends.

At the same time, a "teacher-in-industry" concept is being worked out. Teachers would then be attached to various work places so that they could acquire first hand experiences in industries and be better equipped to counsel their students in their career choices.

Our efforts would be negated if we fail to link these programmes with outside organisations and firms as they are important partners in this career guidance network. We would like to assure the schools that links with outside agencies and firms have already been established. And in many ways these agencies have been very supportive.

Take for example the joint effort by the Ministry and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). They are helping us in the publication of the jobs directory which I mentioned earlier. SPH extracts relevant information from teleview and put them in print. This booklet will reach a wider group of people.

Another example of a joint effort with an outside organisation is the "When I Grow Up" project with McDonald's. 5 This series of 13 vignettes was shown over SBC 5 during "Sunday Morning, Singapore". It was targetted at upper primary school pupils and free video tapes have been made available to all primary schools as well as secondary schools.

On a much wider perspective, links with overseas organisations have already been established. Countries such as Britain, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong, to name a few, are now part of a very comprehensive network with links which allow for exchange of ideas. Even overseas training programmes to upgrade the career guidance and counselling skills of our teachers are available as a result of this overseas network.

I would like, at this point, to make an appeal for more firms and outside agencies to come forward and support us in our effort to ensure that the right people are matched with the most suitable occupations. It is not possible for the schools, by themselves, to provide information on all types of careers. Firms and outside organisations can assist by working closely with the Ministry to provide schools with up-to-date information and help young people make the best choices. In this way, they will enjoy a satsifying career and Singapore will be assured of a more productive and creative workforce.

In conclusion, I would like to congratulate the organising committee and the exhibitors for this fair as I am confident that students, parents and teachers who visit the fair will be better informed about the various career options that are open.

I have now great pleasure in declaring "Career '92" open.

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Edun/MSmarl1.'92/Pgs.l-4 From: INFORMATIONS (8812:GVT224) Subject: [Towards Global Services] Delivered: Thu 19-March-92 11:43 SING (35 lines)

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