PRESS RELEASE

Ministry of Education

Reference No: EDUN N25-02-004 Press Release No: 03405 Date 22 Aug 2005

ADVANCING THE COMPLETION OF INSTITUTE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION (ITE) REGIONAL COLLEGES

1. The completion of ITE College West and ITE College Central will be brought forward to 2009 and 2011, from the earlier slated timeline of 2010 and 2015 respectively.

2. The consolidation of ITE’s 10 campuses into 3 Colleges will bring many benefits to ITE students. Prime Minister highlighted these benefits at the 2005 National Day Rally.

3. The 3 regional Colleges will enable ITE to provide more choices for students, more opportunities for multi-disciplinary learning and customisation of a student’s course of study. They will also allow students to experience a richer range of social and co-curricular activities for students. The flexibility and broader experiences offered by the ITE Colleges will be more akin to what the polytechnics provide. The new Colleges will also provide modern facilities and amenities to enhance campus life.

4. Each College will have greater autonomy to respond to the industry and carve out its own niche. There will be greater scope for competition, innovation and diversification between the 3 Colleges. Further, the Colleges will enable ITE to provide continuing education and training programmes to more Singaporeans, once they have entered the workforce.

Background Information

5. With the establishment of “One ITE System, Three Colleges” education model from Jan 2005, ITE is consolidating its 10 campuses into 3 regional Colleges: ITE College East in , ITE College West in and ITE College Central in .

6. ITE’s first regional College - ITE College East is located in Simei and has a student capacity of 7,200. It has admitted its first batch of students in Jan 2005. ITE College East provides ITE students with access to a greater diversity of courses, i.e. engineering students are able to take business-related modules or business students can choose to take info-communications technology modules. Having both Nitec1 and Higher Nitec students in the same premises also allows the students to appreciate the progression path for their Nitec programmes and enables the Higher Nitec students to provide leadership and guidance to the younger Nitec students.

------

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

22 Aug 2005

1 National ITE Certificate

2