SQA 2005

Citation

Institue of Technical Education (ITE)

A post-secondary institution under the Ministry of Education, ITE is Singapore’s principal provider of technical education and training. It provides pre-employment training to secondary school leavers and continuing education and skills renewal to ITE graduates and working adults under a “One ITE System, Three Colleges” Education and Governance Model. Under this system implemented in January 2005, its three Colleges - ITE College Central, ITE College East and ITE College West – have greater autonomy to innovate and create its own niches of excellence. ITE also conducts industry-based programmes with employers and develops national-level Certification and Skills Standards for industry in support of developing a competitive Singapore workforce.

As a niche educational institution, ITE is mission-driven to serve its customers, most of whom are technically-inclined students from 25% of a secondary school cohort, its industry and school partners, and other stakeholders. Focusing on technical and career skills, ITE creates valued educational opportunities for these students who would have lagged behind their peers in other education systems across the world. ITE also serves our national agenda by developing a highly-skilled and adaptable workforce for Singapore’s transition into a global economy.

To fulfill its Mission and Vision, ITE has adopted the SQA frameworkas a world-class benchmark to ensure a relevant, resilient and robust National Technical Education System. Since 1995, ITE has been aligning its systems and processes and comparing its results against the “best-of-the-best” benchmarks of excellence locally and internationally.

Guided by visionary leadership, ITE put in place strategic roadmaps to inculcate a customer-centric culture of excellence among staff. To date, three strategic roadmaps had been formulated, namely, ITE 2000 Plan (1995-1999), ITE Breakthrough (2000-2004) and ITE Advantage (2005-2009). These plans, encapsulating ITE Care, its core values, in their missions and visions, have turned ITE progressively into a world-class institution in three waves of trail-blazing transformation.

ITE offers its students a unique ITE Brand ofHands-on, Minds-on and Hearts-onCollege Education. ITE’s key success factors are attributed to its transformational leadership, with a strong culture anchored on the ITE Care values; far-sighted and integrated planning cascaded to all levels; innovative and customer-focused systems and processes; and engaged staff passionately committed to caring for and delivering successful educational outcomes for its students.

Since 1992, ITE has enjoyed a student enrolment growth by more than 100% when its January 2005 enrolment hit a record-high of 21,800. In its annual graduate employment survey, a high 95% satisfaction of its full-time courses was consistently observed among its graduates in the past few years. The employment rate of its 2004 graduates was at a high 87%, despite the less-than-bouyant economy. In 2005, when it opened the doors of its first comprehensive College at Simei – ITE College East – it transformed technical education yet again by offering a unique ITE Brand of College Education. Also in 2005, ITE’s Brand Equity Index rose to 50%, from 34% in 1997 (47% improvement), affirming an image turnaround based on independent studies on the public perception of ITE.

In 2001, a Six-Nation Education Research Project on Vocational and Technical Education among advanced economies gave ITE a thumbs-up on its success in developing “one of the most sophisticated and strategically-placed programmes for vocational and technical education anywhere in the world.” In 2004, ITE became the first and only public institution in Singapore to license its national certification programmes overseas, namely, the Higher Nitec International and Nitec International programmes. In 2005, the World Bank chose ITE as a “Best Practice” Model for a Vocational and Technical Education System Study, in recognition of the successful “Transformation and Achievements of ITE in the past decade.”

“We are indeed honoured to receive this prestigious Singapore Quality Award. It is a national recognition of ITE as a unique world-class institution for excellence in technical education. We are glad to be the first education institution to receive the SQA. It marks the significant transformation of ITE since its establishment as a post-secondary institution in 1992. Always staying focused on our Mission, Vision and Values, winning the SQA has further confirmed our belief, commitment and meaning of what we do for our students and other stakeholders”, offered Dr Law Song Seng, ITE’s Chief Executive Officer, on ITE making it through the SQA journey.