POLYTECHNICS continue not only to expand the array of diploma courses they offer, but have also chosen them well in responding to evolving market demand. The strategic positioning is even more compelling in bad times when jobs become scarcer than in boom years, and skills relevance offers an edge to job seekers. Among new courses available from this year are those in database software programming, writing for new media (including in Chinese), caring for the ageing and aged, and fund management. Business and industry expect to snap up graduates in these courses and others, for their hands-on learning and industrial attachments.

Polytechnic training obviously meets new and emerging demands of employers, as the knowledge-based economy develops along with globalisation, as the population grows older, and as the nation's aspiration to remain an international financial centre persists through the credit crisis. These are all trends polytechnics have positioned themselves with commendable foresight and flexibility to serve. Engineering courses have had their focus shifted to aerospace and clean energy, for example, from the traditional electrical and mechanical varieties. Preparing for one of the latest opportunities, four of the five polytechnics plan to send 100 students to Universal Studios in Orlando in the United States on four-month internships, in collaboration with the Sentosa casino-resort. Partnering with industry for training here and abroad adds to the value and allure of a poly education.

Polytechnic graduates have gained a wider spread of benefits over the decades. Employment and salary among them have continued to rise. A survey by the polytechnics showed more of their graduates who found jobs did so within six months in 2007, than did the previous cohort. In the same year, those who found full-time permanent jobs also earned more than their predecessors did.

Another attraction that accounts for their growing success is that polytechnics offer another path to a university degree, especially in engineering. Junior college students are facing ever tighter competition from the poly brigade for university places. Last year, more poly graduates than ever applied to NUS and NTU. In 2007, 32 per cent of applicants who got into polytechnics were good enough for junior college. In recent years foreign specialised institutions have enabled poly students to earn degrees locally in technological fields that are in high demand. Polytechnics and their alumni have clearly and deservedly become a force to be reckoned with in the tertiary education system and the economy.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 24 Jan, 2009.